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January, 2020, Florida County Republican Registrations Report and Elections Analysis
©Stephen R. Meyer, Vero Beach, Florida, February, 2020
Issued 2/13/20

This month's report is being issued a little later in the month than usual. One county that posts its registration numbers on a monthly basis did not do so until February 12, and those numbers were necessary to this report.
  • There were roughly 38 weeks from the end of January to the early voting period of the 2020 election.
  • In January, Republican registrations in Florida, relative to Democrat registrations, worsened by 2,159 registrations. The Republican deficit now stands at 228,874 registrations, continuing a trend of stalled Republican registration deficit reduction that dates back to the June, 2018 timeframe (See attached chart and tables).

  • A stalled trend of relative registration improvement is a cause for concern.
  • By examining the 2014 and the 2018 gubernatorial elections, the assumption of increased registrations leading to increased Republican vote proved not to be true.
    • Republicans improved their registrations relative to Democrat registrations by 192,677 registrations between the 2014 and 2018 gubernatorial elections
    • Despite this gain of 192,677 relative registrations, the 2018 Republican gubernatorial vote margin shrunk by 31,684 votes, falling from a 64,145 Republican vote win in 2014 to a 32,461 Republican vote win in 2018.
    • To have maintained the same Republican margin of 64,145 in 2018 would have required an even greater numbers of relative registrations than the 192,677 relative registrations gains experienced by Republicans between 2014 and 2018.
    • If Republicans received an additional vote for each additional registration, Republicans would have needed to increase the actual 192,677 relative registration increase by an additional 31,684 registrations to deliver the same 2014 vote margin in 2018.
    • This needed relative Republican registration increase can then be determined by adding the 31,684 vote margin deficit to the 192,677 relative Republican registration gains, which is 224,361 relative Republican registrations.
  • A 2020 election concern:
    • If the 2016 to 2020 election cycle is similar to the 2014 to 2018 election cycle, it is known (see above) that it will require 224,361 additional relative Republican registrations from 2016 levels just to stay even.
    • Republicans have improved their registrations relative to Democrats by only 98,564 relative registrations since the 2016 election leaving Republicans 125,797 relative registrations short of just staying even with President Trump's 2016 margin. 
    • President Trump carried Florida by 112,911 votes in 2016.
    • The above suggests that Republicans need to gain an additional 12,886 relative registrations to keep from losing in 2020. This is way too close for comfort!
  
The reason for the change in relative registrations not correlating with the actual vote may be owing to the previous conversion of Southern Democrats becoming Republican voters, but the previous Southern Democrat voters not as readily changing their registrations. The hypothesis is that Republican registration gains from converted Southern Democrats are slowly catching up to the vote change that had previously taken place. This results in a change in registrations without a corresponding change in the vote.
 
An example of this phenomenon of delayed registration change of the Southern Democrat vote may be observed by the changes that have taken place in Holmes County. On a percentage basis, Holmes County was the most Republican County in Florida in the 2016 election (President Trump captured an astounding 87.5% of the vote in Holmes County).
 
  • At the time of the 2004 Presidential Election, 77.3% of Holmes County's major party registrants were Registered Democrat (7,988 Democrat to 2,344 Republican)
  • George W. Bush carried Holmes County by a 55.5% margin in 2004
  • At the time of the 2016 Presidential Election, 59.5% of Holmes registered major party voters were Republican (5952 Republican to 4045 Democrat). This was a Republican registration margin improvement of 132.8% from the 2004 number.
  • Donald J. Trump carried Holmes County by a 77.5% margin, a margin improvement of 20% over that of 2004.
  • The registration gains in this time frame were roughly six and one-half times greater than the vote margin changes in Holmes County.
 
Former Southern Democrats are not geographically restricted to the low population counties of Florida. It would stand to reason that counties that had significant numbers of Southern Democrats would still be going through registration realignment and therefore Republican registrations gains may not directly correlate to anticipated Republican vote gains. This phenomenon becomes problematic when Republican gains in registrations relative to Democrat registrations stall.
 
Housing
 
The most fascinating aspect of this report is the variability found in the political trends of the various Counties of Florida. There is an oddity in that all counties are tasked with growing Republican market share, but only the lower population counties and just a handful of higher population counties have been able to achieve this to any degree. The ten counties with the highest number of relative Republican registrations gains since the 2018 gubernatorial election and listed from the highest relative registration county to the counties with lesser relative registrations are; Pasco, Polk, Citrus, Sumter, Hernando, Charlotte, Marion, Brevard, Lake and Putnam. The ten counties with the highest number of relative Democrat registrations gains, listed from worst to best from a Republican perspective are; Orange, Duval, Seminole, Leon, Palm Beach, Broward, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Alachua, and Clay.
 
Generally, Republicans gain market share where homeownership rates are rising and home prices are not excessive (think rural America). Democrats are generally gaining market share where homeownership rates are falling and the price of homes are high (think Coastal California, Hawaii, New York, and the D.C. Suburbs). Below is a comparison of average median home prices and average home ownership rates for the Florida Counties mentioned in the last paragraph;
 
  • Average median home price of the ten Florida Counties with the highest relative Republican registrations gains; $151,770
  • Average median home price of the ten Florida Counties with the highest relative Democrat registrations gains; $203,870
  • Average homeownership rate of the ten Florida Counties with the highest relative Republican registrations gains; 76.5%
  • Average homeownership rate of ten Florida Counties with the highest relative Democrat registrations gains; 61.3%
 
Republicans have generally ceded the use of housing development as a political tool to the Democrats. Owing to home rule, many Republicans are under the false impression that they can maintain control over local development into perpetuity. To relieve such Republicans of this delusion, the following excerpt of a portion of Bernie Sander's proposed housing policies, copied from www.VOX.com, is offered and which states:
  • "... Sanders does also call for investing $1.48 trillion over ten years in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund while federally preempting local zoning regulations to force affluent communities to accept affordable housing projects."
Sander's policy ideas concerning housing are shared by most Democrat presidential candidates as housing policy has been the basis for Democrat market share growth over the last few decades. Note that "affordable housing" is leftist terminology for subsidized rental housing.
 
The creation of Democrat habitat (rental properties) is roughly four times more effective in growing Democrat market share than is the creation of Republican habitat (owner-occupied housing) in growing Republican market share. For Democrats to gain market share, all they need to do is to have more than roughly 25% of the housing permits being issued allocated to the development of rental units.
 
Pinellas County is somewhat unique in issuing a detailed report of their housing which is under some stage of development and construction. The Pinellas County report was analyzed two years ago and 63% of Pinellas County building permits were for rental units. To see Republican relative registrations now falling in Pinellas County as these developments are completed and occupied, should come as no surprise given all of the Democrat habitat (rental housing) that was in the development pipeline two years ago. 
 
Best,
Steve Meyer, Indian River County REC Member
Contact Information: Steve Meyer; Phone or text, 772-713-8265. Email, [email protected].



 
--------------------------------------------------------
 Joe Saul
Secretary Indian River County REC
 
 

 
GOD BLESS AMERICA 

 

 

Joe Saul
Secretary
Indian River County Republican Executive Committee

 

 

Indian River County Republican Executive Committee, 2001 9th Ave., Ste. 107, Vero Beach, FL 32960
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