Is Florida going to become a lean-D state between now and 2020?

[greenforest32]

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Read more at http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113833/gop-latino-problem-republicans-need-florida-hispanics

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Also consider what a Democratic governor can do between 2015-2020 with this:

Reminder that Rick Scott is a scumbag: http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17952-felon-disenfranchisement-the-new-jim-crow

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[barfbag]

I have yet to see presidential evidence for this. The last time Florida was center left was in 1948 and since then it has trended back and forth always being barely or leaning Republican. It's also a socially conservative state with a large portion of their legislature being Republican. Like most states, there will be governors from both parties.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

[Asian Nazi]

It'll lean D, if only barely, and only for Presidential elections.  I'd expect the GOP to still dominate FL at the state level though.

[barfbag]

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

But you would've been happy with their 25 electoral votes in 2000?

[ElectionsGuy]

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

What is so terrible about the sunbelt?

[Gass3268]

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

What is so terrible about the sunbelt?

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

But you would've been happy with their 25 electoral votes in 2000?

You guys obviously don't know Snowstalker, lol

[TDAS04]

Probably Option 3.

[Person Man]

Florida is too big and diverse to simple not be contested by either side. I can see either party throwing at least particular parts of its base under the bus to stay competitive there. Without Florida, Democrats have to otherwise do very well to have a snowball's chance. That being said, the median voter in Florida is probably a libertarian (who can't afford a new park or a .5c/d state sales tax increase but don't want a new round of crazy in terms of SCOTUS decisions and wars)  transplant from the Delaware River or Staten Island. They can be convinced to vote Democratic nationally, will probably always vote Republican on the local level.

[Enderman]

Depends on the candidate running (Rubio, Jebby Bush), other than that it's 50/50...

[barfbag]

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

What is so terrible about the sunbelt?

God, I hope not. The Sunbelt is terrible and I'd never want to be part of the party that's based in it.

But you would've been happy with their 25 electoral votes in 2000?

You guys obviously don't know Snowstalker, lol

Does he go off the deep end or is he just a fringe partisan?

[Non Swing Voter]

Florida is too big and diverse to simple not be contested by either side. I can see either party throwing at least particular parts of its base under the bus to stay competitive there. Without Florida, Democrats have to otherwise do very well to have a snowball's chance. That being said, the median voter in Florida is probably a libertarian (who can't afford a new park or a .5c/d state sales tax increase but don't want a new round of crazy in terms of SCOTUS decisions and wars)  transplant from the Delaware River or Staten Island. They can be convinced to vote Democratic nationally, will probably always vote Republican on the local level.

I don't understand this.  "Without Florida, Democrats have to otherwise do very well to have a snowball's chance."  Haven't the last two elections shown us that the inverse is true.  Democrats can easily win without Florida, but Republicans cannot possibly win without it...

New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, and New Hampshire are pretty much all lean democratic states at this point.  Meaning democrats can win with just the Kerry states + those. 

[barfbag]

Florida is too big and diverse to simple not be contested by either side. I can see either party throwing at least particular parts of its base under the bus to stay competitive there. Without Florida, Democrats have to otherwise do very well to have a snowball's chance. That being said, the median voter in Florida is probably a libertarian (who can't afford a new park or a .5c/d state sales tax increase but don't want a new round of crazy in terms of SCOTUS decisions and wars)  transplant from the Delaware River or Staten Island. They can be convinced to vote Democratic nationally, will probably always vote Republican on the local level.

I don't understand this.  "Without Florida, Democrats have to otherwise do very well to have a snowball's chance."  Haven't the last two elections shown us that the inverse is true.  Democrats can easily win without Florida, but Republicans cannot possibly win without it...

New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, and New Hampshire are pretty much all lean democratic states at this point.  Meaning democrats can win with just the Kerry states + those. 

I think the Democrats overrate their need for Florida because of 2000. It's always to the right of the popular vote.

[Sol]

Snowstalker is a rust-belt, laborish democrat, so he's not too fond of the Sunbelt.

[eric82oslo]

In my opinion, Florida will be a perfect bellwether in 2016 without Hillary on the ballot. With Hillary however, it will be lean Dem. In 2020 however, it will surely be a lean Dem already. Up until the 2000 election, Florida was trending hard towards Democrats. Then it took a hold and stayed where it was for the next 12 years. It's about high time that the intense demographic changes the state has gone through lately will cause the state to continue its past trend. Hispanics in the state have gone from voting overwhelmingly Republican (because of Cubans) to voting heavily Democratic (because of influx of non-Cuban Hispanics and younger Cubans without biases). By 2020 Florida will be 50/50, 50% white, 50% minorities. Republicans have done an extraordinary job by keeping the political status quo in the state for such a long period. Partly how they've managed this is by keeping their Jim Crow law regarding the disenfranchisement of past prisoners. As Florida is one of only 4 US states (the others being Virginia, Iowa & Kentucky) to completely withdraw the right to vote of prisoners for life, election results have been heavily rigged in favor of Republicans. This because reports show that more than 1 in 4 black men in Florida have been imprisoned sometime during their life. Blacks make up a very high percentage of Floridians, namely 15%, and increasing by a speed of 26% during the last decade. This disenfrancisement of past prisoners also heavily reduce the Hispanic vote. Charlie Christ made it a lot easier to restore voting rights for prisoners, but obviously Rick Scott, the new governor, had to reverse this new law. The same happened in Iowa, where the new Republican governor Branstad, overturned the enfranchisement law signed by Democratic governor Tom Vilsack. From Mother Jones: "According to PPI's data, a full 9 percent of Florida's voting-age population is disenfranchised because they have at one time been incarcerated. In Virginia, the figure is 6 percent." Two-thirds of the 2.6 million disenfranchised prisoners who have already completed their sentences but are barred from regaining their voting rights, live in either Florida or Virginia, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Thus, once the next Democratic governor of Florida restores the voting rights for former prisoners, expect the Democratic share of votes to increase by a point or two in elections.

From The New York Times: "The law has been on the books since 1868, when Florida gave blacks the right to vote as a condition of the state's being readmitted to the Union after the Civil War. A new State Constitution drafted that year expanded the number of crimes that required disenfranchisement, a change that critics say was meant to affect blacks disproportionately. They also charge that this discriminatory intent of the ban persists even though the provision was re-enacted in 1968 as part of a new Constitution."

From The Guardian: "Florida holds the dubious distinction of being the nation's capital for disenfranchisement. According to the Sentencing Project, the state has stripped more than 1.5 million people of the vote because of their criminal records – about one in 10 of all adult Floridians."

From Wikipedia: "Felon disenfranchisement laws disproportionately affect communities of color as "they are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and subsequently denied the right to vote". The presence of disenfranchised community members may affect social norms related to voting. Felony disenfranchisement has the potential to affect the outcomes of election. An analysis of recent election data revealed that at least seven senatorial elections and one presidential election [2000] would have been decided differently if convicted felons had retained suffrage."

Many countries around the world allow prisoners to vote btw, even as they're still imprisoned. From Wikipedia: "Many countries allow inmates to vote. Examples include Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, and Zimbabwe. In Germany, the law even calls on prisons to encourage prisoners to vote. Only those convicted of electoral fraud and crimes undermining the "democratic order", such as treason are barred from voting, while in prison. In Australia, where compulsory voting is practiced, the High Court of Australia in 2007 found that the Constitution enshrined a limited right to vote, which meant that citizens serving relatively short prison sentences cannot be barred from voting." The European Court on Human Rights ruled in 2005 that every prisioner has the right to vote. "By a 12-5 majority, the Court upheld voting is "a right and not a privilege" and should be available in almost all circumstances." Source: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/europe-court-rules-prisoners-should-be-let-vote-in-elections-25960539.html

Vermont and Maine are the only US states currently allowing prisioners still serving their sentences to vote from inside their prisons.



2 Swing States That Swing on Felon Disenfranchisement: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/swing-states-florida-virginia-felon-disenfranchisement

Felon voting laws to disenfranchise historic number of Americans in 2012: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/13/felon-voting-laws-disenfranchisement

Disenfranchised Florida Felons Struggle to Regain Their Rights:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/us/disenfranchised-florida-felons-struggle-to-regain-their-rights.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Advancement Project: http://www.advancementproject.org/issues/voting-rights-restoration

[greenforest32]

[long post and links about FL's felony disenfranchisement]

Yes, it really is quite shamelessly disgusting isn't it? Especially when you consider this and its underlying effect on the 2000 Presidential election.

And most every 2016 Republican contender is supportive or silent on the issue as they know they would be riding to the presidency on top of such blatant voter suppression. It's going to take a liberal majority Supreme Court to strike down such discriminatory felony disenfranchisement provisions.

Until then we're sure to hear the hollow Republican screeches of voter fraud as they fight to disenfranchise more, cut early voting, repeal same-day registration, and block automatic voter registration wherever possible.

[ElectionsGuy]

Snowstalker is a rust-belt, laborish democrat, so he's not too fond of the Sunbelt.

Ahh

[Gass3268]

If the Cuban vote continues to trend towards the Democrats, like they did in 2012 when Obama won that ethnic group, it will get harder for Republicans.   

[barfbag]

Snowstalker is a rust-belt, laborish democrat, so he's not too fond of the Sunbelt.

Ahh

That's a shame I thought we could all get along by now.

[greenforest32]

I'm really amazed how Rick Scott is getting away with this felon disenfranchisement thing.

I will give Virginia governor McDonnell credit: he has been reforming the Virginia process to grant more restorations unlike the Republican governors of Iowa and Florida. He supported amending the Virginia state constitution to allow automatic restoration processes like the aforementioned ones instituted by Tom Vilsack in Iowa and Charlie Crist in Florida that restored voting rights to tens of thousands of individuals annually but the Republican-controlled state house voted down the proposed amendment back in February of this year:

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^^ So against the backdrop of that amendment failing, yesterday McDonnell announced he would further streamline the restoration process in Virginia. He's restored the voting rights to about 5,000 people so far (~1,250/yr) and this new reform could increase that annual amount to 5,000-10,000/yr going forward, assuming the next Governor at least keeps the process in place. A good improvement but it would still take decades to restore the rights to the estimated 450,000 people disenfranchised in Virginia.

And now look at Rick Scott in comparison to above: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/rights-restoration-florida-ex-convicts_n_1904736.html

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Look at that. Be generous and boost Scott's numbers to 250 people per year for four years to get an equal time frame comparison. 154,000 restorations under Charlie Crist to 1,000 under Rick Scott!

Do the math. 1,000/154,000 = 0.65%, a drop of 99.35% over the same period. Unreal. At 250 people per year, it would take over 6,000 years to restore the voting rights to the estimated 1.54 million disenfranchised people in Florida.

[barfbag]

I'm really amazed how Rick Scott is getting away with this felon disenfranchisement thing.

I will give Virginia governor McDonnell credit: he has been reforming the Virginia process to grant more restorations unlike the Republican governors of Iowa and Florida. He supported amending the Virginia state constitution to allow automatic restoration processes like the aforementioned ones instituted by Tom Vilsack in Iowa and Charlie Crist in Florida that restored voting rights to tens of thousands of individuals annually but the Republican-controlled state house voted down the proposed amendment back in February of this year:

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^^ So against the backdrop of that amendment failing, yesterday McDonnell announced he would further streamline the restoration process in Virginia. He's restored the voting rights to about 5,000 people so far (~1,250/yr) and this new reform could increase that annual amount to 5,000-10,000/yr going forward, assuming the next Governor at least keeps the process in place. A good improvement but it would still take decades to restore the rights to the estimated 450,000 people disenfranchised in Virginia.

And now look at Rick Scott in comparison to above: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/rights-restoration-florida-ex-convicts_n_1904736.html

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Look at that. Be generous and boost Scott's numbers to 250 people per year for four years to get an equal time frame comparison. 154,000 restorations under Charlie Crist to 1,000 under Rick Scott!

Do the math. 1,000/154,000 = 0.65%, a drop of 99.35% over the same period. Unreal. At 250 people per year, it would take over 6,000 years to restore the voting rights to the estimated 1.54 million disenfranchised people in Florida.

This gives me an idea for another thread. I like your analysis.

[illegaloperation]

I am guessing that it will continue to be slightly Republican leaning, but it really depends on how well the Democratic nominee perform with the Cuban vote.

[Dereich]

I would say you have a much greater chance of getting Debbie Wassermann Schultz or Alan Grayson elected with bipartisan majorities for statewide office then getting felon disenfranchisement overturned. Even more than most other states, law and order politics has been a vote winner here. Promising to change it would create an instant attack ad or 10.

[eric82oslo]

I would say you have a much greater chance of getting Debbie Wassermann Schultz elected governor then overturning felon disenfranchisement. Even more than most other states, law and order politics has been a vote winner here.

I think we can imagine that after the Trayvon Martin debacle.

Just like the Trayvon Martin trial (or non-trial to begin with) was all about institutionalized racism and non about keeping law and order in place, the felony disenfranchisement is non about law and order either, yet all about century-old racist laws. It's remarkable though that 90% of US states have gotten ridden of such laws already (or didn't have them to begin with, or haven't yet deared to reintroduce them), so many of them - like Alabama - despite their heavily Republican majorities.

[barfbag]

I would say you have a much greater chance of getting Debbie Wassermann Schultz elected governor then overturning felon disenfranchisement. Even more than most other states, law and order politics has been a vote winner here.

I think we can imagine that after the Trayvon Martin debacle.

Just like the Trayvon Martin trial (or non-trial to begin with) was all about institutionalized racism and non about keeping law and order in place, the felony disenfranchisement is non about law and order either, yet all about century-old racist laws. It's remarkable though that 90% of US states have gotten ridden of such laws already (or didn't have them to begin with, or haven't yet deared to reintroduce them), so many of them - like Alabama - despite their heavily Republican majorities.

Laws were followed to the T and that's why Zimmerman got off. Otherwise, he would've got the death penalty for murder because he did murder Martin.