Executive Summary

• Madison County has joined the now 57 (of 67) Florida Counties where the number of Republican registrations exceeds the number of Democrat registrations. Madison County is the last of the lower-population, heavily Republican voting counties, to have their number of Republican registrations surpass those of the Democrats. Gadsden County is the last low-population majority Democrat Registrations County in Florida. For those under the allusion that their traditional campaign tactics are effective, Gadsden County would be a great place to prove it!
• Republicans need to implement the following items.

• • Moratorium on the building of rental housing unless county-wide homeownership rates are greater than 85%.
  • Change Florida election rules to have “universal primary contests” (multiple candidates from only one political party) and school board elections decided at the time of the general election and not at the time of the primary!

• • • The primary should be used (if applicable) to narrow the field to two candidates.

• Florida Republicans now hold an 928,157 registrations advantage over the Democrats, an increase of 25,712 relative registrations over the prior month.
• The tables and a chart shows the following.

• • The chart shows graphically the change in active registrations since the 2022 book closing.
  • Table 1 lists Florida Counties by Republican registration margins relative to Democrat Registrations.
  • Table 2 shows how Florida Counties are performing relative to each other in Republican registration margin improvement (for example, St. Lucie County had the 57th best margin at the time of the 2022 election and now enjoys having the 43rd best margin of Florida’s 67 Counties).
  • Table 3 lists vote margin changes of Florida Counties between the last two presidential and gubernatorial elections
  • Table 4 lists Florida Counties in order by gains in Republican registrations and shows the associated registration changes for non-Republicans.
  • Table 5 presents various Republican registration and vote metrics on a percentage basis.

• The “Vote August” effort is an attempt to educate voters that by not voting at the time of the August primary they will generally have their vote disenfranchised in local elections. The disenfranchising of the general election-only voters by having elections decided in August “universal primary contests” and in having school board elections determined at the time of the August primary, are abhorrent!

Florida Voter Registrations

Note: the registrations numbers in this writing refer to active registrations, a subset of total registrations.

Florida Republicans continue the trend of making relative gains in active voter registrations as Republican registrations relative to Democrat registrations increased by 25,712 registrations in May and by 622,207 registrations since the book closing for the 2022 general election. Florida Republicans now have a 928,157relative registrations advantage over the Democrats. Republican registrations were 39.08% of total registrations and Republicans now enjoy a 6.95% of total registrations advantage over the Democrats (see tables).

The Democrats lost 54,362 registrations in May, lost 678,479 registrations since the 2022 book closing, and 1,010,404 registrations since the 2020 election. Republican registrations decreased by 28,650 in May, and the number of registrations which are neither Republican nor Democrat decreased by 39,668 registrations in May (see chart).

Note: Vote August! Please make plans to vote in the Florida non-presidential primary election in August. A subset of elections categorized as “universal primary contests” may be deadly (in a political sense) for conservative Republicans. In the name of fairness, the system should be changed. The only current options for conservative Republicans are for conservatives to vote in the August primary!

The Epoch Times Letter-to-the-Editor

The three major factors in elections are the quality of the candidate, the quality of the candidate’s campaign, and the underlying political orientation of the voters. A significant election factor concerning the quality of the candidate is the performance of a candidate that has already held the office. The incompetence of the current president is highly favorable for Republican success in 2024.

The most critical election factor though is the underlying political orientation of the voters. Proving this is the small number of states that are competitive. Republicans completely and consistently ignore this factor.

A coveted, and until recently abandoned ritual, was the Sunday morning reading of the newspaper. The abandonment of the ritual was caused by the inability to find a paper that was readable. The ritual has been revived by the reading of The Epoch Times weekly newspaper on Sunday morning.

As a previously avid letter-to-the-editor writer, the first of such letters in years had been submitted to the Epoch Times. They were kind enough to print in their May 29-June 4, 2024, edition, the following letter dealing with one of the factors which changes the underlying political orientation of the voters.

“The Political Ramifications of a Growing Rentership Rate

To summarize the foundation of his opinion piece, Jeffrey A. Tucker (Your New Life of Housing Rental, May 22-28) writes that the federal government, starting at the end of World War II, undertook programs to increase the homeownership rate. The backstopping of mortgages by the government in pursuit of this goal eventually led to the 2008 housing crisis, which was the start of our country becoming a nation of renters.

The government has become so large and disjointed that it is at odds with itself. Starting in Hawaii in the early 1960s, and spreading throughout the U.S. by the 1990s, other government entities simultaneously adopted the United Nation’s eco-revolutionist strategy of restricting the footprint of land upon which development could take place. In their terms, sprawl had to stop. Their goal; to create a nation of renters. Why?

For brevity, being a renter is more predictive of a voter voting Democrat (aligned with the U.N.) than homeownership is of a voter voting Republican. Rentership is a much more robust political factor than homeownership. Restricting the footprint of developable land creates higher priced real estate, which in-turn forces more people to rent, leading to an out-sized increase in the Democrat vote!

An examination of Florida supports this finding. In the mid to late 1980s Florida adopted real estate development laws to be in place by 1995 that forced counties to create footprints where development could take place. This caused the supply of developable land to become scarcer, which in turn drove up all real estate prices. The result was the doubling, and even tripling, of home prices in much of Florida after the mandated footprints were established.

Florida Republicans suffered losses in their share of the presidential vote following the establishment of these footprints. George H.W. Bush carried Florida by an overwhelming 22% margin in 1988, and by 2000, George W. Bush barely captured the state, which President Obama won in 2008 and 2012.

These efforts may be thwarted. The seeds of changing Florida Republican political fortunes were planted in 2011 when determination of the size of the footprints on which development could take place transferred from the state to local governments, most of which were more accommodating to development. This made developable land in Florida less scarce, lowering its relative price, and making ownership more attainable.

This explains why President Trump carried Florida twice with an improving margin, and why Florida experienced a red wave in 2022!” (note: this is the end of the letter)

In a now two decades pursuit, there has been no Republican interest in lowing the rentership rate. This factor has now become critical.

An attribute of rentership becoming a political factor is growth restrictions, which the opposition has branded as “smart growth”. Smart growth efforts ultimately disrupt real estate markets and cause an increase in real estate prices. High real estate prices create fewer homeowners while financially benefiting existing property owners. Renters, who are unable to share in the wealth produced by the increasing real estate prices, become alienated voters, a group that predictably votes Democrat.

In analyzing the Republican losses in our four highest population states produced fascinating findings. In the late eighties, and throughout the nineties, Florida, New York, and California all suffered similar large Republican losses while Republicans made significant gains in Texas. We Floridian Republicans now look down our noses at the poor job Republicans have done in New York and California, but the only reason Florida is not a hugely Democrat state now is that Florida was much more Republican than were California and New York when smart growth policies were first adopted!

New York (rentership rate of 45.7%) and California (rentership rate of 44.4%) are forever lost to the Republicans unless a way to increase the percentage of homeownership is found. Texas (rentership rate of 37.6%) is a major concern. The concern in Texas is that their smart growth efforts did not cause higher home prices until the last decade or so. Texas is now suffering the Republican losses the other three large population states suffered decades ago. Florida (rentership rate of 33.1%) Republicans are in a better situation than the other three but its rentership rate is a far cry from Singapore’s world class 10% rentership rate.

The inability of Republicans to think-outside-the-box is a showstopper. May God have mercy on us for the pain we inflict on our progeny by our inaction in improving the homeownership rate!

©2024. Steve Meyer. All rights reserved.