A top-tier voting company showed Democratic presidential candidate Donald Trump set to get Florida by 13 points, and the political punditry community collectively gasped. Sure, Florida had long ago shed its swing-state position, social media posts and cable tv feedback declared. Democrats, however, are undoubtedly going to maintain a nice percentage in a political debate that could result in a plurality of victories.
Therefore, Trump beat the Democrat political candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, by 13. 1 positions in Florida, 56. 1%-43 %.
Trump won in Florida in a broad and deep victory, with a right-leaning effect particularly evident in earlier Democratic places like Coral Gables, a coastal town in lower Miami-Dade County, where the University of Miami is located. Trump in Coral Gables took 50 % of the vote, compared to 49 % for Harris. It was a notable shift toward the Republican row from 2020 when, in the area of about 50,000 people, President Joe Biden prevailed over Trump 53%-47 %.
Trump won the popular vote with 49 while his Florida adventure helped him win a minute, non-consecutive White House expression with a 312-226 victory over the Electoral College. 9 % to Harris’s 48. 4 %. The 45th and soon-to-be 47th leader ’s 2024 Sunshine State retreat was a 10-point raise over his 2020 Florida succeed against Biden— yet while losing the White House for what turned out to be four times.
The yawning gap between political “experts ‘” predictions for Florida in the November election The results of the election of 2024 and Trump’s 5, 2020 election reflect his steadfast and persistent recognition in his adopted home position. The New York native but now-Mar-a-Lago native also embodies the populist-conservative state model that ’s emerged in Florida over the past several years and which Trump, in his next presidency, is poised to grow upon or impose on the country, depending on your political view.
The Trump-Florida tale simply gets going once more with the election results. As Trump prepares to join the White House on January 1, it is playing out in real time as he prepares for his second-term staff moves. 20. From Trump’s West Palm Beach seat, he has surrounded himself with Florida individuals. That includes coming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio, Attorney General-in-waiting Pam Bondi, soon-to-be regional security adviser Michael Waltz, and several more.
Consider Trump’s team of Florida Men and Women, an egalitarian take on the topic of Florida Man. The phrase was originally used to describe Sunshine State residents who behaved in peculiar or ridiculous ways, but it has since become a social badge of honor for several Florida Republicans in the Trump period.
Trump looked for expertise in Florida as a place of natural choice when creating his incoming administration.
“Floridians are very independent, ” said Jamie Miller, a former executive director of the Florida Republican Party who has also worked on activities in Mississippi, North Carolina, and West Virginia. “We want to live our lives without government intervention. It’s in our DNA to try and minimize federal regulation.
“The good news is these are highly qualified individuals, ” Miller added. I believe it is beneficial for the state to see these Florida policies succeed. ”
Consciously or no, issues of interest to Citizens may get outsize interest in the coming management, said Steve Schale, a Democrat analyst based in Tallahassee.
“ Understanding things like the space industry, hurricane response, flood issues — having folks who know those issues is very helpful, ” Schale said in an interview.
In putting together his new presidency, Trump may choose both classic supporters and political changes, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.
“ I think Trump believes many of these Florida Republicans are died-in-the-wool MAGA supporters, ” Jewett said in an interview. “If not originally, they’ve at least come around to it. Trump moved to the state himself. We know for Trump it ’s often about personal relationships. He prefers to favor the people he knows and likes. ”
Peter Schorsch, a former Sunshine State GOP consultant who now runs the popular Florida Politics website, noted the depth of Florida folks set to join Trump’s second administration. Among them is James Blair, who is set to be White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political, and public affairs, while Taylor Budowich is incoming as White House deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel. Both played major roles in the 2024 Trump presidential campaign. Another Floridian, Tallahassee-based Meredith O’Rourke, was a top fundraiser for the campaign.
Additionally, Schorsch cited the choice of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Cabrera to be the next U.S. S. ambassador to Panama. Trump’s threat to retake control of the Panama Canal in December 2024 has given the typically obscure role, at least in the United States, a new significance. According to the president-elect, the Central American nation is “ripping off ” American ships that pass through the waterway.
I don’t believe it surprises me that some of the most prominent people are moving to D. C. , ” Schorsch said in an interview. The second and third round of people joining the administration is what is becoming more and more surprising to even us here. ”
Cabrera, a son of Cuban exiles, has been a Trump loyalist in Florida Republican politics. The county commission recently approved President Donald J.’s proposal to change the name of a 4-mile road in the city of Hialeah, with a population of about 224,000. Trump Avenue.
“This is n’t like a State Department career service person, ” Schorsch said. When you wake up to find out that someone you just had drinks with or hung out with a few years ago is being tasked with a délicat diplomatic position, it is surprising. ”
An increasingly MAGA Florida
Florida has become the center of Trump’s political movement and the state that shapes the contemporary Republican Party. During his first four years out of office, Trump turned Mar-a-Lago into the MAGA mecca. The movement ’s top figures made regular pilgrimages there during Trump’s 2017-21 term and after he left the White House.
It coincided with Florida’s populist conservative turn, from the center-right. The shift began in earnest when Trump beat the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, there 49. 02%-47. 82 %. Two years later, Republican Ron DeSantis, at the time a Trump acolyte, narrowly won the Florida governorship. DeSantis won reelection by a stunning 19 points in the first four years, despite reports of his agenda in Tallahassee being covered by negative press coverage. Combined with dominant state legislative majorities, Florida looks to be a Republican-dominated state for the foreseeable future.
Florida’s political evolution into an increasingly red fortress was fueled by an influx of conservative-leaning voters. Not just retirees, but newly arrived police officers, firefighters, and other middle-class workers who helped Trump and DeSantis turn a pivotal swing state MAGA red to the point that registered Republicans now outnumber Democrats by 1 million. That’s in a state population of nearly 23 million people — the nation’s third largest and growing.
The Trump team from Florida
Almost immediately after Trump’s victory over Harris, his Florida affinity was apparent. Wiles will become the first woman to hold that position as president as Trump chooses her to be in that capacity two days later.
Wiles, the daughter of late NFL player and broadcaster Pat Summerall, is a well-known Florida politician who helped lead Trump’s 2024 comeback victory. Both her friends and political adversaries give her praise for instilling relative discipline into Trump’s campaign strategy for the year 2024. Democrats and Republicans have a reputation for her running a tight ship. She commands respect, and, most importantly, has Trump’s ear, at least to the extent possible with his mercurial campaign and governing style, mixed with an often unorthodox decision-making process.
Because White House chief of staff is n’t a Senate-confirmable position, Wiles can begin work immediately upon Trump’s inauguration at noon on Jan. 20. So can Waltz as the Trump administration ’s national security adviser. He’s been a House member since January 2019, representing Florida’s 6th Congressional District, which covers Daytona Beach to Palm Coast and inland areas.
Waltz received his military service at the Virginia Military Institute before being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States. S. Army. Walters spent several combat tours in Africa, Middle East, and Afghanistan before earning four Bronze Stars while a member of the Special Forces. Waltz later served as former Vice President Dick Cheney’s director of counterterrorism and counterterrorism advice. In Congress, Waltz has been a vocal Trump supporter.
Rubio, a Republican senator since 2011, who is expected to receive Senate confirmation with a relatively simple confirmation, will give foreign policy in the second Trump administration more Florida flavor.
Rubio was the son of two Cuban immigrants who was born in Miami. He occupies a special place in the MAGA community. As a Trump-defeated rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, he is a past political opponent and critic. Still, he has grown close to the incoming president. He has embraced some of Trump’s more divisive ideas while avoiding some.
As a senator, Rubio voted to certify the 2020 election results, even as Trump refused to admit his loss to Biden. But in 2023, Rubio echoed the sentiments of Trump and many MAGA Republicans in a report he released, “‘Diversity Over Diplomacy ’ — How Wokeness is Weakening the U. S. State Department. ” He argued in the report that the State Department, which he’s now poised to head, gave priority to diversity, equity, and inclusion over building international relationships and protecting America’s national security during the Biden administration.
In 2010, Rubio won his first Senate race, the same year as Bondi won his two terms and eight years as attorney general of Florida. After his first choice, former representative, Trump chose Bondi to be attorney general. Matt Gaetz, withdrew from consideration. Gaetz, who represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the Pensacola area, was the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation. Despite being loyal to Trump, Republican senators have resisted allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct and drug use. Gaetz has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Bondi is a long-standing Trump political ally despite not being as much of a political piata as Gaetz. In March 2016, on the eve of the Republican primary in Florida, she endorsed Trump at a rally, picking him over Rubio, a candidate from her state. During her tenure as attorney general from 2011 to 2011, she tried unsuccessfully to overturn and weaken the Affordable Care Act. As Florida’s top prosecutor, she also stressed human trafficking issues and urged tightening state laws against traffickers.
Bondi critics, or at least skeptics, have a less sanguine view. They view her as a Trump ally who will carry out the investigation of his enemies by the incoming commander in chief. She has pledged to look into what she has described as “out-of-control federal prosecutors and FBI agents” repeatedly in television interviews and elsewhere. She specifically referred to the prosecutors who have accused Trump of crimes against members of “the deep state.” ”
Trump’s Florida picks don’t end there. He tapped Dr. Dave Weldon, a former GOP congressman from Florida’s central Atlantic Coast, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Weldon is less well known, but Bondi and Rubio are among the most well-known faces of a progressive political movement in Florida, according to Miller, the GOP consultant based in the Sarasota region.
Since 1998, Republican leaders have had complete control over the state government in Florida, according to Miller. Here, conservative public policies have shown to be successful. So, DeSantis had a 20-year foundation to build upon. ”
In office, Trump wing men and women
Beyond Trump’s Cabinet members and top advisers from Florida, the state’s elected leaders will help with political blocking and tackling. Sen. Former Florida governor Rick Scott (R-FL ) was a wealthy former healthcare executive from 2011 to 2019. Scott won reelection by nearly 14 points in 2024 after winning the first election to the Senate in 2018. Soon after, Scott made a bid for majority leader, with Democrats expected to have a 53-47 lead over Republicans in the upcoming Congress. Despite losing the intraparty contest to Sen. John Thune (R-SD ), he remains an influential MAGA movement figure, appearing frequently in the media as a Trump surrogate.
Then there’s DeSantis, who, over six years as governor, has turned Florida into a political test kitchen for policies that have become national conservative priorities. He has ushered in a rightward trend that has provided the state with rising GOP talent.
After about five-and-a-half years as a House member representing a central Atlantic Coast district, DeSantis rocketed to the governorship in 2018 on the strength of a Trump endorsement.
Ironically, it was an episode that proved politically costly for Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, that boosted DeSantis’s popularity.
“After we got eight months to a year in the pandemic, he decided to open the state, ” said Jewett, the University of Central Florida professor. “Desantis created an environment that appealed to a lot of conservative Republicans, ” leading to more in-state migration. To the point that in 2022, Florida was the fastest-growing state for the first time since 1957, per the U. S. Census Bureau.
With his populist-conservative agenda, DeSantis rose to become a political household name.
According to the 2024 Almanac of American Politics, DeSantis became a leading advocate for removing restrictions on public health and reopening the economy after the coronavirus pandemic hit. “DeSantis soon took a hard right turn, initiating culture wars in education, immigration, and abortion, and even taking on one of Florida’s major employers, Disney, for being a ‘woke’ corporation. ”
Trump was unsuccessfully challenged by DeSantis to the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination. For a while, the fight strained their relationship. But like many one-time critics, DeSantis sought to make nice with Trump. It worked well enough that after Trump won the White House, reports emerged that DeSantis could be tapped for defense secretary if the president-elect’s initial pick, decorated Army National Guard veteran-turned-Fox News host Pete Hegseth, could n’t win Senate confirmation.
A Florida-based lobbying firm that has quickly gained clients benefits from Trump’s looming White House return. Ballard Partners, with close ties to the incoming Trump administration, employs former Florida Reps. Jeff Miller, a Republican, and Robert Wexler, a Democrat.
After Trump’s win, Ballard Partners signed the Anti-Defamation League, B12 Technologies, Constellation Energy, and the National Association of Drug Stores as clients.
The ADL hired Ballard to lobby on “strategies and the development of practices and policies to combat the rise of antisemitism in the U.S. S. ” Lobbying disclosure forms also show that for BI2 Technologies, a self-described “biometric intelligence ” and identification company, Ballard will lobby for them on “I. R. I. S. The Inmate Identification and Recognition System ”
According to the disclosure forms, Ballard has been hired to work on “executive and legislative services related to domestic energy policy and tax credits. ” In addition, Ballard has been lobbying for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores regarding “Low healthcare costs, pharmacy coverage, and reimbursement issues. ”
A swing state has ended
Florida has long had an important place in presidential politics, one way or another. It’s been a bellwether since 1928, when Herbert Hoover overran the state while capturing Republican control of the legislature.
Since then, Florida voters failed to back presidential winners in 1960, 1992, and 2020. In another way, Florida was so fiercely contested between the parties that in the six presidential elections from 1992 to 2012, Democratic nominees received a total of 19,635,195 votes, while Republican nominees received a total of 19,504,229 votes, giving a 50. 2%-49. 8 % Democratic edge. Team Blue won Florida’s electoral votes— and the White House — in four of six elections.
That is by far the closest the country has come in terms of presidential elections in recent years. Similar to the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Dodgers competing in Major League Baseball Louis Cardinals. The National League pair, two of the oldest teams going back to the 1880s, are almost equal, with the Cardinals winning 1,109 regular season games to 1,084 by the Dodgers — a slim 50. 6%-49. 4 % edge.
Florida reached its swing-state peak in 2000. That year’s Republican presidential nominee, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, beat his Democratic rival, then-Vice President Al Gore, by 537 votes out of nearly 6 million cast, though only after a 36-day legal brawl in a state that proved the presidential tipping point. Bush netted 271 electoral votes, just one more than necessary to claim a majority.
Now, that ’s all a political distant memory. Republicans dominate the Florida political scene, with Trump its embodiment.
The 2024 Florida red wave crashed particularly hard in Miami-Dade County, home to about 2. 7 million people. Trump defeated Harris, who became the first Democratic presidential nominee to lose the city since Michael Dukakis in 1988, to win Miami-Dade by 11 points.
Support for Trump grew across Florida’s most populous county, the seventh-largest by population in the nation. Trump’s margins increased from Miami Gardens ‘ deep-blue to Hialeah, where there are the highest proportion of Cuban and Cuban Americans living in any city in the country. S. Overall in Miami-Dade County, he flipped 10 municipalities from blue to red since the last presidential election, including Coral Gables, a Mediterranean-themed planned community most recognizable for the 1926-built Miami Biltmore hotel, with a tower inspired by the medieval Giralda cathedral in Seville, Spain.
Trump flipped the suburbs, too. In 2020, Biden finished 2 points ahead of Trump in Miami-Dade’s vast unincorporated areas outside of municipal limits. Four years later, Trump swamped Harris in the unincorporated areas, home to nearly half of the county’s voters in the 2024 election, with 59 % of the vote to the vice president ’s 41 %.
Still, the Republican hammerlock on Florida politics won’t necessarily last, seasoned Florida political observers contend.
“Republicans have benefited from migration trends, ” said Schale, the Democratic consultant. “ But these things tend to be just that — trends. In five years, there might be a new trend that will benefit me. If Florida becomes better for Democrats nationally and we are able to recoup some of the non-college white vote, then the Hispanic vote situation becomes better for Democrats. ”
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
For at least the next four years, though, with Trump back in office, national politics will have a strong Florida tinge.
“Florida is having its moment in the sun with so many people staffing the administration, ” Jewett said. Trump is the first person to win the presidency in Florida. I don’t understand how you could have that much of an impact on Florida. ”
