Florida Republicans have spent the last 24 hours bragging about their new lead in registered voters. As of Sunday, they have a bit over a million more voters on the rolls compared to Democrats in the Sunshine State. It’s a historic first for the party— but Dems think the data is “smoke and mirrors.”
After taking the lead in registrations for the first time in 2021, that million-voter milestone was something we’ve heard Republicans tout for months as they got close to the goal. It’s now one of the big reasons they’re feeling confident heading into election night.
Fresh Take Florida first reported the new lead, 1,000,024 more registered Republican voters than Democrats, according to data from county election supervisors. That means 39% of the state voter roll is GOP, 32% is Democrats, and most of the remaining 29%, has no party affiliation.
“If we can turn out those voters we’re going to win— and we’re going to win big,” Evan Power, the state GOP chair.
Power recently spoke with us in anticipation of reaching that threshold. He said despite having Vice President Kamala Harris now occupy the top of the Democratic ticket, the GOP’s focus remained on getting voters to turn out once voting gets underway.
“I think you’re looking at an R+9, R+10,” said Power. “We’ve never been in that place. We’ve always polled at R+2. We’re going to look at a big turnout and we want to win legislative races so we’re focused on turnout up and down the ballot to make sure we turn out every Republican voter that we have.”
Critics point out the edge isn’t quite as big when you incorporate inactive voters, those still eligible to vote but haven’t recently. Under state law, that essentially tags them as dormant. When they’re incorporated into the registration total, the Republican registration lead busts down to around 670,000.
Political operatives warn margins aren’t everything, however. Just ask Mac Stipanovich. He’s a former Republican strategist who left the GOP in 2019.
“What I would do is I would suggest that we have a little bit of historical perspective,” said Stipanovich.
Stipanovich pointed to gubernatorial races for Republicans Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, and Rick Scott. Those are races Dems had an edge of around 300,000 to 600,000 more voters, but failed to win the office.
A lead, Stipanovich said, means little without a ground game, solid candidate, and the right policy platform for the time.
“I wouldn't be too cocky if I were [Republicans] them,” said Stipanovich. “I mean they have reason to feel confident, but I wouldn't get all above my raisin’ about it.”
Democrats said Monday the momentum is on their side following the Harris hat change.
“I definitely think that everything is possible in this election,” said Florida Democrats Chair Nikki Fried.
Fried noted not only does the state have 17,000 new volunteers that signed up with Harris, but believed Democrats were on the right side of a bunch of issues from abortion access to high property insurance costs.
“This is all they have,” said Fried. “But I have complete confidence and faith that we are building a coalition of Democrats, independents, of Republicans that are tired of this chaos— the people of this state and the Democratic Party, will not back down.”
