Miami-Dade is red, but Democrats aren't giving up on Florida [View all]

MIAMI — When Miami-Dade County helped elect President Trump in November, effectively taking on a conservative bent after nearly three decades of being solid blue, political operatives here had their worst fears realized: Florida was in fact a red state.

The signs of a big political change in southern Florida had been seen for several cycles, including Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) 2022 win, when he flipped the metropolitan county for the first time in more than 20 years.

“There is nothing more maddening to me than the self-inflicted wounds in Dade,” said Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who is based in Florida and ran former President Obama’s 2008 operation in the state. “Too many in my party — particularly those outside of Florida — thought the Obama ’12 and [Hillary] Clinton ’16 numbers in Miami were signs the county had become a progressive bastion.”

“But we are talking about a place where most people came here to escape socialist authoritarian governments and crime — so when people on the extreme left tried to justify things like ‘Democratic socialism,’ imagine how that sounds to the ears of a family that left everything behind — or a family who came here seeking safety to hear things like ‘defund the police,’ Schale added.



https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5443953-miami-dade-democrats-rebuilding/