Back in August, we crunched the voter registration numbers in nine key Florida congressional districts, and found Democrats making big gains in all of them.
The Florida Division of Elections has just posted new numbers for each congressional district, and a quick glance confirms that the trend is continuing big time. Statewide, Democrats have added an additional 200,000 registered voters to their advantage over the GOP since July. But let’s take a look at the same nine districts that we looked at in August.
In the 2006 column, we have the GOP’s voter registration advantage in each district as of October 10th, 2006. In the next column, we have the numbers as of July 28 of this year, followed by the most recent numbers (October 8). Take a peek:
| District | Oct-06 | Jul-08 | Oct-08 |
|---|---|---|---|
| FL-08 | 14,388 | 2,113 | 9,243 |
| FL-18 | 23,202 | 8,456 | 1,730 |
| FL-25 | 21,818 | 7,857 | 3,364 |
| FL-21 | 28,146 | 14,999 | 10,543 |
| FL-24 | 32,310 | 23,263 | 14,333 |
| FL-16 | 31,228 | 21,201 | 16,286 |
| FL-15 | 31,509 | 22,153 | 16,569 |
| FL-09 | 33,956 | 28,614 | 24,952 |
| FL-13 | 62,230 | 55,542 | 51,933 |
Wow — for the first time, Democrats now have a partisan advantage in the 8th District, where Democrat Alan Grayson is taking on GOP crumb-bum Ric Keller. Keller is locked in the fight of his political life, and these numbers prove it.
While two of these districts are pretty much off the map in terms of realistic Democratic pick-up opportunities (the 9th CD and the open seat dud in the 15th), the other huge shift can be seen in South Florida, where Democrats are waging tough fights against the Diaz-Balart brothers (the 21st and 25th CDs) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the 18th District. For years, these districts were seen as Republican strongholds, but now, Democrats have chipped away significantly at the GOP’s edge.
Democrats have even made up a lot of ground in the 16th District; it’s just too bad that disgraced Rep. Tim Mahoney has squandered it all.
Full raw numbers for all of these districts are available below the fold.
October 8, 2008:
| Dem | GOP | |
|---|---|---|
| FL-08 | 176,483 | 167,240 |
| FL-09 | 171,398 | 196,350 |
| FL-13 | 167,843 | 219,776 |
| FL-15 | 183,100 | 199,669 |
| FL-16 | 189,220 | 205,506 |
| FL-18 | 130,163 | 131,893 |
| FL-21 | 121,988 | 132,531 |
| FL-24 | 178,570 | 192,903 |
| FL-25 | 134,549 | 137,913 |
July 28, 2008:
| Dem | GOP | |
|---|---|---|
| FL-08 | 156,886 | 158,999 |
| FL-09 | 162,285 | 190,899 |
| FL-13 | 159,967 | 215,509 |
| FL-15 | 172,250 | 194,403 |
| FL-16 | 179,889 | 201,090 |
| FL-18 | 119,299 | 127,755 |
| FL-21 | 113,192 | 128,191 |
| FL-24 | 160,663 | 183,926 |
| FL-25 | 125,147 | 133,004 |
October 10, 2006:
| Dem | GOP | |
|---|---|---|
| FL-08 | 155,111 | 169,499 |
| FL-09 | 155,003 | 188,959 |
| FL-13 | 155,707 | 217,937 |
| FL-15 | 158,363 | 189,872 |
| FL-16 | 171,474 | 202,702 |
| FL-18 | 105,400 | 128,602 |
| FL-21 | 101,156 | 129,302 |
| FL-24 | 153,238 | 185,548 |
| FL-25 | 108,276 | 130,094 |
That we will see a net gain of 3 seats in FL this year. FL-24 is all but locked up, the 8th and 21st seem to be leaning our way and the 25th is no worse than a 50/50 shot. If we take all 4 of those and drop Mahoney’s seat the republicans will only have a 13-12 edge in the FL delegation. Considering they drew the map in 2002 with an 18-7 or 19-6 republican delegation in mind that’s pretty damn good.
…love the trend in so many of those other districts. If only this had been a Democratic priority four, eight, twelve years ago.
Hopefully we’ll take the 8th (Puerto Rican turnout is key!), 21st, 24th, and 25th districts. Republicans are spending massively on these South Florida races. It seems every commercial I see is either Lincoln calling Raul corrupt or Mario calling Garcia “Enron Joe.” These are definitely two very close ones and the DCCC just went up in them. The 24th district should be a pickup.
I’ll be one of the few Democrats voting in the 12th district. 😛 We’re trying to get Nancy Daley elected to be the 2nd Democratic commissioner in Polk County. Before 2006, there were none, if we pick up this one it will be two additions in two elections. Florida is going blue from top to bottom, at all parts of the ballot.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/10…
This is weird. Beloved Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney has endorsed Obama and is actively campaigning for him. Weird considering his relative Tom Rooney is going to be the next republican congressman for FL-16.
Democrats = 42%
Republicans = 36%
Independent = 22%
From Dailykos (diary of kansasr):
For 2008 there are 11,247,634 registered voters; 2004 there were 10,301,290.
In 2008 the DEM advantage over REP is 4,722,076 to 4,064,301. There are 2,461,257 other or no party voters.
In 2004 the DEM advantage over REP was 4,261,249 to 3,892,492 with 2,148,030 other or no party voters.
The net gain for Democrats over Republicans is 289,018.
We’ll lose FL-16 (grrr) but I think FL-08 and FL-24 are looking better then even right now and we’ve got great shots in FL-21 and FL-25 and we also have a outside shot at FL-18. Those voter registration numbers make me think we’ve got a better shot that some think.
Damn, she looks to be in a good position now. I know the Scientology-enabling incumbent has been fairly popular there. But in this election people will be voting for change, not for good constituent services, and the change candidate is the Democrat.