Is Florida really trending Democratic?

[Vosem]

Different communities in the state are trending in different directions, canceling each other out. The Democratic trends seem more sustainable to my eyes, but if a Democratic trend is going to launch soon it hasn't quite begun yet. There was a slight Republican trend, but this was mostly caused by the massive Democratic swing and increased turnout in California -- the state finished counting during the first week after the election, at which time it "trended" Democratic; more counting from California flipped the state, and a bunch of others, to trends Republican. California moved, not Florida.

If the Midwest does start to slip into leans- and likely- Republican territory, with IA and OH mostly leaving the playing field and formerly blue states like MN/WI/MI/PA entering it, Democrats need to lock up Florida, at least making it tilts-blue, or they'll be in the unenviable position of needing to sweep swing states to pull out a victory (much like Mitt Romney was in 2012).

Part of the Democrats' problem is that the FL Dems are just ludicrously incompetent and are skilled at recruiting the worst candidates to run for statewide office. Over the past ten years, Jim Davis, Kendrick Meek, Alex Sink, Charlie Crist, and Patrick Murphy have all thrown away winnable races. FL Dems need to get better at their candidate recruitment.