Republican Voter Registration in Florida Surges, Beating Democrats by 41 Percent!

Politico has more on the sudden surge in the Sunshine State:

Republicans have closed the traditional voter registration gap with Democrats to an historically small margin in Florida, triggering a wave of Democratic apprehension in the nation’s biggest swing state.

Top Florida Democrats and longtime activists have increasingly groused in private that they feel pressure from Joe Biden’s campaign to refrain from door-to-door canvassing or holding voter registration drives due to the potential spread of the coronavirus and fears of muddying his messaging on the pandemic.

In the absence of such efforts, a concerted drive by President Donald Trump’s Florida campaign to register voters has helped cut the state’s long-standing Democratic advantage to fewer than 185,000 voters, a gap of just 1.3 percentage points, according to data from the Florida Division of Elections released this week.

“It’s late in the game now,” said state Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami Democrat. “There’s been no pushback from us, meaning that for every 100 doors that Republicans have proverbially knocked on, it’s not like they pissed people off to the point where they’ve run to the Democratic Party because they’re pissed at the GOP. It’s shown to be effective.”

In August, Republicans added a party record of almost 58,000 new voters — a 91 percent increase compared to August 2016, the Florida election data show. The number of new Republicans added in August is 41 percent more than the number of new Democrats who registered. Democratic registration, meanwhile, was 6 percent lower than the total racked up in August 2016.

“We’ve turned our focus to voter registration in a more meaningful way than before. Everyone said you can’t do it — get the gap between Republicans and Democrats to such a small number. Well, you can do it,” Susie Wiles, the Florida campaign director for Trump, told POLITICO.

“We did it through the mail, but the main way we had success was at the doors,” she said. “And because the Democrats aren’t meeting people at their doors like our campaign is doing, we are having great success.”

In 2016, Democrats had a 327,000 voter-registration edge over Republicans, when Trump won the state by a little more than a point. Now the GOP has reduced that Democratic advantage by 44 percent. Recent polls show Florida is essentially tied between Biden and Trump.

Voter registration is a key metric in top-of-the-ticket Florida elections, which are often decided by about a point or less. The practice used to be dominated by Democrats and liberals and was a key ingredient in Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 wins in the state, according to his campaign advisers.

But Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Florida Democrats never sought to emulate the scope and scale of those efforts. The party lost top-of-the-ticket races for three consecutive elections, including in 2018 when Democrats, betting on a blue wave in the state, ignored warning signs it might not crest due to relatively anemic voter registration efforts.

The GOP’s registration momentum picked up with the onset of the pandemic and was fueled by the Trump’s campaign’s need to reshape the electorate in his must-win state — an imperative after a massive Democratic surge in requesting and casting mail-in ballots.

A big reason for the uptick in voter registration lies with the Trump campaign's decision to go door-to-door.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign refuses to do the same, and appears to be dead in the water.

Fox News with more:

Republican voter registrations in the battleground state of Florida are closing in on Democratic numbers after Republicans hit a party record with nearly 58,800 new voter registrations, Politico reported.

A total of 5,020,199 Floridians were registered Republican as of Aug. 31, compared to 5,203,795 registered Democrats, according to data on the Florida Department of State website.

Registration for Florida Democrats is 6% lower than it was in August 2016, according to Politico. Meanwhile, Republicans' monthly add represented a 91% increase over August 2016, according to Politico.

Republican pollster Ryan Tyson told Politico his analysis shows that 119,000 more Florida Democrats have converted to Republicans or independents than vice versa since 2016.

Even life-long Democrats are leaving the party of hate, joining the ranks of the #WalkAway movement.

They're done with the lies and the broken promises.