President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are locked in a fight for seven swing states that appear to be in control of who will be the next president. But outside the Rust Belt and Sun Belt contests that have dominated everyone’s attention, Republicans and Democrats are both putting states no one expects to be competitive on their November wish list. The Washington Examiner looked at four contests where the parties are looking to flip the script and steal a win where no one expected they could.
The Sunshine State has moved solidly toward Republicans in recent years after traditionally being considered a battleground state — but some Democrats think President Joe Biden could stage an upset in Florida in November.
Former President Donald Trump calls Palm Beach, Florida, home, but Biden and Democrats are hoping to crash the party with several key issues, central among them being abortion. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have made visits to the Sunshine State, while the campaign appointed its state leadership team in March, followed by its first field office in Hillsborough County in April — a sign they are bullish on their chances in Florida.
“Donald Trump may think he can take Florida for granted,” Harris said at an event on abortion policy in Florida in May. “It is your power that will send Joe Biden and me back to the White House.”
When asked about the president’s hopes for flipping Florida blue, the Biden campaign pointed the Washington Examiner to a memo from April, in which campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez spelled out how there is an opening for the president to win Florida’s 30 electoral votes in November.
“Our agenda, our coalition, and the unique dynamics this election presents make it clear: President Biden is in a stronger position to win Florida this cycle than he was in 2020,” Chavez Rodriguez said in the memo.
“Make no mistake: Florida is not an easy state to win, but it is a winnable one for President Biden, especially given Trump’s weak, cash-strapped campaign, and serious vulnerabilities within his coalition,” she added.
Some of the policy positions the campaign touts as being appealing to Floridians include healthcare policy, pointing to Obama-era Affordable Care Act, protecting Social Security and Medicare from alterations, pushing gun-control laws, and investments spearheaded by the Biden administration — including the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
The campaign also alleges that the Trump and Republicans “have made Florida the blueprint for their toxic and losing agenda,” pointing to education policy, including book challenges in schools, and gun policy, pointing to the permitless concealed carry law passed last year.
Running on abortion again
More than any other issue, the Biden camp is trying to run the Democrats’ playbook from 2022 and hammer home their position on abortion compared to Trump and Republicans.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed a law last April that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest, human trafficking, or to save the life of the mother. The Biden campaign argues that “Florida Republicans will be forced to defend their cruel, indefensible support of this abortion ban.”
Abortion was not a leading factor in the 2020 election, with only 2% of Florida voters saying it was the most important issue facing the country, according to the AP Votecast.
Abortion has been a winning issue for Democrats in several races since the Dobbs decision, and has mostly been a losing issue for the GOP. A Florida Atlantic University-Mainstreet Research poll from April shows 13% of voters said abortion is the most important issue for them in November, while a CBS News-YouGov poll from May shows 53% said abortion would be a “major factor” in deciding their vote for president.
Trump has taken a softer line than Florida’s law would suggest, arguing it should be decided state-by-state rather than federally.
Alongside the presidential election, Floridians will vote on Ballot Measure 4, which would block the state from creating laws that would “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.”
Proponents of the initiative argue it would enshrine abortion rights, while opponents of the measure have argued the exceptions are too vague and could open the door for abortion without limits.
Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried told reporters prior to the enactment of Florida’s six-week abortion ban on May 1, that voters would hold Republicans accountable for abortion restrictions.
“We know we got into this moment because Donald Trump stacked the court, and they overturned Roe v. Wade, and from there, Ron DeSantis passed a 15-week abortion ban and then a six-week abortion ban,” Fried said.
“Rick Scott has said that he would have signed the six-week abortion ban, and every Republican legislator who voted for it is going to be held accountable, and every single Democrat that is running in this election cycle — from our school board members all the way up to our U.S. Senate races — are going to make sure that we are holding every single Republican accountable for the moment that they have just put us in,” she added.
Democrats have the blues
While Fried is optimistic about voters turning on Republicans in the Sunshine State in November, there are several factors worked against the blue crusade.
Fried is the last Democrat to win a statewide election in Florida, when she was elected Commissioner of Agriculture in 2018. She was also only one of three Democrats who have won statewide office in Florida since 2002, with the others being former State Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink (2006) and former Sen. Bill Nelson (2006 and 2012).
Former President Barack Obama was the last Democrat to win the state, having done so both in 2008 and 2012. Obama prevailed by 74,309 votes over Republican Mitt Romney in 2012 and by 236,450 votes over Republican John McCain in 2008.
Trump has won the Sunshine State in both general elections he has competed in — defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 112,911 votes in 2016 and beat Biden by 371,686 votes in 2020. It has also been his home state since 2019.
In the most recent statewide races in 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) won reelection by nearly 20%, while the worst performing statewide Republican was Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who won his reelection bid by roughly than 16.4% — or 1,273,325 votes.
Where have all the voters gone?
Another obstacle facing Democrats is a previous advantage that has dissipated in several states but has been most pronounced in Florida: registered voters.
When Obama won Florida for the second time in November 2012, Democrats held a 557,544 advantage in voter registration over the GOP, but by November 2020 that advantage had shrunk to 106,986 lead for Democrats. As of data from March 31, 2024, Republicans now hold a 892,034 advantage over Democrats in voter registration.
A CBS News-YouGov poll released in May shows Trump comfortably leading Biden, 54%-45%, among likely voters in the Sunshine State — but it also shows strong support for the abortion ballot measure, with 60% saying they would support it in November.
Recent swing-state polling has shown voters are ready and willing to split their tickets. While Trump boasts impressive leads over Biden in pivotal states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, down-ballot contests for the Senate show Democrats boasting equally commanding leads over their GOP challengers.
Those ballot-splitting tendencies could crop up again in Florida if voters are unhappy with the way Republicans are handling abortion at home and in Washington.
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But Biden and the Democrats appear confident they can pull out a victory similar to the one they did with Measure 1 in Ohio — a state once considered a bellwether that has shifted decidedly to the right — in 2023.
Although polling on the abortion measure could create a vulnerability, when asked by the Washington Examiner about Democrats’ hopes to flip Florida, Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt put it bluntly: “Florida is Trump Country.”
