Demographics changing Florida - the new "California" in 10 years

[HeldsBelds]

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/1004/21florida.html

GOP's edge in Florida withers

By JOSHUA COMENETZ
Published on: 10/20/04


The most notable aspect of the presidential contest is not Florida's likely repeat performance as tiebreaker, but rather that Florida continues to shift enough toward the Democrats to be seriously in play.

The cause is not politics, but demographics — demographics that could in the long run prompt not only Florida but also several other Sun Belt states to follow California into the Democratic column.

By all rights, Florida should be just another classically Southern, Republican-dominated state, especially given the Republican voting preferences of Cuban-Americans. History certainly suggests it: Florida has fallen to the Democrat in only three of the past 10 elections, in each case to a Southern candidate up against a fairly weak, non-Southern Republican. Before World War II, Florida was faithfully Southern in politics. When the South swung Republican after the war, so did Florida.

But migration of Democratic voters from the Northeast and Midwest steadily upset the state's natural tilt toward the right. Now, native or Southern-born Floridians are outnumbered by those from the North or abroad — and more and more natives are the children of migrants.

..

The changes may not be enough to swing the state for Kerry in 2004, but an incumbent or Southern Democrat should find the state more receptive in 2008 or 2012. Baby boomers are starting to retire and more immigrants will be eligible to vote.

[David__77]

1. This is true.

But I still think they'll never "catch up" with us in California. But I do think, roughly, the urban centers in the peninsula could become left centers like LA and the Bay Area, while the panhandle represents a relatively politically right-leaning area akin to our Orange County or "central valley."

It's possible. Nobody called California "Democratic-leaning" until after 1998, really. It was before that, but that was the breakthrough year. We took all kinds of areas the GOP thought were theirs, and we hold them still today, and will after this election as well. The trends are still highly favorable in the longer term.