Florida results

[Axel Foley]

Basing my thoughts merely on maths:

_Clinton improved Obama's margin in counties he won in 2012 by 175,670 , despite losing Pinellas-St.Lucie-Monroe-Jefferson
_Trump improved Romney's margin in counties Mitt won in 2012 by over 362k

Changes in Romney vs Trump winning counties weren't so much substantial in the Panhandle( Trump gained very few there respect to Mitt), but they were so in counties like Polk, Pasco, Hernando, Volusia, Brevard( all located in or around I-4), and in the area going from Fort Myers to Sarasota in FL SW Coast( Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, Manatee)...in the days just prior Election, I read some pieces even talking about how Dems were going to flip historically Republican Polk County in I-4, which actually Trump ended up winning by a double margin respect to Romney's...I was surprised to see that demographically these aren't counties overwhelmingly white, so I'm even more upset that Trump gained there the votes he needed to win Florida...what did happen there?

I'm asking this because Florida shocked me a lot, I thought with Latinos and apparent EV margin it was a done deal for Clinton.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Look at the Florida primary. Trump was an extremely popular figure throughout the state. Here was the map I came up with from the Trump v. Clinton primary vote (remember, primary was closed):


Trump's biggest improvement over Romney in terms of total vote margin in the general election was WWC-heavy Pasco County.

Trump still got slightly fewer votes than HRC during the primary, but that was only due to DINOs unable to vote for him.

[Fuzzy Says: "Abolish NPR!"]

It's not clear who the 3rd party voters were.  Were the Johnson voters #NeverTrumpers or folks who didn't like Hillary and were social libertarians?

[eric82oslo]

I'm asking this because Florida shocked me a lot, I thought with Latinos and apparent EV margin it was a done deal for Clinton.

Agreed. Definitely the biggest shock of all states. By very far. Imagining that Texas is shifting strongly Democratic, while at the same time Florida of all states is trending Republican, is in itself a very weird thing/thought, which most people would probably argue would be close to 100% impossible lol. Especially since due to Hillary's high age and extremely long experience in public service, Florida was seen as perhaps her single strongest state early on, only beaten by her "home" state New York. Especially in the primary fight against Obama in 2008 this was indeed extremely obvious. Obama didn't even stand a chance in the state, even though he did amazingly well almost everywhere else.

[catographer]

Florida's 2016 results should remind everyone that Florida is still a southern state in many ways. At some point the Democrats will max out of Hispanic and college-educated areas. Pinellas county is a good example of a place where conventional wisdom would've said Clinton would win cuz it was suburban/urban, but in reality it's very working class.

My surprise was Virginia Beach, Virginia. How'd Trump win that???

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Seems like Trump did a lot better than Romney among "ethnic" whites (e.g., Italians, Eastern Euro, Catholics).  Republicans already maxed out votes among white southern evangelicals... so there was no room for improvement in Texas and the panhandle.. there was room for improvement in those more ethnically diverse counties.  But I think Trump maxed out the white vote both in terms of percentage and turnout.  This isn't a winning long term strategy for Republicans.  They seriously need to figure out how to appeal to non-white voters fast.

-Except Donald Trump improved over Romney both in rural Texas and the rural panhandle. I was kind of surprised by that myself.

Rudy Giuliani may have maxed out the White vote in the 2001 mayoral race. DJT may have maxed out the White vote in Mississippi. Other than that, there's no GOP maxing out of the White vote anywhere in the country.

Again, HRC's coalition is majority non-Hispanic White. If Trump was to pick up a random Democrat, she would most likely be White. There is as of yet zero need for Republicans to do any minority outreach at all. Rather, a posture of immigration restriction and steep taxes on out-of-wedlock births are called for.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Florida's 2016 results should remind everyone that Florida is still a southern state in many ways. At some point the Democrats will max out of Hispanic and college-educated areas. Pinellas county is a good example of a place where conventional wisdom would've said Clinton would win cuz it was suburban/urban, but in reality it's very working class.

My surprise was Virginia Beach, Virginia. How'd Trump win that???

-Virginia beach went for Trump in the primary. It swung, but did not trend, towards Trump.

[Donerail]

and in the area going from Fort Myers to Sarasota in FL SW Coast( Lee, Charlotte, Sarasota, Manatee)...

I'm pulling this out because there was not a substantial difference in the SWFL vote this cycle. Trump's total out of those areas was only around 40k over Romney's. They turned out in massive numbers for the GOP nominee, but they always do that.

-Except Donald Trump improved over Romney in the rural panhandle. I was kind of surprised by that myself.

Marginally, and by relatively unimportant numbers (in real numbers he got maybe 40k more votes). Clinton did better in Duval than any Dem since '76, which is what really matters in the region. I-10 did its job—the loss came from other parts of the state.

Seems like Trump did a lot better than Romney among "ethnic" whites (e.g., Italians, Eastern Euro, Catholics).

There is very little "ethnic" identity that exists among Floridians. This is not a useful way to distinguish among different groups of voters.

in the days just prior Election, I read some pieces even talking about how Dems were going to flip historically Republican Polk County in I-4, which actually Trump ended up winning by a double margin respect to Romney's

Talk about Clinton winning Imperial Polk was based largely on the early vote, all of which pointed to a Clinton win statewide. She had a 10-point edge in Hillsborough, the lead in Duval, and had banked 100K out of Orange and 200K out of both Broward and Dade. All the signs out of early voting suggested she'd win, and Trump was only able to win through a massive turnout on Election Day.

I was surprised to see that demographically these aren't counties overwhelmingly white, so I'm even more upset that Trump gained there the votes he needed to win Florida...what did happen there?

The loss happened specifically in suburban/exurban I-4—Schale did the numbers, and by pulling out the big urban counties in I-4 (Hills/Pinellas in the Bay, Orange/Osceola/Seminole in Orlando) Trump improved on Romney by around 230K there. Those counties are all less diverse than the state, and almost all had turnout well above 2012 levels. I'll put it up to increased turnout among infrequent white voters that wouldn't be captured by turnout models.

Florida's 2016 results should remind everyone that Florida is still a southern state in many ways. At some point the Democrats will max out of Hispanic and college-educated areas. Pinellas county is a good example of a place where conventional wisdom would've said Clinton would win cuz it was suburban/urban, but in reality it's very working class.

I wouldn't describe Pinellas as "very working class." It's just a county that's always been close in both party registration and election results—it was the first place Republicans made significant victories in the state following Reconstruction. Save for Gore in 2000 (and that's debatable) it's gone with the statewide winner in every Presidential election since 1980. As for culture, it's more Midwestern than Southern.