Democrats Have Slimmest Lead in Florida Voter Registration History as Republicans Dramatically Close Gap

Voter Registration (Justin Sullivan / Getty)
Justin Sullivan / Getty
Hannah Knudsen

Republicans dramatically reduced the voter registration gap in Florida, leaving Democrats with the slimmest lead in state history, according to data from the state Division of Elections.

Data shows Democrats reporting 5,303,254 active registered voters to the Republicans’ 5,169,012 — a 134,242 voter lead.

Republicans have narrowed the gap over the years, adding 301,479 voters to the Democrats’ 227,900 voters since 2018. Since 2016, Republicans have added 444,922 voters to the Democrats’ 298,090.

As Politico reported, Democrats’ voter registration advantage in Florida stood at 535,987 in 2012 and 327,428 in 2016. Former President Barack Obama won Florida in 2012 by just fewer than 73,200 votes. President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Florida four years later by 112,911 votes:

The GOP’s registration standing in the state could signal a further advantage for the president going into the election, which is less than three weeks away. Notably, 3,753,286 Florida voters are not registered with any party.

“We’re focusing on turning out the vote,” Democrat Party chair Terrie Rizzo said, stressing that this election is “going to be a turnout election.”

“And making it easy for people to turn out is the key,” Rizzo added, according to the Herald-Tribune.

Rizzo believes her party’s vote-by-mail effort will help Democrats achieve the goal of a higher voter turnout: “She said that get-out-the-vote efforts remain strong and Democrats hold a more than 700,000-voter edge over registered Republicans in requests for the roughly 5 million vote-by-mail ballots that began going out Thursday from election supervisors’ offices.”

“The Democrats are extremely energized and they’re signed up in large numbers,” she said. “Some of these vote-by-mail people are people who didn’t vote in 2016 or 2018. The vote-by-mail option increases turnout.”

A Trafalgar Group survey released this week showed Trump maintaining his slim lead in the Sunshine State, holding a 2.3 percent lead over Joe Biden (D) — a lead within the survey’s +/- 2.94 percent margin of error:

President Trump, who held a town hall in Miami Thursday evening, struck an optimistic tone on Friday, predicting a “Massive RED WAVE” on Election Day:

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