Florida County Republican Registrations Report—May 2023

Florida Republicans continue the trend of making gains as Republican registrations relative to Democrat registrations increased by 19,100 registrations in May and by 182,296 registrations since the book closing for the 2022 general election. Florida Republicans now have a 488,246 relative registrations advantage over the Democrats. Republican registrations were 36.79% of total registrations and Republicans now enjoy a 3.38% of total registrations advantage over the Democrats (click here to view the charts).

The Democrats continue the Biden era phenomena of losing registrations as Democrats lost 17,490 additional Registrations in May and 141,624 registrations since the 2022 book closing. The registrations of Republicans increased by 1,610 registrations in May, and the number of registrations which are neither Republican nor Democrat decreased by 9,688 registrations in May (click here to view the chart).

Note: There have been some relatively large shrinkages in the number of registrations in some of Florida Counties. Leslie Swan, our local supervisor of elections, provided information that the law has been changed to make it easier to remove inactive voters from the voter rolls. This information solves the riddle of why the number of registrations is falling while the population is growing.

Cleaner voter rolls are a good thing. In the long term it should make for a truer reflection of the political sentiments of the electorate. It the short term it may give an over indication of just how much the electorate is changing.

Strategy Questions Based on the 2023 Jacksonville Mayoral Elections

Florida Republicans dominated the 2022 election. The 2023 Jacksonville mayoral election was closely watched by the political class as an indicator of if this Republican domination would extend into the 2024 election cycle.

In the 2015 election cycle, the Jacksonville mayoral election primary (referred to as the “First” election, but very much like a primary election) had a Democrat and a Republican as the top two vote getters to face off in the 2015 general election. The 2015 general election was carried by the Republican by a vote of 103,626 to 98,353.

In the 2019 mayoral election, the Democrats did not field a candidate. The Republican incumbent received the over 50% of the 2019 “First” election vote, and therefore, per Florida election law, retained the seat without the need for a general election.

Why would the Democrats not enter a candidate in the 2019 election? The adage (changed to fit the circumstance) is for Democrats to not interrupt when a Republican officeholder is adopting polices which grow the Democrat base, which in this case was overseeing the building of excessive amounts of rental housing. Enough rental housing was built during the Republican mayor’s tenure to bring the Jacksonville rentership rate over 43%, which is a level of rentership where Republicans will find it a struggle to compete.

Note: Rental housing only becomes a political factor when real estate markets are corrupted, which is the case in most of America. Renters become alienated when current homeowners gain wealth as the lack of new housing makes existing homes more valuable while concurrently rents are driven higher by the same shortage of housing, creating a loss of wealth for renters. Alienation inhibits Democrat voters from becoming Republican voters.

The 2023 Jacksonville general election was carried by the Democrat by a vote of 113,226 to 104,172!

The Jacksonville mayoral election outcome further confirms that excessive amounts of rental housing in non-market driven real estate markets will doom an area to Democrat control. It is past time for Republicans to start adopting applicable strategies to combat this successful Democrat strategy!

The National Senate Republican Vote Scam

Republican Senators will often vote in opposition to their Republican constituent’s wishes if they are not up for reelection. The recent raising of the debt limit had those Republican Senators not up for reelection until 2026 or 2028 casting 17 of the 19 (88%) Republican votes in support of the debt increase measure. Allowing state legislatures to recall their national senators and call for new elections would put an end to this abuse!

Donations to Candidates in a Republican Primary

Does it make any sense to donate money to candidates that attack fellow Republicans and alienate a portion of the Republican base? Please consider donating your time and treasure to efforts which grow the Republican base (an example would be to champion the creation of affordable homeownership), which had shrunk by 10 million voters relative to the Democrat voters between 1988 and 2016, and which has only worsened nationally since 2016!

©Stephen R. Meyer, Vero Beach, Florida, June, 2023. All rights reserved.

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