South Florida once was home to enough Democrats they could swing statewide elections and tallied multiple wins in Broward and Palm Beach counties.
No more.
There are still more Democrats than Republicans in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, but their advantage is decreasing.
The region isn’t, overall, Republican red. But it’s no longer bright Democratic blue. “South Florida’s purple,” said Steve Geller, a Broward County commissioner and former Florida Senate Democratic leader.
“Democrats are really in trouble I think in South Florida,” said Kathryn DePalo-Gould, a Florida International University political scientist. “It looks like South Florida is also changing.
One of the most ominous developments for Democrats is Republican Donald Trump’s victory in Miami-Dade, the first time a Republican presidential candidate has won the state’s largest county since the 1980s.
Trump won 55% of the vote in Miami-Dade County, 11 percentage points ahead of Democrat Kamala Harris.
In 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton received 63% of the Miami-Dade County vote, 29 points ahead of Trump.
Two years ago, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis also won the county, where Democrats still — slightly — outnumber registered Republicans.
Also in 2022, DeSantis won Palm Beach County, where Democrats significantly outnumber Republicans. This year Trump finished less than three-quarters of a percentage point behind Harris.
Only Broward is still reliably Democratic — but not nearly as strongly so as it once was.
Trump received 40.9% of the vote in Broward, a county where a statewide Republican winning more than 30% of the vote once was considered an achievement. Trump received 31.2% in 2016 and 34.7% in 2020.
South Florida, by virtue of the large population in all three counties, has always been home to a large number of Republican voters, said Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political scientist. What’s changing, he said, is that their numbers are increasing and their candidates are competing in, and sometimes winning races that historically they haven’t.
“That is a sign of growing Republican strength,” Wagner said.
Broward
Harris received 507,057 votes in Broward, unofficial totals Friday showed, for 57.8% of the vote.
Trump received 358,842 votes, or 40.9% in his third presidential contest.
The trajectory is striking. Trump has gone way up from the 260,951 votes he received in 2016 to 333,409 in 2020.
Harris had a huge falloff from the 618,752 votes Biden received in 2020. In 2016, Clinton received 553,320 votes in Broward.
Broward is still an overwhelmingly Democratic county. There is only one Republican in the county, state Rep. Chip LaMarca of Lighthouse Point, who holds a partisan office in which candidates run with Democratic or Republican party labels.
But the results, in many cases, are getting tighter.
Moskowitz district
U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Parkland, won a second term in the Broward-Palm Beach county 23rd District on Tuesday..
Moskowitz received 52.42% of the vote, according to unofficial results Friday, to 47.58% for Republican Joe Kaufman, who had run for Congress many times before in another district.
Moskowitz’ margin of victory was the closest of all 27 congressional races in the state. (One district didn’t have an election because no one came forward to challenge U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, who represents another Broward-Palm Beach county district.)
Moskowitz is far better known in Broward, where he served in elected and appointed offices, and it was the Broward part of the district that carried him.
Moskowitz received 24,167 more votes than Kaufman in Broward. In Palm Beach County, Kaufman had a 6,092-vote advantage.
Southwest Broward
Voters in south and west Broward returned well known veteran elected officials to Congress, to the state Legislature, and to the County Commission.
But their Republican opponents performed well, suggesting a reddening of that part of the county and a longer-term potential for Republican victories in a region long dominated by Democrats.
County Commissioner Nan Rich, who is currently serving a term as county mayor and a former Florida Senate Democratic leader, was reelected with 53% of the vote.
Her little-known Republican challenger Herbert E. “Herb” Vargas received 47%.
“That to me speaks to having a Hispanic Republican running in a district that has a lot of Hispanic voters,” said Richard DeNapoli, the elected state Republican committeeman for Broward and a former county Republican chair.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, the longest-serving Democratic member of Congress in the state, won her 11th term with 54% of the vote against Chris Eddy, a Weston city commissioner.
In the lower-turnout midterm election in 2022, Wasserman Schultz received 55% of the vote against a perennial candidate who had never held elected office. Before the district became all-Broward two years ago and the territory she represented changed, Wasserman Schultz had averaged 63% in her previous elections in Broward.
State Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston, won with 54.16%. Barbara Sharief, a former county commissioner and Miramar commissioner, received 56% of the vote to win an open Florida Senate seat.
A factor in southern and western Broward is almost certainly the increasing number of Hispanic residents — and the political leanings of many.
“I think it is a function of Hispanic voters in particular in western Broward who were voting straight-ticket Republican,” DePalo-Gould said, making “a lot of these districts a lot closer than we really have ever seen.
Democrats are still winning. But, she said, “going forward it may be something Republicans are going to look at to eat into that Democratic base in Broward County the way they have always tried for the last 20 years.”
If the trend continues, she said the next time the Florida Legislature redistricts congressional and legislative seats to reflect population changes uncovered in the 2030 Census, Republicans are likely to look at creating districts more favorable to their candidates.
“The Democratic margins, particularly in South Broward, are not what they once were. And a lot of it is attributable to a loss of Hispanic votes I think we (Democrats) can get back,” Geller said.
He said the Democrats haven’t done a good job of countering the Republican messaging — which he said is a lie — to Hispanics that Democrats are socialists. In South Florida, where many Hispanic residents fled socialist regimes, that message can resonate.
“We are not socialists. But they have managed to convince too many Hispanic voters in Florida,” Geller said. “That’s going to have an effect, particularly in South Broward.”
Cuban Americans have been more Republican for years. But other Hispanics voting for Republicans, and particularly for Trump, carries long-term implications in Florida, said Roger Stone, a decades-long Trump ally and informal adviser who lives in Fort Lauderdale.
“Traditionally, for example, Hispanic voters beyond Cubans in this state were Democrats. Trump won among Puerto Ricans (Tuesday). He won among all ethnic Hispanic voters. That’s a realignment,” he told reporters at Trump’s election night victory party.
Palm Beach County
Harris received 372,230 votes in Palm Beach County, the unofficial tally showed Friday, for 49.76 % of the vote. Harris was down from 433,572 votes received by Biden in 2020 and slightly below the 374,673 votes that went to Clinton in 2016.
Trump had 366,686 votes, or 49.02%
Trump is up, from 334,711 votes in 2020 and 272,402 in 2016.
“With Trump being that close, Palm Beach is now more of a competitive county. It looks more like Tampa in a lot of ways than the true blue county that Palm Beach was,” DePalo-Gould said.
Two years ago, DeSantis won the county on the way to his landslide reelection, propelling the other statewide candidates to strong showings.
Palm Beach County is still heavily Democratic, but Republicans have had some victories and strong results.
This year, Republicans came close to winning an important office, state attorney, that’s been held by Democrats for decades.
Democrat Alexcia Cox received 49.19% of the vote to 48.39% for Republican Sam Stern. Adam Farkas, running with no party affiliation, received 2.42%. “We would have won that race” if Farkas hadn’t run, said Joe Budd, the elected Republican state committeeman for Palm Beach County.
Republicans badly wanted the state attorney’s office. Three billionaires who support Trump gave $500,000 to Stern’s political committee, reported the investigative newsletter Seeking Rents, which focuses on the way business influences public policy in Florida.
Republicans in Palm Beach County had major victories.
State Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, R-Highland Beach, won a second term against a well-funded Democratic challenger, Jay Shooster in southeast Palm Beach County.
In western Palm Beach County, Republican Meg Weinberger, endorsed by Trump and given the nickname “MAGA Meg,” easily defeated Democrat Rachelle Litt to fill the seat being vacated by Republican state Rep. Rick Roth, who was prevented from running again by term limits.
And the most significant, Republican Anne Gerwig defeated Democratic state Rep. Katherine Waldron. A recount that finished early Saturday confirmed the result.
Terrie Rizzo, former chair of the Florida Democratic Party and the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, touted her side’s many pluses, including holding the countywide elected offices.
Most significant was Democrat Joel Flores’ County Commission win. The former Greenacres mayor will become the first ever Hispanic Palm Beach County commissioner. He defeated Michael Barnett, a former chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, who had been appointed to the commission by DeSantis and was running for a full term.
DeSantis’ appointment of Barnett gave the Palm Beach County Commission a Republican majority. It will now revert to a Democratic majority.
Budd touted and Rizzo lamented the results in School Board District 5 where Gloria Branch defeated Mindy Koch in the officially nonpartisan race. Koch is also a former chair of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.