Does Trump really run this state?
Florida is quickly turning into Trump country.
Long seen as the nation’s most unpredictable yet influential battleground state, Florida has been transforming at a breakneck pace in recent years, with the nation’s largest state seemingly becoming more conservative, despite a migration of hundreds of thousands of residents from blue states.
This shift can be attributed to the changing demographic and the state’s poorly organized Democratic Party, but many pundits point to the pandemic turning the tide for this once purple state.
Nelson Diaz, a Republican lobbyist and former chair of the Miami-Dade County GOP, confirmed the notion that the pandemic and subsequent restrictions had the most influence on the state’s politics.
“There’s one word, and it’s COVID,” Diaz stated. He continued, “It made red states redder and blue states bluer. It gave people like [Gov.] Ron DeSantis a platform to stand for freedom, and it gave Democrats in Democrats states a plan to stand for mandates.”
The Republican lobbyist also noted that the state embracing conservative values has also attracted many of Florida’s recent arrivals, saying that many of those who migrated to the state are Republicans who feel ostracized from their blue state’s legislation.
“They are Republicans fed up with their blue laws in their blue states, or they’re just independent-minded people, to begin with, and they’re just fed up wth these blue states, and they’re enjoying the freedom that Florida has to offer.”
According to data from the Census Bureau, many of the state’s recent residents have come from blue states. Data from 2019 show 28,000 people moved from California, another 28,000 migrated from New Jersey, with a further 57,000 coming from New York.
Despite the overwhelming majority of transplants coming from blue states, Florida’s conservative values seem to be stronger than ever, even leading to the state becoming a launchpad for the modern GOP and another out-of-state transplant: Donald Trump.
