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Election 2008
Who Will Take Florida? McCain or Obama
Florida Trend asked some of the state's political experts to predict what will happen in Florida on Election Day 2008.
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Coattails?
Support of Obama will drive record turnout of African-American voters and provide a bump in the number of younger voters. However, the real question is, will Obama supporters continue to vote down the ballot? Will he have coattails long enough to pull local Democratic candidates into office, particularly in areas with close Democratic and Republican registration? In the end, I believe the answer will be no.
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Democratic Surge
Democrats are positioned for a comeback in this year’s election in Florida.
After decades of Republican growth among the state’s registered voters, the Florida electorate is beginning to shift back to the Democratic Party. In the first six months of 2008, Democratic voter registration outpaced Republican registration by more than 130,000 voters. This surge in Democratic voter registration reverses a trend of growing Republicanism that has dominated Florida since the 1960s. Democrats now outnumber Republicans in Florida by more than 440,000 voters. Moreover, the Democrats’ gains this year have been concentrated geographically in Florida’s battleground counties along the I-4 corridor, which is an ominous sign for Republican congressional and legislative candidates in that part of the state. If turnout is high, which appears likely,
I would expect Obama to win Florida and Democrats to pick up two seats in the state’s congressional delegation.
