Paler shade of blue: Democratic Party loses its voter majority in Leon County, data shows

It may come as a shocking realization to many: After decades of dominance, the Democratic Party no longer is Leon County’s majority political party.

In other words, Florida’s capital county – where Democrats routinely pick up two-thirds of the vote and hold majorities on city and county elected boards – turned a lighter shade of blue last month, according to voter registration records.

It follows another revelation earlier this year: That Republicans after overtaking Democrats in the number of registered voters statewide at the end of 2021 are now on track to have a lead of one million by the time of the November general election.

Closer to home, a 20-year decline in the share of registered voters, combined with a dramatic rise in those who choose to identify as belonging to no party and the steady number of Republican voters, has reduced Democrats to precisely 49.859% of all Leon voters as of July 1, Leon County Supervisor of Elections data shows.

And what a difference those two(-plus) decades make.

In 2000, for instance, Democrats claimed a 67.3% (83,052 voters) share of the registration pie while the GOP had 27,973 voters or 22.7%, and no party affiliates and minor party registration totaled 12,455 - roughly 10% of total. (Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding.)

Today, Democrats make up 94,428 of voters while the Republican share has increased to 28% (53,043 of 189,389 voters) and no party and minor party registrations has more than doubled to 22% (41,918).

The Democratic drop comes before an election in which the party hopes to rebound from a devastating midterm election two years ago.

Democrats want to recapture a local state senate seat and contribute votes needed in the party's statewide effort to deny incumbent GOP U.S. Sen. Rick Scott's reelection and possibly determine which party controls that chamber, as well as pass a ballot measure enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution.

But they are going to have to do it with 15,074 fewer Democrats in Leon County than there were eight years ago and after a 4.6% decline in the share of voters during the past four years.

Dip in Democrats is because they're too 'radical,' GOP honcho says

Evan Power chairs the Republican Party of Florida and is executive chair of the local Republican Executive Committee. High on his election agenda is to solidify the GOP’s hold on Senate District 3.

Democrats held the Tallahassee-anchored district for more than 100 years before Gov. Ron DeSantis recruited current Sen. Corey Simon, a former Florida State University and pro football star, to flip it two years ago. Simon had been DeSantis' hand-picked head of Volunteer Florida.

Power said the competition's registration dip is because Democrats follow a radical agenda that voters are rejecting.

“Here locally, people see the product of failed Democrat leadership compared to the success of leaders like Sen. Corey Simon," he said. "I expect this trend to continue.”

Simon captured the traditionally Democratic seat when he overperformed in Leon County by 2% in 2022. Democrats' share of the Leon County electorate dropped 2.7% between 2020 and 2022, and another 2.7% since Simon's election.

Ryan Ray, chair of the county's Democratic Executive Committee, concedes that by percentages his numbers are down.

But he counters talk of a party in decline with a weeklong series of photos of Leon Democrats engaged in a voter registration drive in Tallahassee university neighborhoods, a campaign workshop attended by nearly a dozen labor activists, and a well-attended presidential debate watch party.

"Crossing the 50% threshold is (a) pretty arbitrary (indicator). If you look at the numbers from 2020 most of the recent changes in voting registration are directly related to Republican restrictions on voter registration and voter roll purges which have disproportionately affected Democrats,” Ray said.

Indeed, experts advise caution when speculating what the numbers mean for the November election. Consultants, politicians and academics say the Democratic drop is due largely to voter list maintenance approved by the Legislature, rather than anything the parties are doing or to voters' rejection of any political philosophy.

Numbers alone can 'paint a deceptive picture,' elections supervisor says

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley said that without context the numbers can “paint a deceptive picture."

His voter registration reports document a steady decline in Democrats’ share of voters from 54.4% in 2020, to 49.8% as of July 1, while the GOP was steady, a drop of almost 1%, and the NPA/minors grew by 5.5%.

In the number of actual people though, everyone is down, Earley explained: There are fewer voters overall.

“All partisan registration has had decreases in their active registration numbers since 2020,” Earley said. “The Democratic registration has decreased by somewhat more than the Republicans, other parties and NPAs have. They have all dropped, though some proportionately more than others.”

Earley said voter registration is not a zero-sum game; that is, one party’s loss is not another party’s gain. People can drop off the voter rolls in one county and then pop up in another for a variety of reasons.

The driving force the last four years has been new list maintenance procedures and requirements imposed by the Florida Legislature. Together, legislation in 2022 (SB 524) and 2023 (SB 7050) resulted in a 12.9% reduction in the number of Leon County voters, according to Leon County data.  

More than 28,000 voters have been removed from the active voter rolls under the two laws.

About 13,000 of those voters were removed from the list during routine maintenance. The rest fell under the new rules from lawmakers. Those names were removed from the active list and added to an inactive list because they did not vote in two election cycles and failed to respond to notices inquiring on their status.

And if those voters miss two more elections, they will be removed from the voter rolls completely.

Of course, the decrease among Democratic voters was most dramatic – a loss of more than 17,000 voters. That amount is more than Calhoun County's population, for example, or 15% of what was the total number of Democrats registered in 2018 - before the new rules.

At the same time, Republicans lost 4,971 voters, and NPAs went down by 4,214.

For the fall election cycle, 49.8% of Leon County voters are registered Democratic, about 28% Republican, and roughly 22% with no party affiliation and minor parties, such as Green, Independent, and Libertarian.

Democratic-aligned elections data consultant Matt Isbell studies such numbers for his work with candidates. He said they provide little insight into the minds of voters or how elections will unfold.

He said many long-time north Florida Democrats have been voting with Republicans for a long time, so he doesn’t expect anything found in the voter registration numbers to provide for a surprise on election night.

“I see nothing in the data that indicates a swing. We are blue. If anything, Leon overall is moving further to the left,” Isbell said.

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at [email protected] and is on X as @CallTallahassee.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Democratic Party loses its voter majority in Leon County, data shows