I've NEVER seen this in my 34 years in Florida politics!

Florida's 1st Congressional District saw earth-shattering moves for the Democrats.

I’ve worked in Florida politics for over 33 years. Specifically, I’ve worked in numbers crunching. I’ve made the most accurate nowcast models of Florida (beating 538 in 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018). I know the state’s political geography like the back of my hand. But what happened yesterday in Florida’s 1st Congressional is something that I HAVE NEVER SEEN IN FLORIDA POLITICS!

Yes, Donald Trump took a victory lap because of the wins. But anyone with a higher IQ than a troglodyte saw that the numbers were significantly down compared to the general election just five short months ago. Randy Fine in Florida’s 3rd and Jimmy Patronis in the 1st were nearly 10% down on the 2024 totals. Still, people can make the argument that it was a special election and anything goes. I’ll give them that argument.

But what happened in Florida’s 1st Congressional District was ABSOLUTELY EARTH SHATTERING!

For the first time in my recollection, the number of votes that Jimmy Patronis received was LOWER than the number of registered Republicans that turned out to vote. This phenomenon has happened with Democrats in the panhandle where registered Democrats voted for Republicans (the old “Dixiecrats”, basically). But when it comes to Republicans switching over to the Democratic side…THIS IS HUGE.

As of right now, 171,021 votes were cast in the 1st Congressional District. And remember, all votes by mail need to be in when the polls close. Therefore, the total number of votes that will be cast in this election will be 171,552. Of those votes, 98,907 votes were cast by Republicans. As of this moment, Jimmy Patronis has won 97,335. This means that with the remaining votes left, Patronis WILL NOT surpass the number of Republicans who voted. Again, THIS IS HUGE!

Why is it huge? If we assume that every registered Democrat voted for the Democratic candidate, Gay Valimont, and EVERY non-party affiliated and minor party registered voter ALSO voted for Valimont, she would have received 72,645 votes. Currently, she is at 72,304 votes. That would essentially mean that Valimont swept the NPA/Other party vote.

However, that is unlikely the case. It’s more likely that a large number of NPA/Other party voters, as much a 70%, voted for Valimont. This means that she would have won nearly 8% of the registered Republicans voted for Valimont, and that is if all registered Democrats and 70% of registered NPA/Others voted for her as well. If the number is 65% NPA/Other, then we are looking, it would be more Republicans!

In my 33 years of Florida politics, I’ve never seen a inversion for the Republicans at ANY level! I’ve NEVER seen it at the Congressional level. And yes, this was a special election and turnout was lower. But when looking at this inversion, turnout doesn’t matter. The fact is that a lot more Republicans and Republican-leaning independents voted for the Democratic candidate, and by significant margins. That’s a major shift in voting behavior.

In Florida’s 6th Congressional District, the inversion didn’t happen, but it was close. Randy Fine, as of now, has received 110,764 votes. The total number of registered Republicans that voted was 104,246. That still means that a large number of the 31,953 NPA/Other voters that voted swung heavily toward Democratic candidate Josh Weil.

Again, I can’t stress this enough. I’ve never seen this happen on the Republican side. Is it because the Republicans had two controversial candidates? Possibly. But regardless, Matt Gaetz was controversial, and he never saw a vote inversion.

More analysis in the coming days!