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IRC Version of February, 2020, Florida County Republican Registrations Report and Elections Analysis
©Stephen R. Meyer, Vero Beach, Florida, March, 2020
Issued 3/19/20
Best wishes on staying healthy!
- Congratulations to Taylor County for having joined the ranks of the now 46 counties where Republican registrations outnumber the number of Democrat registrations!
- One county did not issue February registration numbers until late in the day of March 16. In the future, this report will be released by the second week of the trailing month based on the numbers available. This may leave the report with dated information which will be noted. Ideally RECs are fact based, data driven organizations that are tracking and modifying their efforts based on critical metrics such as voter registrations and building permit issuance.
- There were roughly 34 weeks from the end of February to the early voting period of the 2020 election.
- In order to vote in Florida's March presidential primary, changes in voters' registrations needed to take place in February. A significant number of voters did register or change their party affiliation during the month, with Republican registrations increasing by 47,156 and Democrat registrations increasing by 96,408.
- In February, Republican registrations in Florida, relative to Democrat registrations, had a significant drop. With a 49,252 relative registration decline, the Republican deficit now stands at 278,126 (See attached chart and tables).
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- There were fourteen counties where the Democrats gained over one thousand relative registrations. Some of the counties with larger numbers of relative Democrat registrations gains were; a 7,913 relative Democrat registration gain in Broward County, 4,194 in Duval County, 5,445 in Hillsborough County, 5,543 in Miami-Dade, 7,223 in Orange County, 6,483 in Palm Beach County, and 4,810 in Pinellas County.
- The Republican strongholds of Brevard, Collier, Lee, Manatee, Sarasota, and St. Johns Counties all saw The Democrats gain over one thousand relative registrations.
- Sumter County (with a 4,277 Republican relative registrations gain) was the only county where Republicans gained more than one thousand relative registrations.
- Indian River County fell from having the 20th best Republican registrations margin over that of the Democrats to being the 21st best as Walton County passed us in the relative rankings (see Table 1). February was a poor month in IRC for registrations as Republican registrations increased by 155 while Democrat registrations increased by 833 giving the Democrats a net gain of 678 registrations!
Florida Republicans have been experiencing relatively poor registrations numbers since June, 2018. February's poor numbers should add impetus for Republicans to initiate a response. There are two courses of action that may be undertaken:
- Continue existing efforts to grow Republican market share, but do it better and/or work harder.
- Expand Republican efforts to include state, local and national policy, especially as it concerns the creation of greater amounts of Republican habitat and lesser amounts of Democrat habitat.
An observation: Rush Limbaugh, arguably the most significant non-politician conservative personality of the past few decades (and who we pray has success in his fight against cancer), President Trump, arguably the most formidable Republican politician of the past few decades, and Florida Republican National Committeeman Peter Feaman, all reside in Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County is a majority Democrat County where Democrats continue to grow market share. How can those of us of lesser influence and talent then have any chance of successfully influencing the political orientation of our own counties, when even with these great men being in residence in Palm Beach county, Democrats continue to increase their market share?
The most significant factor in how counties trend politically is the type of habitat being created in the counties. The creation of Republican habitat, which is roughly one-quarter as politically effective as is the creation of Democrat habitat, is accomplished by creating copious amounts of owner-occupied housing. Democrat habitat is created when there is a shortage of, and thus more expensive, owner-occupied housing, and plentiful amounts of rental housing, much of which gets built owing to the rental housing being subsidized in some manner by some combination of local, state and federal government programs. The greatness of the combination of Rush Limbaugh, President Trump and Peter Feaman has not proven capable of overcoming the negative political ramifications of the housing policies that exist in Palm Beach County.
Increasing Republican relative registrations, and vote gains, tend to take place where homeownership rates are high and median home prices are low. The following observations are taken from the February registration data;
- All counties with homeownership rates greater than 80% had positive Republican relative registration numbers.
- Of the 29 counties with an over 75% homeownership rate, 24 (82.8%) had positive Republican relative registration numbers.
- 15 of 21 counties (71.4%) with a homeownership rate of less than 70% had negative Republican relative registration numbers.
- Of those seven counties with a homeownership rate less than 60%, all had negative Republican relative registration numbers!
- Of the 16 counties with a median home price over $200,000, 14 (87.5%) had negative Republican relative registration numbers.
- Of the thirty five counties with a median home price less than $160,000, 32 (93.4%) had positive Republican relative registration numbers
Note: Homeownership rates and median home prices result from past permit issuance. In most cases recent permitting information is not readily available. With Republican relative registrations falling, it may be concluded that the amount of rental housing coming on-line, and the lack of owner-occupied housing coming on-line, is not allowing the Republican Party to maintain its market share.
Most Republican Executive Committees (RECs) have been exclusively campaign organizations with policy being the responsibility of elected officials. As the Republican stalled growth in relative registrations demonstrates; policy is much too important to solely entrust to the politicians.
There are two areas of interest in politics; the political orientation of an electorate and the trend of the political orientation of the electorate. Table 3 in this month's registration report shows how Florida Counties compared in Republican vote margin (the relative change in orientation of the counties over time) in the 2012 through 2018 elections and by relative registration margin gains since the 2018 election. Table 4 shows similar information on how counties are performing (the relative change in how counties are trending) for trends based on four year election cycles.
To see how a particular county is doing, locate the county of interest in the column to the far right and see how the county has fared relative to other counties over time by examining the columns to the left. For example using Table 3, my home County of Indian River was the 18th most Republican County in 2012, relatively improved to being the 17th most Republican County in 2014, and fell to being the 23rd most Republican county in both 2016 and 2018. In current relative registrations, Indian River County ranks as the 21st best county in Florida.
Best,
Steve Meyer, Indian River County REC Member
Contact Information: Steve Meyer
Phone or text: 772-713-8265
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Joe Saul
Secretary Indian River County REC
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