The latest evidence of the Republican Party's growth in Florida is news announced on Monday that registered Republicans now outrank Democrats in Miami-Dade County, the most populous in Florida.
The latest voter rolls in the county now show 464,370 registered Republicans, or 34% of voters, 440,790 Democrats, or 32.27%. Independent and third-party voters together number 460,783, or 33.7%. Those numbers come via Michael Pruser, the director of data science with Decision Desk HQ.
"This is a total repudiation of the Democrats' failed agenda. Miami-Dade is no longer their safe haven — it's the beating heart of the Republican revolution," said Evan Power, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, in a statement.
"We're the party of hardworking families, Hispanic patriots, and communities demanding safe streets, top-notch schools, and a booming economy. Miami-Dade proves the unstoppable momentum of the Republican message."
READ MORE: Trump is the first Republican candidate to win Miami-Dade County since 1988
Long a Democratic stronghold, the majority-Latino area has been trending more politically right over the past decade but continued to back Democrats at the top of the ticket until the past couple of election cycles.
Although Donald Trump has won the state of Florida in the past three presidential elections, Miami-Dade voters supported Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. But Biden's 2020 win was by only 7 points, down from Clinton's 29-point margin of victory in 2016.
Screenshot of graphic from Michael Pruser's X account Then, last fall, Trump won Miami-Dade County for the first time in a presidential election, defeating Kamala Harris there by 11 points, becoming the first Republican to win in Miami-Dade since George H.W. Bush over Michael Dukakis in 1988 (Trump won the state by 13 points).
Florida has seen a surge of Republican voters since the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. Whereas Ron DeSantis narrowly defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum in the race for governor in 2018 in a vote so close it took a recount to sort out, he came back and defeated Democrat Charlie Crist by 19 points statewide in 2022.
DeSantis won Miami-Dade that year by 11 points. In 2018, he lost to Gillum by 21 points, according to the Miami Herald.
To see how quickly the tide has turned, one need only look back at 2018, when Florida Democrats enjoyed a more than 264,000-voter registration lead. The Republican Party of Florida in 2021 overtook the Democrats for the first time in the state, and their lead today stands at 1.29 million.
"A decade ago, Miami-Dade County was a deep blue county with hundreds of thousands more registered Democrats than Republicans," DeSantis said on X on Monday morning. "Today, the county — with more than 2.8 million people — has a Republican voter registration advantage. Nobody would have predicted this ten years ago."
"THE BEST IS YET TO COME," said Southwest Republican U.S. Rep. and gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds.
"Miami-Dade County has completed its off-year voter roll maintenance, and this morning, it shed 172,747 voters from its active voters," said Pruser on Monday.
"The change netted Republican voters more than 38,000 voters compared to Democrats, and the country has now flipped to Republican by registration," he added.
This is the second large county to flip from blue to red this year in Florida. In January, Republican voters overtook Democrats in Hillsborough County, the third-most populous in Florida. Republicans now lead in 59 out of 67 counties in voter registration.
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