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How Florida became a conservative bastion [View all]
How Florida became a conservative bastionFlorida has become the nerve center of the modern Republican Party.
Once the nation’s largest and most volatile swing state, Florida has lurched to the right in recent years, becoming a mecca for the GOP’s most influential luminaries and wealthiest donors.
Republicans now hold supermajorities in the state legislature, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has solidified his grip on the reins of political power in the state, turning Florida into a laboratory for conservative policy experiments. For the first time since Reconstruction, there’s not a single Democrat in statewide elected office.
But Florida’s transition from coveted political battleground to the premier haven of modern conservatism has been decades in the making, owing to a perfect storm of demographic changes, Republican power plays, pandemic politics and Democratic missteps, according to more than a dozen strategists, experts and officials interviewed by The Hill.
“Republicans focused on the ultimate goal,” said Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster who helped former President Barack Obama win the state in 2008 and 2012. “They thought things out in 10-year cycles. They built a permanent campaign apparatus. They started recruiting candidates to run for local office and springboarding them into higher office. They registered voters and managed the margins.”
“Florida is now mecca for MAGA,” he added. “It is the one safe space and lighthouse for Republican MAGA voters across the United States.”
Once the nation’s largest and most volatile swing state, Florida has lurched to the right in recent years, becoming a mecca for the GOP’s most influential luminaries and wealthiest donors.
Republicans now hold supermajorities in the state legislature, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has solidified his grip on the reins of political power in the state, turning Florida into a laboratory for conservative policy experiments. For the first time since Reconstruction, there’s not a single Democrat in statewide elected office.
But Florida’s transition from coveted political battleground to the premier haven of modern conservatism has been decades in the making, owing to a perfect storm of demographic changes, Republican power plays, pandemic politics and Democratic missteps, according to more than a dozen strategists, experts and officials interviewed by The Hill.
“Republicans focused on the ultimate goal,” said Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster who helped former President Barack Obama win the state in 2008 and 2012. “They thought things out in 10-year cycles. They built a permanent campaign apparatus. They started recruiting candidates to run for local office and springboarding them into higher office. They registered voters and managed the margins.”
“Florida is now mecca for MAGA,” he added. “It is the one safe space and lighthouse for Republican MAGA voters across the United States.”
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