'Managing your margins': Is Florida Actually In Play?

Florida is the ultimate electoral prize. But is it fool's gold for Democrats?

As we enter the final two and a half months of what has been one of the most dramatic and unpredictable presidential races in American history the electoral map is starting to take shape. In the first month of the Harris-Walz campaign Democrats appear to be shoring up the Blue Wall (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) while putting a handful of traditional swing states that President Biden won in 2020 back into competitive play (Arizona, Nevada and Georgia). It even appears that North Carolina, a southern swing state that appeared to be moving away from Democrats, is competitive again. 

The unprecedented enthusiasm surrounding the first few weeks of the Harriz-Walz campaign has many Democrats wondering which other states might be in play in this upended race. A recent poll commissioned by the Political Communications and Public Opinion Research Labs at Florida Atlantic University shows Kamala Harris within the margin of error, leaving some Democrats salivating over the prospect of winning back the electoral college’s crown jewel. 

So, is Florida really in play? Can Harris-Walz do the unthinkable and go into Trump’s home state and steal Florida and its 30 electoral votes back for the first time since Barack Obama won the state by less than 1 percent in 2012? 

As with everything that involves the state of Florida, the answer is complicated. Despite several cycles of abysmal election results in the Sunshine States, Florida is still a swing state. Florida is no “redder” than Arizona or Georgia (both of which Biden won in 2020 and Harris has a great chance to win in November) but it is bigger, more expensive and far more complicated to navigate than any other state, even for the strongest of campaigns. 

In 2008, the Obama campaign showed Democrats the pathway to winning Florida. They repeated and won again in 2012. Since then the operation they built was allowed to wither by a state party asleep at the wheel and Democrats have suffered countless electoral shellackings. Building a winning campaign in Florida with more than a year to prepare is hard enough. But introducing yourself to the voters of the third most populous state and building a large scale field operation to corral a winning Democratic coalition in less then 100 days is unheard of. Let’s take a look at what it takes for a Democrat to win Florida and whether or not it’s realistic to expect Harris to execute such a strategy in the next 60-plus days. 

HOW DOES A DEMOCRAT WIN FLORIDA?

Republicans have always had natural advantages in Florida that make winning statewide elections, including presidential elections, easier for them. Republican voters are higher propensity voters, meaning they are far more likely to turn out to vote then Democratic base voters. For a Democrat to win statewide in Florida they must put together a broad coalition of voters from across a geographically large state and then make sure those voters get out to vote on or before election day. The groups that traditionally make up a winning Democratic coalition are historically more sporadic and lower propensity voters: young voters, black voters, teachers and non-Cuban Hispanics. This means Democrats start out behind even before the election begins.

In 2008, Barack Obama wrote the script for Democrats about how to win Florida. In concept, the strategy is quite simple: run up massive numbers in the “tri-county” Democratic strongholds of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties, win the “swingy-er” counties like Hillsborough, Pinellas, Orange and Duval, and then (and this is the most important part!) limit losses in the populous red counties like Sarasota, Polk, Pasco, Lee and Brevard (just to name a couple examples). Democrats won’t win those counties but, as we’ll see below, they cannot get blown out. 

Let’s take a closer look at Obama’s 2008 winning results and compare them to the next two Democratic nominees not named Barack Obama: 

As I said above, the first step to winning Florida is running up a massive margin in the Democratic strongholds in South Florida. The above chart paints two very different pictures. First let's look at what happened with Joe Biden in 2020. If you compare his results in 2020 to Obama’s margins in 2008 you can see how things went south for Biden very quickly, ultimately leading to a 3 point loss in the state. His margin in Miami-Dade was less than half of what Obama got in 2008 and he didn’t break +30% win margin in Broward, which likely spells doom for any Democrat. Falling behind in these three populous, liberal counties means you’ll need to find votes elsewhere in the state, which is much less friendly territory for Democrats. In 2020, Joe Biden failed the first part of our three part test. 

Hillary Clinton’s results in 2016 paint a very different picture. She actually outpaced Obama’s 2008 results in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. In Miami-Dade alone she received 124,000 more votes than Obama did and across the three counties she banked 178,000 more votes compared to 2008. Unlike Joe Biden in 2020, Hillary Clinton passed the first of the three part test. 

Now since this post is about whether Kamala Harris can actually win Florida in November, let’s see how she’s doing. There has been very little reliable polling out of Florida so far this cycle because few thought Florida would be competitive. But two recent polls, one showing Harris leading Trump by 14 points in Miami-Dade County and another that has Harris up 18 in Palm Beach County, caught my eye. If these polls are true, and I have every reason to believe it is because Christian Ulvert is an elite consultant who knows Florida better than anyone, then they’re certainly significant, but perhaps not sufficient. Put into the context of the other three races we’ve looked at and Harris appears to be competitive in the fist of our three tests: her Dade numbers are far outpacing Biden’s and running in line with Obama’s 2008 numbers and her current margin in Palm Beach is better the both Clinton and Biden. When you consider that the Harris campaign hasn’t held any events in Florida, isn’t up on the air in Florida and has no major infrastructure in Florida (compared to other battlegrounds like, say, Pennsylvania) these are impressive numbers. But again, alone it’s not sufficient. 

Moving on to the second part of our three part test, let’s look at a handful of toss up counties, like those in the famous “I-4 Corridor”. 

When you look at what happened in five of the largest swing counties in Central and North Florida things get tricker for Democrats. Remember, in 2016 Hillary Clinton outpaced Obama’s 2008 results in South Florida by 178,000. But across these five important swing counties, Hillary won them by a combined 32,000 less votes than Obama did in 2008 (Obama won these counties by a margin of 166,956 vs. 135,270 for Hillary eight years later). Hillary was very popular within the Democratic base but not as much (relative to Obama) with more moderate voters in purple counties. 

Joe Biden did fairly well in these more moderate counties and slightly outpaced Obama’s 2008 margin of victory. Biden won by a combined 8,418 more votes across these five counties than Obama did in 2008. But his margins weren’t wide enough to make up for his smaller then needed margins in South Florida (especially Dade County). 

The final piece of our three part test is the hardest but arguably the most important. This is the test that Democrats keep failing in statewide races in Florida. Florida has 67 counties spread across two time zones. Democrats traditionally lose the vast majority (Obama only won 15 of 67 counties in 2008) though many of those counties have very few voters. There are, however, a handful of red counties that have significant enough populations that make them important for Democrats to invest in, even though they won’t win those counties on election day. The work put into these counties helps protect the gains made in the above two discussions. Simply put, a Democrat cannot win Florida if they don’t limit their losses in these Republican counties. 

So far, the results for Obama, Clinton and Biden were similar enough, with some significant differences here and there. But this is where things start to diverge and competitive campaigns become winning campaigns or losing campaigns. It’s also the main reason I don’t think that Harris has enough time left in this campaign to make Florida truly competitive on election night. Let’s look at the numbers: 

The chart above shows the margin of loss for 5 of the most populous Republican counties. It also shows why Clinton ultimately lost Florida in 2016 and how Obama pulled off a stunning 3 point win in 2008. In 2016 Clinton did outstanding in the Democratic counties, decent in the swing counties and then got her doors blown off in the Republican counties. As you’ll see above, Obama never won a single of these counties but he managed his margins and limited his losses effectively. If you take Polk County, the most populous of the above, Obama lost by 15,000 votes. By comparison, Clinton lost by 40,000 and Biden lost by 50,000. And that’s only one county. If you give Republicans those types of margins across the 50 or so counties they usually win and things can get out of hand quickly. 

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR HARRIS?

The Obama playbook of running up the score and limiting losses isn’t a new one. It’s used in many battleground states. But it’s much easier said than done in Florida and it’s a very expensive and time consuming strategy to implement even in the best of times. I think the Vice President could do quite well in South Florida, even in the condensed timeframe this campaign is being run. But as we saw, that hasn’t been enough for Democratic candidates in the past.  Building an operation to engage voters in the swing and Republican counties at this point would be very hard and, frankly, would likely be a terrible investment when you consider how Harris is performing in the ever important “Blue Wall” states needed to win the election.

In 2008, the Obama campaign had offices with staff and volunteers working in nearly every county. By this point in the campaign they had been out knocking doors, making phone calls, registering voters, organizing students and seniors, engaging elected officials, and building a formidable ground game for many months. Harris didn’t have an opportunity to do the same and hiring staff, recruiting volunteers and opening offices takes a lot of time and a lot of resources– and time is not something the Harris campaign has a lot of at the moment. These resources would likely be pulled from another battleground state, say, Pennsylvania or Michigan or Georgia– all places Democrats have won recently and are critical to Democrats’ chances of winning the overall election. 

While I believe Florida is still a swing state the infrastructure advantages that Republicans currently have in the state are staggering. Since Obama’s win in 2008, Democrats have lost elected officials at the local level in many of these ever important Republican counties, county party operations are a shell of their former selves and Republicans have gained a million plus voter registration advantage. 

So then, back to our original question: Will Florida be competitive? I guess the answer is that  it depends on your definition of competitive. As someone who grew up in Florida, cut my teeth in Florida politics and follows the state closely, no, I don't think Harris can win Florida this late in the race. But that has less to say about how voters in Florida view her and more about the chaotic nature of this campaign cycle and the complete failure of a state party that allowed the operation that Obama built to atrophy. If Harris is elected she’ll have an opportunity to invest in rebuilding the Obama operation and position herself to be competitive in 2028. But asking any candidate, even one who seems hotter than the sun right now, to build a winning campaign in the most complex and expensive battleground state in the country is a very tall task. 

The good news for Kamala Harris fans is that her campaign seems to be running a very similar playbook to the one I described above in the ever important and highly competitive state of Georgia (and according to recent polls it’s working). Just last week Harris and Governor Walz did a two day bus tour through Southern Georgia, culminating with a rally in Savannah that had 9,000-plus people. This is the first time Democrats have visited rural Southern Georgia since Bill Clinton’s “Bubba for Bill” bus tour in 1992. It’s also a major acknowledgement by the campaign that they cannot sit back and rely on Atlanta and its suburbs to deliver enough votes to win the state. They must meet voters where they are, compete for every vote and limit their losses in Republican areas in a state that was decided by less than 12,000 votes in 2020. 

While winning Florida would be fun it’s far from necessary. Harris’s ultimate goal is to win the election, not any one state, and her strongest play may actually be to cut Florida loose. Biden won comfortably in 2020 while losing Florida by 3 points. Strengthening the blue wall, retaining two red seats picked up in 2020 and flipping North Carolina would be a historic accomplishment for a candidate in the race for only 100 days. Florida isn’t going to be competitive but it shouldn't be and doesn’t need to be.