At this point a Gingrich victory is an eminently possible event. Throughout November and December Gingrich was posting enormous leads in Florida; for some reason the seniors there seem to really like him. Romney’s strong performances in Iowa and New Hampshire lifted him to the lead for a while. But now Gingrich is leading again. The example of South Carolina, where Romney lost a steady lead in less than a week, shows how quickly things can shift.

Florida is a very diverse state, much more so than any of the other states which have voted so far. Its population is large enough, and each part of the state different enough, that it could very easily be split into several different states with unique cultures.

Below are some thoughts the voting patterns of each part of Florida.

Northern Florida

Northern Florida is the part which has most in common with the South; indeed, much of it is an extension of the Deep South. As the example of South Carolina indicates, Romney for some reason does very poorly in the South. In 2008, he placed a poor third in a number of Deep South states.

It’s interesting to ask whether Gingrich has any special appeal to the South. Gingrich is a Southerner who spent most of his life in Georgia. On the other hand, he doesn’t sound like a Southerner.

One would expect Romney to do especially poorly in northern Florida, given his weakness in the South. There is a catch, however. In 2008 Romney actually won the Jacksonville area by double-digits while losing the Panhandle badly. Whether he can replicate this performance this year is open to question. Of course, given that Romney lost Florida to John McCain, he must.

The I-4 Corridor

Covering most of Central Florida, the I-4 Corridor refers to the I-4 highway running through the region to connect all the major cities.

This is generally swing territory in the presidential election, and it will probably be swing territory in the upcoming primary as well. Romney did decently in the Orlando area in 2008, tying John McCain. He did worse in the Tampa and Hillsborough region. Whoever wins the I-4 Corridor in 2012 will probably win the Republican primary. It will be where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

The Miami Metropolis

South Florida is the most populous and diverse part of the state. Mitt Romney cratered in this region during the 2008 Republican primaries; in Miami-Dade County, he actually did worse than Rudy Giuliani (remember him?) According to exit polls, Romney failed to break into double-digits amongst the Cuban-American vote.

Obviously, if this happens again Romney will lose the state. As for Newt Gingrich, it will be very revealing to see how he does in this part of the state. Gingrich might be attractive to conservative retirees who remember his battles with Bill Clinton. His strength with Cuban-Americans, on the other hand, is completely a mystery. Gingrich has never had to appeal to Hispanic voters in his life before; it will be a very fascinating to see how he does with them.

All in all, the way that South Florida will vote is pretty much up in the air.

Conclusions

The good news for Romney is that absentee voting has been continuously going on throughout the period in which he held the polling lead, before his loss in South Carolina. If there is anything that will lift him to victory, this is it.

Finally, there is the Hispanic vote in Florida. While most voters so far in the Republican primary belong to hard-core Republican constituencies, Hispanics do not. The performance of the eventual Republican nominee among Hispanics in Florida (especially non-Cubans) will provide an extremely important insight to the general election.

Florida’s Gubernatorial Election

On November 2010, Democrat Alex Sink faced an extremely flawed Republican opponent: multimillionaire Rick Scott, a businessman accused of heading the biggest fraud in Medicare history.

Ms. Sink still lost, running in a Republican leaning state in a very Republican environment. Here is what happened:

This constitutes a classic map of a close race in Florida. Ms. Sink wins the counties that she needs to win in the I-4 central corridor. For a Democrat, she performs relatively strongly in conservative northern Florida.

Turn-Out

What kills Ms. Sink, however, is Democratic turn-out.

To gain some perspective on this, let’s compare Ms. Sink’s performance with that of President Barack Obama’s:

Note that the circles depicted here are not equivalent. In 2008 8.4 million people voted; in 2010 only 5.3 million did. So the absolute margins of 2008 – regardless of whether Mr. Obama won or lost the county – are much bigger.

Nevertheless, one can see that Mr. Obama gets quite a bit more mileage out of the counties he wins than Ms. Sink does. This is especially true along the Democratic, minority-heavy strongholds of Orlando and South Florida.

In 2008 these places composed a greater share of the Florida electorate than they did in 2010; minority and Democratic turn-out fell disproportionately in the mid-term. In 2008 Orlando and South Florida (i.e. Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange, and Palm Beach counties) composed 31.6% of the electorate; in 2010 they composed 29.2% of the electorate. This does not seem like much, but it makes a difference when the margin of victory is 1.2%.

On a county-by-county basis, Mr. Scott’s margin would be cut from 61,550 to 15,226 in the 2008 electorate, even if his share of each county’s vote does not change (only the number of voters in each county does). I suspect that if you adjust this on a precinct level – if you give each precinct the same number of voters it had in 2008, without changing the percent of the vote Ms. Sink and Mr. Scott got in that precinct – Ms. Sink would have won outright.

Turn-Out

There is one part of Florida, however, in which Ms. Sink did much better than Mr. Obama. It’s hard see this in the previous maps, due to the low population of this region. Here is a better illustration:

As the map indicates, Northern Florida moved quite strongly towards Ms. Sink, although not strongly enough to offset her losses elsewhere.

There are a variety of explanations for why this might be. The rural, poor, Southern voters there might have been turned off a wealthy businessman as a Republican candidate. Ms. Sink might have overperformed amongst Republicans.

It is also true that Mr. Obama did quite poorly amongst these voters, losing many of these counties by 40+ margins. Partly this had to do with his status as a big-city Chicago liberal. Mostly, however, Mr. Obama did poorly because he was black.

Half a century ago northern Florida was the most Democratic part of the state, back in the days of the Solid South. Since then the Democratic Party has moved away from these voters (see: John Kerry, Barack Obama); it gets progressively harder each election for a Democrat to win them, although some still do. Ms. Sink’s improvement over Mr. Obama, then, might have been the last gasp of a dying breed: white Dixie Democrats.

Conclusions

In the dying days of Florida’s gubernatorial campaign, Democratic candidate Alex Sink was accused of cheating during the gubernatorial debate. The scandal broke during the final days of the campaign, derailing a crucial time for any campaign. Pundits will point to the scandal as responsible for the 1.2% margin by which Ms. Sink lost.

Yet it may have been another event, seemingly unrelated, that truly undid Ms. Sink. During the campaign’s final days, Independent Charlie Crist – running for Florida’s Senate seat – mounted a concerted effort to get Democrat Kendrick  Meek to drop-out. The coverage dominated national news, blackened the image of both participants, and demoralized Democrats everywhere in Florida.

It may have also led to Ms. Sink’s defeat. In many ways the candidate did what she had to do – she won the right places and improved on Mr. Obama in the most Republican part of Florida. I remember looking at her northern Florida numbers on election day and feeling somewhat optimistic about her chances. With the vote in at 50%, Ms. Sink stood behind by 5% – but the Democratic Gold Coast hadn’t started reporting. She could close things once the Democratic strongholds Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties came in.

But Ms. Sink never did fully close the gap. Democratic turn-out killed Ms. Sink, as it did with many others in 2010.

P.S. Here is a table I created, some of whose information is used in this post.

Not all national conventions take place in swing states. This impression may be due to 2008, when both parties held conventions in fairly competitive (or not, as it turned out) states. In 2004, however, Republicans held their convention in New York City; Democrats in Boston.

On the other hand, holding national conventions in swing states does constitute good strategy. After Democrats held their 2008 convention in Denver, Colorado ended up voting more Democratic than the nation for the first time since 1964. Likewise, the Minneapolis Republican convention helped Senator John McCain stay competitive in Minnesota weeks after Michigan and Wisconsin began moving Democratic. Choosing Tampa is another variation on this strategy.

Tampa, highly populated and fairly diverse, is a good place to hold a political convention. While the city itself probably votes fairly Democratic, the larger surrounding suburbs lean Republican. The convergence of these forces creates a very competitive environment. Hillsborough County, which Tampa is located in, has gone within single digits for the past five straight presidential elections. Whoever wins the Tampa area stands a good chance of winning the state.

Florida itself constitutes a Republican-leaning swing state. This is somewhat surprising; at first glance, Florida looks like a typical Democratic-voting state. Diverse, urbanized, and heavily populated, Florida has more in common with blue California and New York than red Alabama or Kansas. The state, moreover, is becoming more minority-heavy as white retirees are replaced by Latino immigrants.

Yet a number of factors combine to make Florida a red-leaning swing state rather than a blue stronghold. Deeply conservative northern Florida, which is more like rural Georgia than Miami, gives Republicans an immediate base. Many white voters are elderly, conservative-leaning retirees. And – unlike most immigrants – the Cuban immigrant community votes strongly Republican, undercutting the Democratic stronghold in South Florida.

Florida has even been drifting right in presidential elections. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore performed respectably in the state, but Senator John Kerry lost by a sobering margin. Mr. McCain was particularly strong in Florida; he would have won the state by 4.4% given a tied electorate.

This is strange. By all rights, a place like Florida ought to be shifting Democratic, especially given its demographic changes (the opposite is true for much of the Rustbelt Midwest). Yet in the short-term the state has moving in the opposite direction.

When Republicans hold their convention in Tampa, they will attempt to keep Florida in this condition for another presidential election. It is a clever move by a clever party.

The Northeast

In my previous post I created a map of congressional districts in which Mr. Obama performed worse than Senator John Kerry:

(Click here for a much better view of the map).

In this map the most obvious pattern is a roughly diagonal corridor of Republican-shifting congressional districts, stretching from Oklahoma and Louisiana through the Appalachians. This area has long been seen as a place in which the electorate is moving away from the Democratic Party.

The post then looked at the Northeast, another region in which Mr. Kerry did better than Mr. Obama. Unlike Applachia and the Mississippi Delta, the conventional wisdom characterizes the Northeast as a stable Democratic stronghold. Yet, as the map below indicates, six northeastern congressional districts shifted Republican in 2008:

Much of the movement in Massachusetts, of course, occurs due to the loss of Mr. Kerry’s home-state advantage. Yet the districts in Massachusetts (MA-4, MA-6, MA-7, MA-9, and MA-10) also share a number of commonalities. All are quite suburban, quite wealthy, and quite white. Unlike the Appalachian districts above, these places vote substantially Democratic. Neither Mr. McCain nor former President George W. Bush came within single-digits in any of these districts (I suspect 1988 was the last time a Republican presidential candidate did so). Yet this is also Scott Brown territory; the Republican candidate won four of these districts.

Notice, too, the highlighted New York district (NY-9). Like those in Massachusetts, this district is inhabited mainly by middle-class, Democratic-voting whites. The effect of 9/11, which convinced many New Yorkers to vote Republican, was particularly strong in places like these (in fact, it was probably greater here than anywhere else in the nation). Orthodox Jews, an increasingly Republican demographic heavily represented in this district, have shifted strongly Republican since then.

Indeed, Long Island as a whole was relatively lukewarm towards Obama. Apart from the fighting ninth, Republicans did respectably in NY-3 and NY-5, holding Obama’s improvement to less than 1% in both districts. Like NY-9, these places are wealthy and suburban.

One wonders whether this change is merely a temporary blip or the start of something more worrisome for Democrats. The case of Florida is probably not reassuring:

This is Florida’s Gold Coast – a Democratic stronghold – and three districts here (FL-19, FL-20, FL-22) voted more Republican than in 2004. Mr. McCain’s age probably helped him along here; the large population of retirees may have empathized with one of their own.

Ironically, a large number of these retirees probably came from NY-9 or eastern Massachusetts. Like both areas, these districts vote Democratic but have been slowly moving Republican. FL-22 is the exception, having been not very Democratic to begin with. In FL-19 and FL-20, on the other hand, Democratic candidate Al Gore did substantially better than both Obama and Kerry. This was a function of the substantial Jewish population in these districts; Jews strongly supported Joe Lieberman, his Jewish nominee for Vice President.

Fortunately for Democrats, almost none of the Florida or northeast districts represent a 2010 pick-up opportunity for Republicans. Except for FL-22, all have voted Democratic by double-digits for at least three consecutive presidential elections. A few weeks ago a special election in FL-19 resulted in a 27% Democratic margin victory. It is the long-term that is worth concern for Democrats.

In the short term, Democrats must worry about Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta. There Democrats are in deep, deep trouble for 2010. There are a surprising amount of Democratic representatives in these Appalachian seats where Mr. McCain did better than Mr. Bush. Their predicament will be the subject of the next post.

I found the e-mail quite interesting and informative, especially in its familiarity with Jewish voting dynamics. The text of it is below:

Thank you very much for your openleft diary on Florida as a swing state.  As someone who worked on staff for the Obama Campaign in Broward County, I found much of your analysis to be spot on and thank you for sharing it with the netroots community.

However, I take serious, serious issue with one aspect of your diary:

A final note. In 2000, Al Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman, a Jewish-American, as his running mate. In large part due to this, he performed extraordinarily well in Palm Beach and Broward; Lieberman’s presence ensured unusually high Jewish support. In fact, Gore did better than Obama in the two counties, despite Obama’s far stronger national performance.

You have zero proof for this fact.  I worked in heavily Jewish areas (whose residents, by in large, despise Lieberman now and who told me they weren’t too big of a fan of his conservative views even when he was running for VP), and found no evidence to support your assertion.  Indeed, Barack Obama OUTPERFORMED Jewish Congressman Robert Wexler in the heavily Jewish precincts of Tamarac, FL, as you can see from the Broward SOE’s site.  Gore-Lieberman was 67.42% of the vote in Broward, to Obama’s 60.02%.  Jews nationally voted almost identically in 2008 to 2000- indeed even the NATIONAL (I repeat national, because they are not poll results from Broward County and Jews vote differently in different parts of the country and according to their age groups, amongst other factors) poll numbers you posted were so similar as to be likely within the margin of error.  As you pointed out, a more likely factor explaining the .4% difference between Obama’s margin and Gore’s could be the DECREASE in the Jewish population in the county rather than any Lieberman push.  As you correctly noted, Broward County’s Jewish population has gone down in the past 8 years relative to the general population.  Since Jews are such a huge source of Democratic votes, their decrease may very well explain Gore’s marginally better percentage.

In any case, I point these facts out only to hold you, as a blogger, accountable for providing facts rather than repeating conventional wisdom.  I myself was surprised to see just how negatively the Jews I met in South Florida viewed Joe Lieberman.  Of course, Lieberman himself has changed over the years, but I by in large met Jews who were much, much more progressive than him and the Democratic Party as a whole.  The Jews I met favored socialized medicine (in their own words) and universal free education, as well as leaving Iraq immediately.  I found many of the media stereotypes of elderly Jews in Florida (including Sara Silverman) to be misleading and unfair.  I had to confront my own stereotypes as well as a result.

I hope you would post some of these counter arguments, statistics, and facts (I encourage you to go to the Broward SOE’s website, there are some fascinating pieces of data such as the Wexler-Obama one I looked up) on your blog to make sure the full story is told.

Thank you again for your time and for bringing attention to an important swing state’s demographics and electoral patterns as we gear up for another election!