According to recent reports, the number of registered GOP voters has soared in Florida amid the leadership of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Now registered Republican voters in the Sunshine State outnumber registered Democrats by nearly 1 million.
GOP voter registration has far outpaced the Democrats by approximately 900,000, where there are now 5,215,016 registered Republicans and 4,359,315 Democrats, according to the Florida Division Of Elections. Gov. DeSantis celebrated the news on social media, where he highlighted the change in the state’s political landscape, moving from a Democratic to a Republican majority in voter registration since 2021. DeSantis projects this gap to continue widening, reaching nearly 1 million.
“Prior to 2021, FL never had more registered Republicans than Democrats,” DeSantis wrote on X. “Now, a million voter R registration advantage is within reach. Hillsborough (Tampa) is about to flip from D to R, which will mean every county in the Tampa Bay market has an R advantage in this previously “swing” region of the state.”
Florida experienced substantial growth in its population over the past several years, with roughly half a million people relocated to the state between 2021 and 2022 alone. Subsequently, Republican voter registration has correlated with this growth, where the GOP reportedly only led by slightly more than 100,000 registered voters in March 2022.
The Republican lead now sits just under 890,000. Furthermore, the Democrats have experienced a slight decline in voter registration, where the party has shed roughly 1,000 voters since March. The GOP has grown by over 30,000 in the same time frame.
While Gov. DeSantis’ bid for the Republican presidential nominee may not have been sufficient to challenge the formidable campaign of former President Donald Trump, conservatives have applauded him for his governing of Florida.
The American Tribune reported on a recent initiative from DeSantis that sought to tackle the growing issue of squatters taking over private properties across the country. In late March, DeSantis signed a bill into law that would assist residents in having squatters immediately evicted rather than undergo a lengthy eviction process through courts.
“So we’re here today because you assume in America if you purchase a home and own a residence that that’s your residence, that if you happen to maybe split time in Orlando and Michigan, that if you go to Michigan over the summer, people aren’t going to be able to just move into your house and then claim squatter’s rights on your private residence,” DeSantis said.
The Republican governor added that the deterioration of private property rights Americans are witnessing in blue states, such as California and New York, will not occur in Florida. DeSantis emphasized that the state would be “ending the squatter scam.”
“Well, today in the state of Florida, we say very simply what passes muster in New York and California is not passing muster here. You are not going to be able to commandeer somebody’s private property and expect to get away with it. We are, in the state of Florida, ending the squatter scam once and for all.”
For context, in many states a squatter who claims to have some legal claim to the property, such as a fake lease, can obtain legal protections that limit the ability of property owners to evict them. For example, in New York property owners are not legally permitted to change locks or shut off utilities when the squatters have attained legal rights. Instead, they must go through a time-consuming and often expensive legal battle to evict them.
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