Florida will have over 300,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the state during the November 2022 midterm elections, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced over the weekend.
People across the country are fleeing blue jurisdictions, DeSantis told a crowd during a campaign speech in Coral Springs, Florida. However, while some residents fear that these blue state refugees are moving to Florida and will destroy it by voting for the policies that they left behind, the governor does not believe that will be the case.
“A lot of my friends and supporters and maybe even some of you would say, ‘Ok, your Florida is doing better than the states. But are the people leaving these leftist jurisdictions going to come to Florida and then vote the same way like people vote in those jurisdictions?'” he said.
“Here’s what I can tell you. When I was standing here four years ago, preparing for the governor’s election, this state had almost 300,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans. And we had never in the history of Florida — prior to me being elected governor — had more registered Republicans and Democrats,” DeSantis said, explaining that the trend has changed significantly since he took office. Last year, for the first time, Republicans finally overtook Democrats in the state in terms of voter registration. That trend has only continued in the past year.
Republican candidate for Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis meets supporters as they attend a rally at Freedom Pharmacy on the final day of campaigning in the midterm elections on November 5, 2018 in Orlando, Florida. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
“And even though we’ve never had an election in Florida history [where] we’ve had more Republicans than Democrats, this November, we will now have over 300,000 more Republicans than Democrats,” he announced to applause, noting that the GOP is seeing “massive gains in Miami-Dade” and “major gains in Palm Beach” as well.
“And honestly it’s not as big, we are making gains in Broward,” DeSantis said, telling the crowd that “a lot” of independent voters are on the GOP side but feel better not to be registered under a specific party due to scrutiny.
A voter wears an “I Voted” sticker at a polling location in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday, August 23, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“The bottom line is that people have responded to good leadership. They responded, and they appreciate being in Florida and they understand what it’s been like in some of these other states,” the governor said, reminding Floridians that this “could have gone a much different direction,” pointing to the extremely close race against Andrew Gillum in 2018, which DeSantis won by less than half of a percentage point.
“That could have gone the other way,” he said, adding that it would have resulted in “a much different future.”
“Do not take any of this for granted. Okay. Freedom is very fragile. As we’ve seen, we just lived through an era where there were states in this country forcibly shuttering churches while they allowed liquor stores in strip clubs to operate,” he said, urging everyone to get out and vote in November as he faces off against Biden ally Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL).
Last month, Florida Republican Party vice chairman Christian Ziegler pointed out that Democrats only saw a net gain of 17,197 voters in the Sunshine State since 2018:
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