ORLANDO, Florida — In the biggest Electoral College swing state, the communities surrounding roller coasters and waterslides could decide whether President Trump or Joe Biden wins the presidency.
Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said that when taking a regional approach to looking at Florida, “Central Florida is still the most important.”
“We are the swing region of the swing state,” Jewett, the co-author of Politics in Florida, told the Washington Examiner.
The Trump campaign in a recent press call asserted that the president does not need to win Florida and its 29 Electoral College votes in order to win reach the winning number of 270. But campaign manager Bill Stepien quickly cut in, saying that even though Trump can win without Florida, the campaign is confident that Trump will win the state.
Stepien’s quick assurance that Trump would win Florida could have been a sly hint of recognition that his chances of winning are slim without the Sunshine State, because the demographic trends that will decide the election there will likely reflect those trends in other battlegrounds.
In other words: If Trump loses Florida, he’s probably losing the election.
Florida has long been a swing state, having gone toward Democrats three times and Republicans three times in the last six elections. Trump won 48.6% to Hillary Clinton’s 47.4%.
Unlike the northern part of Florida, which is generally Republican, and the southern part of Florida, which typically votes Democratic, the central region of the state is less predictable and uniform. It contains a number of demographic groups that both candidates are vying for this year: Hispanic and Latino voters, suburban women voters, and older white voters.
Trump in 2016 won the northern suburban counties that surround Orlando’s Democratic-leaning Orange Country. But cracks are emerging in his coalition there.
In longtime Republican-leaning suburban Seminole County, which Trump narrowly won 48.1% to 46.6% in 2016, has experienced growth in experiencing population growth of younger, more diverse voters in their 20s and 30s. Meanwhile, college-educated white voters in the area are turning away from Trump.
The result: Seminole County voted in favor of both Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum in 2018, both of whom lost their elections that year.
Even as Trump won Seminole County in 2016, Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy unseated the incumbent Republican Rep. John Mica that year.
A bit further outside of Orlando is The Villages, “which has been one of the fastest-growing 55-and-older communities in the country,” Jewett said.
“They were a big part of Trump’s election base last time around. And if they turn out in big numbers for him again, that obviously will help him get reelection. But there are some signs that maybe it won’t be,” he said.
A September Washington Post / ABC News poll found that likely voters aged 65 and older in Florida, 52% said that they supported Trump, and 44% said that they supported Biden. That’s a slight decline for Trump compared to when 2016 exit polls found that he won 57% of older voters and Clinton won 40%.
Trump’s relative strength with Hispanic and Latino voters, though, could help offset his losses among key groups of white voters. One such subgroup is the rise in Puerto Rican residents who left the economically challenged island.
While Puerto Ricans lean Democratic, “there’s a significant number of Puerto Ricans that are persuadable,” Jewett said. Trump’s arguments on the economy could keep Biden from capturing a sizable enough percentage of Latino and Hispanic voters to decide the state.
