In the wake of a voter roll maintenance campaign that cleared tens of thousands of no-longer active voters off its voting rolls, Florida’s Miami-Dade County, once a bastion of support for Democrats, flipped red and is a Republican county, in terms of voter registration, by tens of thousands of voters.
The big move came on the morning of Monday, May 19, when it was reported that Miami-Dade County is now home to 464,370 Republicans and 440,790 Democrats, quite in contrast to past years in which registered Democrats significantly outnumbered registered Republicans in the county, which constantly voted blue.
And it is not just registered Democrats that the registered Republicans edge out. They also are more numerous than those identifying as having “no party affiliation,” a minor party affiliation, or being “other.” That category totals 460,783 voters, more than Democrats by just under 20,000 voters, but is still a few thousand below the registered Republicans.
The new data means that 59 out of 67 counties in the former swing state of Florida are solidly Republican, and that Republicans now have a massive statewide lead in registered voters. After voter roll maintenance, the statewide lead Republicans hold is a total of 1.29 million registered Florida voters.
Commenting on the flip, Decision Desk HQ’s director of data science, Michael Pruser, noted that it came alongside a shedding of nearly 175,000 voters from the active rolls as those rolls were cleaned up in an off year to take off those who have moved, died, or otherwise won’t be voting in the county anymore.
Pruser began, “Miami-Dade County has completed its off-year voter roll maintenance, and this morning, it shed 172,747 voters from its active rolls.” Continuing, Pruser said, “The change netted Republicans more than 38,000 voters compared to Democrats, and the county has now flipped to Republican by registration. Today marks Republicans’ first-ever lead in voter registration in Miami-Dade.”
Governor Ron DeSantis commented on the Miami-Dade flip by noting that this is a major change that no one could have predicted even a decade ago. Beginning by noting what the situation used to be like, he said, “A decade ago Miami-Dade county was a deep blue county with hundreds of thousands more registered Democrats than Republicans,”
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Continuing, he noted that even as the county has grown tremendously it has added more and more voters to the Republican rolls, culminating in this flip. He said, “Today, the county — with more than 2.8 million people — has a Republican voter registration advantage. Nobody would have predicted this ten years ago.”
Also commenting on the big change in Miami-Dade was Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power, who noted that a great deal of hard work focused on the long term has gone into this sea change in the formerly deep blue county. He said, making that point, “For the first time in history Miami Dade County is Red by voter registration. This is the conclusion of the work of so many in the Florida GOP and Miami-Dade GOP have done over the last few years. Florida Leads the Way!”
Watch Charlie Kirk comment on the flip here: