 | |
| Number of elections | 43 |
|---|---|
| Voted Democratic | 25 |
| Voted Republican | 17 |
| Voted Whig | 1 |
| Voted other | 0 |
| Voted for winning candidate | 31 |
| Voted for losing candidate | 12 |
| Elections in Florida |
|---|
 |
 Government |
Florida is a state in the South Atlantic region of the United States.[1] Since its admission to the Union in March 1845, it has participated in 43 United States presidential elections. Florida participated in the presidential election for the first time in 1848. In this election, the Whig Party won Florida's three electoral votes with 57.20% of the vote, the only time the Whig Party won in Florida.[2] In the realigning 1860 election, Florida was one of the ten slave states that did not provide ballot access to the Republican nominee, Abraham Lincoln.[3] In the 1860 presidential election, John C. Breckinridge emerged victorious in Florida, winning 62.23% of the vote.[4] Shortly after this election, Florida seceded from the Union and became a part of the Confederacy.[5] Due to the secession, Florida did not participate in the 1864 presidential election.[6] With the end of the Civil War, Florida rejoined the Union and participated in the 1868 presidential election. The 1868 election was the sole presidential contest in Florida not decided by popular vote, but instead by the state legislature.[7] Florida voted for the Republican nominee in all three presidential elections during the Reconstruction era.[8][9]
Shortly after the Reconstruction era, white Democrats regained control of the Florida legislature. In 1885, they created a new constitution, followed by statutes through 1889 that disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites.[10][11] From the end of the Reconstruction era until the 1952 presidential election, the Republican Party only won Florida once, in the 1928 presidential election. According to historian Herbert J. Doherty, Republican victory in that election was mainly due to the fact that its Democratic opponent Al Smith was a Catholic and opposed to Prohibition, which caused many members of the Southern Baptist Convention to switch to the Republican Party.[12]
From 1948 to 1952, the emergence of the Pinellas Republican Party attracted a lot of voters.[13] Since the presidential election in 1952, the Democrats have won Florida in only five presidential elections: 1964, 1976, 1996, 2008, and 2012. In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush led Al Gore by less than 2,000 votes on election day, but as the recount proceeded, the gap between the two sides continued to narrow.[14] In Bush v. Gore, the Bush campaign filed a lawsuit against Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the recounting of votes in certain counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court announced the halt of vote recounting.[15] After a lengthy judicial process, Bush eventually won Florida's electoral votes by a margin of only 537 votes out of almost six million cast (0.009%) and, as a result, became the president-elect.[16] However, the result sparked controversy.[17]
Florida was long a swing state, and furthermore, it had been seen as a bellwether in presidential elections since 1928 (only missed in 1960, 1992 and 2020).[18] However, with the Republican Party's performance in Florida far exceeding its national average in the 2022 midterm elections, many analysts believe that the state has transitioned from being a Republican-leaning swing state into a reliable red state, with Democratic-leaning trends in Hillsborough County, Orange County and Osceola County not being able to offset Republican gains in Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Palm Beach County [19][20]
- ^ "The South". Encyclopedia Britannica. June 30, 2021. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
- ^ "1848 Presidential General Election Results - Florida". U.S. Election Atlas. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
- ^ Burlingame, Michael (October 4, 2016). "Abraham Lincoln: Campaign and Elections". Miller Center. Archived from the original on November 21, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
- ^ Guide to U.S. Elections 2010, p. 764.
- ^ "Museum of Florida History". Museum of Florida History. Retrieved February 19, 2023.
- ^ Guide to U.S. Elections 2010, p. 765.
- ^ "The Returns". The Carson Daily Appeal. November 6, 1868. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
- ^ Guide to U.S. Elections 2010, p. 767.
- ^ Guide to U.S. Elections 2010, p. 768.
- ^ Nancy A. Hewitt (2001). Southern Discomfort: Women's Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s–1920s. University of Illinois Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-252-02682-9. Archived from the original on February 4, 2021. Retrieved May 13, 2018.
- ^ Benson, Lee; et al. (1978). The History of American Electoral Behavior. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 210. JSTOR j.ctt13x10rd. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
- ^ Doherty, Herbert J. (1947). "Florida and the Presidential Election of 1928". The Florida Historical Quarterly. 26 (2): 174–186. ISSN 0015-4113. JSTOR 30138645. Retrieved April 23, 2023.
- ^ "A quick history of Florida's presidential politics, from Whigs to wigged out". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
- ^ "CNN.com - Bush leads Gore by 327 votes in Florida recount, Associated Press reports - November 10, 2000". CNN. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
- ^ Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, 103 (2000)
- ^ "2000 Presidential General Election Results". Federal Election Commission. Archived from the original on August 25, 2012. Retrieved October 2, 2019.
- ^ Wolter, Kirk; et al. (February 1, 2003). "Reliability of the Uncertified Ballots in the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida". The American Statistician. 57 (1): 1–14. doi:10.1198/0003130031144. ISSN 0003-1305. S2CID 120778921.
- ^ "Florida is the true US presidential election bellwether state". Al Jazeera. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
- ^ Friedersdorf, Conor (November 9, 2022). "Is Florida Still a Swing State?". The Atlantic. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
- ^ Breuninger, Kevin. "Florida no longer looks like a swing state after DeSantis, Rubio lead big Republican wins". CNBC. Retrieved February 21, 2023.
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