The NPR Politics Podcast - Republicans Dominate Florida — Can They Export That Success?

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

It used to be a swing state — but swelling numbers of conservative retirees and durable strength among Cuban-Americans have cemented Republican dominance in Florida's politics. Can the GOP export a winning political strategy to other states — or is their success based on unique circumstances?This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, political correspondent Kelsey Snell, and national correspondent Greg Allen.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Stella from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I just finished picking mulberries from the tree in my backyard to make my annual mulberry pie. This podcast was recorded at 1.08 p.m. on Thursday, June 22nd. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I will still be dodging the dropping mulberries that have completely taken over my backyard. Okay, here's the show. I've never had a mulberry before or a mulberry pie. I only recently had mulberries because they grow all over my neighborhood and just dye all of the sidewalks black.

Are they good? They are. It's pretty tasty. All right. Bring some in the office. I'll make a pie. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover politics. And NPR correspondent Greg Allen joins us from Florida. Hey, Greg. Hello. And if Greg's here, it means we're talking about Florida politics. But Kelsey, you both have been

doing some reporting on this state. I think it's a state that it's fair to say has been at sort of the center of the most interesting political fights of the last generation. Yeah. I mean, we were kind of thinking about this maybe in the past 25 years, like going back to the recount in 2000, kind of as this waypoint to think about Florida, because, you know, that recount really did change the course of the way we think about the American presidency and how it's decided. They had another recount in 2018 that left a Senate seat in the balance. And, you know, all of the races, really the big statewide races in Florida were pretty tight that year.

And then we hear about the culture wars and all of the big swings in political support. And now, of course, we're talking about Florida all over again, because the governor Ron DeSantis is running for president and former President Trump, who's also running for president, was just indicted in Miami. So we were kind of trying to explore the question of how did Florida wind up this way? What is it specifically about Florida? Because each state has its own fascinating politics and history, especially the swing states in a political fight. But what sort of makes Florida its own special case? One of the things we heard a lot as we were talking to people is that it isn't just one thing about Florida. It's kind of an evolution. And one dynamic right now that is kind of defining

Florida's place in the world is that it is incredibly close politically. It's very closely divided, but it's also extremely diverse. I had people tell me that only about one third of the state population is native born, people who were born in Florida, raised in Florida. Everybody else is coming from somewhere else. And Gregory Coger, who is a professor at University of Miami, said, you know, that it's also just extremely diverse from a racial and ethnic background. Somewhere around 2040, non-Hispanic whites will make up a minority of the population of the country. And Florida is probably there or almost there already. To me, one of the fascinating points in your reporting is you highlight how few people who

live in Florida were actually born in Florida. Right. You know, and that's one of the things that's helped make this a swing state for so long. You know, I mean, Florida is has been for many years the largest swing state, which is why we paid so much attention to it. You know, both Republican Democrats would fight over it. But, you know, it wasn't always that way. Going way back, it used to be like most southern states of heavily Democratic. And, you know, we really saw that start to change in 1983 when we had a visit from a Republican president, Ronald Reagan. Cuba, see Castro, no. That was Reagan talking at the Dade County Auditorium in 1983.

And it was kind of seminal, something people still remember, because that helped galvanize Republican support among Cuban Americans, who at that time as a population had not been that deeply politically engaged. Since that time, they've become, of course, very politically engaged and have leaned much more toward the Republican Party than other Hispanics who've come from other countries, both in Florida and in other parts of the U.S. That strong support by Cuban Americans has helped anchor Republican support in South Florida, but at the same time, they've picked up support, they've held on to their support in North Florida, and they've mostly battled over Central Florida. Democrats have made inroads with Cuban Americans over the decades, but Cuban support was really instrumental in helping Donald Trump carry Miami-Dade County and then also winning Florida, even though he lost the

race nationally, of course. When you use the term swing state, though, Greg, it was notable to me, you talked about it in the past tense. Florida had been a swing state. I don't think it's fair to really consider Florida part of the group of swing states for 2024 anymore. Right. I think it's kind of a loaded question when you ask people and their answer tells you a lot about where they're coming from. Some Democrats will say, well, we'll see. And it's true that one presidential candidate who's of a certain type, who can mobilize people, could change things. I mean, Barack Obama, of course, carried the state both times in both presidential races. But it is true, when you look at the statewide races,

there is not a single Democrat elected in a statewide race here. Both U.S. senators, the governor, of course, all the cabinet positions, and the legislature is controlled by Republicans. So Democrats really are on the outs here. And it's going to be a long road back because once you have control of all the levers of power here in Florida, you have control over fundraising and a lot of other things like redistricting. And that's all worked against Democrats and in favor of Republicans. Though I will say that some of the Democrats I talked to said they see an opportunity in this upcoming presidential election to become more relevant again, in part because they think some of the policies that are being passed by Ron DeSantis and the Republican legislature are really animating voters against Republicans.

They also think that, you know, in presidential years, more voters start to show up. Some of the Democrats I also talked to said that they felt like the candidate quality of Democrats over the past couple of years maybe hasn't been so great. They point to 2018 being a year when they had great Democrats on the ticket. But since then, they haven't really felt like they've had the right people to animate voters to show up. Well, it's not sort of a self-creating problem, because if you keep losing these races and you're losing power, you don't build a strong bench of future candidates. Right. And that's one of the things that Democrats often are criticized about here in Florida, that there just is not much of a bench. And we have some very talented Democrats in the legislature

and in county positions, but how do you make that leap from a one district to a statewide recognition? It's very hard to get that name recognition. And the other thing about Florida, it's very expensive to run a statewide race here because of all the media markets. So, you know, it gets back to that whole fundraising thing. So it's, it is a cycle that, that spiraling cycle that, that has hurt Democrats and Republicans have made the most of. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about this when we get back. Listen to what Steve Bannon once said about former President Donald Trump. I happen to believe, and I think many others do, he's probably the greatest public speaker in those large arenas since William Jennings Bryan. William Jennings Bryan. Who was he?

And how does his story from more than 100 years ago echo in our politics today? I think Bryan would have known a lot ahead of the rest of us just how appealing Donald Trump might be to some of the voters that might have liked William Jennings Bryan in his day. Ron Elbing on the ghost of William Jennings Bryan. That's in our recent bonus episode available now for NPR Politics Podcast plus supporters. And we're back and we can't talk about Florida and Florida politics without talking about one of the state's most notable because for decades, most of the retirees who came to Florida came from places like New York and New England, the Northeast, and they mostly favored Democratic candidates. But in recent years, we've seen this shift in retirement and the growth of these big retirement communities like the villages in Central Florida. And there's a bunch of others

like that all along through the Central and Southwest Florida. And they've attracted mostly people from the Midwest, upper Midwest, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio. And that's brought a surge in Republican voter registration that's caught, I think, many people here by surprise. People looked at the demographic changes and they said, oh, look at all the growth in immigration. Florida's getting where it's going to continue to trend Democratic. And I think many Democrats thought that. But in fact, the exact opposite happened. And over the last year, Republicans have built a voter registration lead over Democrats for the first time ever. And that still seems to be growing. So it's been, it signals a big shift in Florida to the Republican Party, one that I think

caught many Democrats by surprise. One of the other aspects of this that I kept hearing about was COVID. And I know, Greg, you heard about COVID a lot too, as being kind of a turning point for Republicans. What I heard, and Democrats admit this themselves, is that they just took really serious precautions around COVID in 2020 and well into 2022. And they don't apologize for that, but they do say that it hurt them electorally. It hurt their voter registration numbers. And it also was a time when Republicans were really able to kind of seize on this message of being a state that is open. Ron DeSantis talked about it a lot. It was a big part of his political identity, making the state a haven for rejecting COVID restrictions, and embracing increasingly hardline conservative

policies that we've seen kind of march forward into his second term. But the other thing that happened was the change in property tax deductions. You know, they call it the salt cap, which you might have happened, might remember it happened during the Trump administration. Donald Trump became a resident of Florida after that because people with a certain amount of money certainly found a real benefit to being in a state that had no income tax. And that was part of that too. And like you say, it's been part of Ron DeSantis' messaging, and you've seen it picked up by Republicans around the country, this idea of avoiding COVID lockdowns and government overreach.

If what's happening in Florida, both the politics, the voter registration, is benefiting Republicans in this moment, are other Republicans around the country watching this for strategy? And it makes me think of DeSantis' line where he wants to make America Florida. Can the lessons of Florida be extrapolated to other places in the country, or is this just more unique to the state? Yes and no. Some of the things that DeSantis was able to get done are because of that legislative supermajority that we've been talking about. And that does not exist in this moment in Congress. this very hard-charging, very quick shift that DeSantis has been able to oversee just couldn't really happen for the country more broadly. And, you know, as we've been talking to voters, too, there are some real risks in the big, hard shift that DeSantis has overseen. It can be alienating to independents, and those independent voters are a really, really critical part of the voting block in the state of Florida. Greg, I also think that there's probably going to be a big debate within the Democratic Party, especially ahead of 2024, in terms of how much do you actually want to invest in the state if they think they can win it? Because like you said, it is not cheap to run campaigns in the state of Florida.

Right. And you're talking about a debate that's going on every two years here in Florida. And there's a lot of anger among Democrats that there wasn't enough money spent here during the midterm election. That's one reason why Ron DeSantis was able to win by such a large margin. Democrats stayed home. They just did not turn out the way that Republicans did. And that part of it is pointing fingers at the national party and the fundraisers. But it's also about the way the state party performed. But the point is, going forward, Democrats, you can't just allow Republicans to have a free reign here because they won't spend as much money. The idea is to actually make them spend money, make them fight here.

And that's always the debate. So the plea by people, Democrats in Florida is to the national party and to the big funders is spend money here. Make the Republican Party fight because if they don't spend it here, they're going to spend it elsewhere. And, you know, with the right candidate, if you can just cut into the margins, it can help other people down the ticket. So it's the perennial debate and we're going to see it big time this in 2024, I believe. Well, also, if Democrats walk away from Florida, that's a big chunk of electoral votes you just kind of hand to the Republican Party. It's a nice little baseline to start the race for 270 electoral votes for. Yeah. And, you know, some Democrats say they feel like the

National Party kind of did that in the past when they weren't spending enough money. So this conversation about money and national investment in Florida is very heated and it came up in a lot of my interviews. All right. That's it for us today, but I have a feeling this is not the last time we're going to be talking about Florida ahead of the presidential election. Greg Allen, as always, thanks so much for coming on the pod. You're welcome. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow with the Weekly Roundup. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Kelsey Snell. I also cover politics.

And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.