Manatee County, FL is a vibrant and diverse community in the Tampa Bay area. Political involvement is an important part of the area's civic life, with active local party organizations and elected officials at the city, county, state, and federal level. The Manatee County Republican Party and Manatee County Democratic Party are both active in keeping citizens informed about local political issues. In addition to these two major parties, there are also several third-party organizations that have been involved in Manatee County politics in recent years. Local candidates for office often come from both major parties as well as these minor parties. Recent elections have seen strong competition between Republican and Democratic candidates for mayor, county commissioner, sheriff, state representatives, and other offices. Residents of Manatee County can get involved in local politics by attending meetings of their local party organization or voting for their preferred candidates during election season.
The political climate in Manatee County, FL is somewhat conservative.
In Manatee County, FL 41.5% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 57.5% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.1% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Manatee county remained very strongly Republican, 57.5% to 41.5%.
Manatee county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Manatee County, FL is somewhat conservative.
North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton Metro Area is somewhat conservative.
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.
Manatee, Florida: r R r R R R
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 three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Manatee County, FL
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 22,122 contributions totaling $2,583,459 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $117 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 8,231 contributions totaling $3,126,091 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $380 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)