Last week, I did a piece discussing how badly Democratic fortunes have faded in the counties directly impacted by Hurricane Idalia. But today, let’s look at the flip side, though it doesn’t completely offset the lost votes in small and medium sized counties for Democrats, it does cut into the lost votes. Specifically, the Orlando metro area.
In 1996, the GOP held every non-minority access House seat in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties save two that were represented by Conservative Democrats who case the deciding votes to make Daniel Webster, the first GOP Speaker since reconstruction. Today those seats are split fairly evenly between the parties, despite the Democrats have TWENTY FOUR less seats overall in the 120-seat House than they did in 1997.
In 1996, President Clinton lost Orange County despite winning statewide by close to six points. In 2020, Joe Biden carried Orange County by 23 points which was down from 2016 (the trend of Latino voters towards the GOP hurt here but was partially offset by increased youth turnout particularly in precincts close to UCF) but still a 24 point swing from 1996. This was despite Biden losing the state.
Between 1980 and 1996, no Democrat running for President cleared 40% in Seminole County, but in 2020 as suburban voters nationally continued realigning, Biden carried Seminole outright – becoming the first Democrat since Harry Truman to win the county and the first since FDR to actually win a majority of the counties votes.
The reason the trade in Florida isn’t offsetting the bleed in rural and exurban areas is due to Latino votes and the lack of traditional suburbs in Florida outside of Broward County and the Orlando area. In fact, the Orlando area is the only urban area in the state that resembles urban areas outside Florida in terms of cultural attitudes, demographic shifts, low-wage workers being unionized etc. The Tampa Bay area in particular is unique among US metros and Miami/Fort Lauderdale as well as Jacksonville are also different, though I do sense opportunities for the Democrats in the later soon developing. More on that in the future…
The Florida Squeeze 
Agree though as an Orlando partisan I have tended to place the emphasis on minority voters (the “Black and Brown coalition”). Non-Hispanic Whites are now a slight minority in Orange County. But other changes since the 1990s are:
1. The Closure of the Orlando Naval Training Center
2. Change in Ownership of the Orlando Sentinel
3. Diversity at UCF and higher proportion of people with degrees
When Orlando had a military base and its only daily newspaper, the Orlando Sentinel was ultra conservative Orlando had a very conservative vibe. Vulture capitalists took over the Orlando Sentinel and they were more concerned about real estate deals and hollowing out the paper and less concerned about the editorial positions while the staff was radicalized (and unionized) by the experience. When Nixon was in his final days, UCF was considered a “safe” (conservative) campus. For much of its history UCF was a commuter college with local residents and a relative educational backwater. With UCF’s massive expansion to 70,000 the student base has greater diverisity in both in-state and foreign students which gives it a much different vibe, much more cosomopolitan. UCF has a large impact on Seminole County because it is located near the Seminole County line, so there is an overflow of professors and students into Seminole County.
One other demographic component is that Disney’s enormous workforce included clean cut, theatrical people who were good at cosplay, thus inevitably a significant LGBTQ population.
In my personal opinion, Doug Head played a major role in rebuilding the old Dixiecrat party into a modern Democraic party. Doug built the coalition which was like planting trees, it has taken decades for the coalitions to grow and become the dominant party.
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Great analysis Jim!
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