In 2021, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd offered a message to newcomers to Florida after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill to curtail the kind of rioting that occurred in blue states in 2020.
“Welcome to Florida,” said Judd, a Republican. “But don’t register to vote and vote the stupid way you did up north; you’ll get what they got.”
It seems many of those people heard Judd’s message — and that should ease many Florida conservatives who were concerned that people flooding the state from elsewhere may still support the woke thinking of the places they left behind.
As the online real estate broker Redfin explained in a recent post about interstate migration, “Florida pulled in many conservative people looking to live near people with similar views.”
Redfin analyzed voter-registration trends since the November 2020 election in six states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Overall, the firm noted, “The Democratic party has lost more registered voters than the Republican party since 2020 in several states key to the upcoming Senate midterms — but those states have gained Independent voters, who typically lean Democrat.”
Despite that, as Election Day dawns, it seems Republicans are poised for a near-sweep, and with an energized turnout could take all of them. The average of national polls tracked by Real Clear Politics showed on Monday that the GOP candidate led in every one of those states except Colorado.
Among those six states, the ratio of Democrats dropped three percentage points in Florida. That trailed only Nevada, where the Dems’ share fell four points.
But in Nevada, Republicans also lost ground, while independents rose a whopping 6 percent.
In Colorado, the population of both Democrats and Republicans shrank, while independents went up by four percent.
As for Florida, the GOP share remained constant, but independents gained a point — meaning the shift away from Democrats was minus-4.
In other words, Florida witnesses the largest anti-Democrat swing among these half-dozen pivotal states.
As Redfin explained, “Migration and self-sorting have contributed to Florida becoming more Republican.”
Self-sorting is a political term borrowed from chemistry. It refers to the ability of molecules to distinguish particles like themselves from those that are different and bond accordingly.
“Self-sorting is likely one reason why the Senate race in Florida, traditionally a swing state, is leaning heavily toward the Republican candidate. Registered Republicans surpassed registered Democrats there last year for the first time in history, largely due to migration,” the website added.
“The Sunshine State is pulling in right-leaning people from liberal parts of the country who want to live somewhere that better matches their political viewpoints. Miami and Tampa are two of the most popular destinations for relocating homebuyers, and liberal New York and Washington, D.C. are among the most common origins for people moving in.”
That makes sense when one considers that Miami-Dade County, a reliable liberal hotspot that is also 70 percent Hispanic, is expected to go for a Republican governor for the first time in 20 years.
Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr told the conservative website The Capitolist about the shift in Florida, “Hot-button issues like the economy and crime are playing a big part in this year’s elections, making its outcome difficult to predict. But changes in voter registration, which are largely due to new residents who moved in from other places, offer one clue about how certain states will vote.”
And right now, it looks like they’re voting red.
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