Florida is a state with a wide range of political opinions and values, making it an interesting place to study politics. The state has two major political parties, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, as well as some smaller third-party groups. Florida's political landscape is diverse and complex due to its diversity in population, geographical layout, and economic makeup. In recent years, the state has been seen as one of the swing states during presidential elections. This means that both Republicans and Democrats have had a competitive presence in the state during election seasons. During local elections, Floridians will typically vote for candidates representing their political party or ideology. These candidates usually have local connections and understand the issues that are important to Floridians. They will often campaign on issues such as taxes, infrastructure development, education reform, environmental protection measures, crime prevention measures and other matters that affect Florida residents.
The political climate in Florida is leaning conservative.
In Florida 47.8% of the people voted for the Democratic Party in the last presidential election, 51.1% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 1.1% voted for an Independent Party.
In the last Presidential election, Florida remained Republican, 51.1% to 47.8%.
Florida voted Republican in four of the six previous Presidential elections (2008 and 2012 went Democratic).
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
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.
Florida, Florida: r r d d 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 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 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 Florida
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 895,919 contributions totaling $230,680,240 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $257 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 321,196 contributions totaling $276,662,213 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $861 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)