Miami Dade Resurgence
from Daily Kos, by Kos
Check out the numbers in Miami-Dade this year alone, from January to August:
January 1, 2008:
Total Dem Rep
White 263,649 119,026 85,021
Black 217,371 178,878 9,278
Hispanic 535,188 138,622 252,896
Total 1,083,720 459,370 360,458
August 1, 2008 (PDF):
Total Dem Rep
White 271,244 123,603 86,406
Black 239,486 200,666 9,358
Hispanic 581,069 164,529 260,222
Total 1,169,252 515,545 369,771
Of 85,532 new registered voters in the south Florida county, 56,175 were Democrats, only 9,313 were Republican. That is, 66 percent of new registration were Democratic, only 11 percent were Republican (the rest were third party and "no party affiliation").
Even more incredible is the shift in the Latino voter away from the GOP. Of the 45,881 new Hispanic voters, only 7,236, or 16 percent, registered Republican. 25,907, or 56 percent, registered Democratic. The ranks of registered African American has grown by over 10 percent. And sure, Republicans picked up 80 of them, but another 22,035 of them slotted in with the Democrats.
Want to see how far Democrats have come? Let's go back to January 2000:
Total Dem Rep
White 269,642 133,719 92,191
Black 160,934 139,114 6,921
Hispanic 354,009 86,682 203,403
Total 811,599 370,404 309,915
In 2000, Democrats had a roughly 60,000-vote advantage in the region. Today, it's 146,000. In 2000, 57 percent of Latinos (mostly Cuban Americans) registered Republican, while only 24 percent registered Democratic. That gap has closed significantly today, to 48 percent Republican, 28 percent Democratic. I'd bet quite a bit that the swelling ranks of Latino "no party affiliation" are full of closeted Democrats too ashamed to tell their hard-core Republican parents of their true party sympathies.
This obviously has huge repercussions in several races this fall. At the top of the ticket, Obama will obviously benefit from the increased Democratic performance in the region, and his continued voter registration efforts in Miami-Dade are epic. The campaign plans to squeeze out every last Democrat possible. But lower on the ballot, these numbers have benefits to our three South Florida Democratic challengers in FL-18, FL-21, and FL-25. None of these districts reside entirely within the boundaries of Miami-Dade, but the bulk of their voters do live in that county. Let's see how those district have changed from January 2008 to August 2008 (PDF):
In FL-18, O2B Democrat Annette Taddeo is taking on Illeana Ros-Lehtinen in an R+4.3 district (Bush won it 54-46 in 2004):
Jan Aug
Republican 107,295 109,562
Democrat 89,289 102,433
Total R+18,006 R+7,129
In FL-21, Democrat Raul Martinez is taking on Lincoln Diaz-Balart in the toughest district of the lot -- R+6.2 (Bush won it 57-43 in 2004).
Jan Aug
Republican 107,536 110,278
Democrat 76,491 85,635
Total R+31,045 R+24,643
And in FL-25, O2B Democrat Joe Garcia is taking on Mario Diaz-Balart in a R+4.4 district (Bush won it 56-44 in 2004).
Jan Aug
Republican 110,925 114,048
Democrat 97,577 110,424
Total R+13,348 R+3,624
In a series of elections were every vote will count, the GOP's rapidly eroding voter registration numbers are a telling harbinger of what's to come. All three of these House elections will be close, as will Florida's presidential contest. Every voter registration gets us one step closer to victories that would be game-changing, truly epic.
On the web:
Orange to Blue ActBlue page
Annette Taddeo for Congress
Raul Martinez for Congress
Joe Garcia for Congress