The Gainesville, FL Metro Area is home to a vibrant political landscape and has become an increasingly popular destination for those looking for progressive policy initiatives. From the municipal level, the city of Gainesville provides residents with access to a number of elected officials from the Mayor, City Commission, City Attorney, and City Clerk. On the state level, Florida's Governor Rick Scott serves as the area's representative in Tallahassee. Additionally, two United States Representatives serve all of Gainesville and its nearby communities. In terms of local politics, Alachua County has some of Florida's most active citizens with regard to grassroots organizing and citizen mobilization efforts. With a diverse population and robust engagement from community members on all sides of the political spectrum, Gainesville is an exciting place to be politically involved.
The political climate in Gainesville Metro Area is moderately liberal.
In Gainesville Metro Area 59.8% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 38.6% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.6% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, the Gainesville metro area remained overwhelmingly Democratic, 59.8% to 38.6%.
The Gainesville metro area voted Democratic in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Gainesville Metro Area is moderately liberal.
Florida is leaning conservative.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Gainesville, Florida: D d D D D D
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D for the Democrat and I for the Independent. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last four elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Gainesville Metro Area
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 25,890 contributions totaling $3,728,275 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $144 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 3,453 contributions totaling $1,124,286 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $326 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)