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Florida was again a hotly
contested battleground state, and
indeed was not called for Obama by the Associated Press until Nov. 10.
There was considerable
pre-election maneuvering. In May 2011,
Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed
HB
1355, the omnibus elections bill signed into law; the legislation
made about 80 changes to election law including a more
compressed eight-day early voting period (
+)
and stricter requirements on
third-party voter registration organizations (
+); both of those points
were litigated. There was also controversy
over efforts to remove non-U.S. citizens from Florida's voter
database (
+).
Republicans
had a competitive presidential
primary campaign
including the marquee P5 event in Orlando in late Sept. 2011. By
the time the primary occured on Jan. 31, 2012 there were three major
active candidates; Romney obtained 46.4% of the vote, defeating
Gingrich (31.9%) and Santorum (13.3%). Because Romney did not
secure the nomination until April, he pretty much pulled his resources
from the state, while the Obama campaign continued to build its
organization.
Much of the Republican messaging from the primaries and on into the
general election focused on the economy (
+). The
unemployment rate was higher than the national average throughout the
year, and although it steadily trended downward, from 9.6% in Jan. 2012
(8.3% nationally) to 8.1% in Nov. 2012 (7.8% nationally), there were
still over three-quarters of a million people unemployed. The
collapse of the housing market continued to afflict Florida's economy
as well. According to RealtyTrac's U.S.
Foreclosure Market Report™ for October 2012, "Florida posted the
nation’s
highest foreclosure rate for the second month in a row, with one in
every 312
housing units with a foreclosure filing in October."
Gov. Rick Scott's
approval
ratings were at about 40-percent, and Romney kept his distance.
Florida Democrats sought to
play up a Romney-Scott link (
+).
There
were
also
some
stories
about
a
somewhat
awkward
relationship
between
the
Romney
campaign
and
Gov.
Scott.
For
example,
a
Bloomberg
story
on
June
21, 2012
described how Gov. Romney's message of economic woe ran counter to
Scott's
touting of economic improvements. The article also cited Scott's
39-percent approval rating and stated that "Romney’s staff has
concluded there’s no
benefit in
appearing with Scott." (Michael C. Bender. "Romney Campaign Said to Ask
Scott to Downplay Job Gains." Bloomberg, June 21, 2012
+).
Republicans hoped
for
a
boost
from
their
convention, held
in
Tampa-St. Petersburg from Aug. 27-30, 2012. Sen.
Marco Rubio was among those frequently mentioned as a
possible
vice presidential running mate for Romney. Rubio gave the speech
introducing Romney at the convention. In the fall campaign, he
was a frequent surrogate for Romney around the country. Romney
also did events with former Gov. Jeb Bush.
Republicans received some bad
publicity in late September when Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor
Susan Bucher discovered some faulty voter registration forms that had
been submitted for Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm working for the
Republican Party of Florida. This led to a criminal
investigation. (
+)
The Obama campaign's
vaunted ground game was much in evidence, as they ultimately had 104
field offices around the state and, according to state director Ashley
Walker "nearly 800 full-time staff and a $50 million budget."
Democrats reported
out-registering Republicans for eight consecutive months (
+).
Among their many visits, the candidates fit in quite a few
fundraisers. During the final seven months of the campaign (from
April 10) the Obama-Biden principals did at least 12 fundraising events
in Florida and the Romney-Ryan principals did at least 21 fundraising
events. Among the Romney events was a fundraising dinner on May
17 hosted by Marc J. Leder at his home in Boca Raton; this was to gain
huge noteriety when a
video secretly taped
there was released in September. Both candidates
also did bus tours in the state. During a two-day bus tour on
Sept. 8-9, Obama found himself in a tight squeeze during an unscheduled
stop at Big Apple Pizza in Fort Pierce when
owner
Scott Van Duzer gave him a bear hug that lifted him off the ground.
The ad campaign was intense. The Smart Media Group reported that
from April 2-Nov. 6, 2012, $191 million was spent on presidential
advertising
in Florida, second only to Ohio. According to SMG, Orlando
($53 million), Tampa ($51 million) and Miami ($27 million) were the
fourth, fifth and tenth markets in the country in ad dollars spent (
+). Similarly, the
Wesleyan
Media
Project (
1,
2)
reported
that
for
the
period
from
Oct.
1-29,
Orlando,
Tampa
and
Miami
were
among
the
top
ten
media
markets
by volume of ads in the presidential race.
Further attention focused on Florida on Oct. 22, 2012 when Obama and
Romney met for the
Commission on
Presidential Debates' third and final
presidential debate at Lynn
University in Boca Raton.
The Hispanic Vote
The Hispanic vote was
critical.
According to
the Census Bureau's estimate as of July
1, 2011 22.9% of the state's population is of Hispanic origin
(4,355,525 of 19,057,542) (
+).
Much
attention
focused
on
South
Florida;
according
to
the
2010
Census,
as
highlighted
by
he
NALEO
Educational
Fund,
Miami-Dade
County
has
a
Hispanic
population
of
1,623,859,
accounting
for
65.0%
of
the
county's
total
population
of
2,496,435.
94.7%
of
the
population
of
the
City
of
Hialeah in Miami-Dade is Hispanic. (
+) The NALEO
Educational Fund
projected that Latinos would account for 18.3% of Florida's vote in
2012 (
+).
The Hispanic vote has been changing. The Cuban Americans who fled
Castro are aging, and their children are now active. There has
also been a large influx of Puerto Ricans. Steve Schale, who
directed Obama's 2008 Florida campaign and served as a senior advisor
on his 2012 campaign, analyzed Census numbers for 2000 and 2010 from
the Orlando area (Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties). During
that period, the population grew from about 1.4 million to 1.85
million. Schale wrote, "Of that 436,000 resident increase, 119K
can be attributed to Puerto
Rican growth. In other words, roughly 27% of the total growth in
the
Orlando area comes from Puerto Ricans."
1
Evidence of the importance of the Hispanic vote can be seen in the fact
that both Romney (Sept. 19) and Obama
(Sept. 20) participated in Univison News/Facebook's "Meet the
Candidates" at the
University of Miami.
The African American Vote
According to the Census Bureau estimate as of July 1, 2012, 16.5% of
the Florida's population was black. While the African American
vote in Florida is sometimes overlooked,
Schale asserts that they too were an important part of the equation for
Democrats. His analysis of the Orlando area found that of the
436,000 resident increase between 2000 and 2010, 106,000 were African
Americans, particularly from the Caribbean.
Seniors
Another key demographic group was seniors. According to the 2010
Census, 17.3% of the population
was 65 and over (3.26 million of 18.801 million); that is the highest
proportion of any state (next highest was West Virginia at 16.0%). (
+)
Medicare
is
important
to
this
group.
However,
instead
of
a
serious
discussion
about
how
to
control
the
growth
of
Medicare
spending,
both
the
Romney
and
Obama
campaigns
frequently
resorted
to
"Mediscare" attacks. (see
FactCheck.org)
At
the
same
time,
the
youth
vote
was
not
ignored
(
+).
The Jewish Vote
Florida also has a significant
Jewish population (over 600,000 people
or about 3.4%, compared to 2.1% nationally (
+).
Both
the
National
Jewish
Democratic
Council
and
the
Republican Jewish
Coalition waged significant campaigns targeting
these voters. According to the RJC:
"Hundreds of RJC volunteers conducted
phone banks, door-to-door literature drops, and sign-waving sessions on
busy corners in key areas of the state. The RJC ran "My Buyer's
Remorse" ads on broadcast and cable television (
1,
2,
3,
4) and print
ads (
+)
in
Jewish
newspapers.
We
sent
out
mailers
to
hundreds
of thousands of
Florida voters and put up "Obama, Oy Vey!" billboards (
+) along
major routes in South Florida."
And the NJDC reported:
"We now know that over six weeks, a shift in the
Jewish margin
from Democrats to Republicans of up to 117,000 Jewish Floridians was
stopped with the facts—plain and simple. NJDC mailed almost
400,000 pieces of fact-based mail into Florida in the final weeks of
this campaign, and we called almost 70,000 Jewish households in
Florida—all strategically, efficiently targeted at those persuadable
Jews who could possibly fall victim to the smears circulated against
the President. During that same time we ran...online banner ads,
sponsored emails, and more—most only visible to
residents in Florida, some only visible to carefully targeted,
potentially undecided Jewish households." (
+PDF)
Census Trends Favored Democrats
in his April 2012 analysis cited above, the Obama campaign's Steve
Schale wrote
that the census trends "are driving registration and voting
behavior." Taking into account Hispanic and African American
vote, he observed after the campaign that, "[T]he demographics alone
would keep the state competitive. We were going to have a better
electorate [than in 2008]." Meanwhie, Republicans held that a
loss of support among independents and
key constituencies would cost Obama the state. For example, a
July 2012 Romney campaign
memo maintained that "the President’s 2008 base – represented in
Florida’s
diverse communities - is crumbling (
+)." Of course, the
Republican arguments fell flat on Election Day; when it came to numbers
and metrics the Obama team had a clear edge. After the election,
Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina
noted that his campaign's analysts had come within 0.2% of predicting
the number of
votes that Obama would get in the state.
Newspaper Endorsements
At least five Florida newspapers which had endorsed Obama in 2008
supported the Republican ticket in 2012:
OBAMA
|
ROMNEY
|
Miami
Herald
(Oct.
26,
2012)
160,988
(44) +
Tampa Bay Times (Oct. 19, 2012) 299,497 (18)
+ |
The
Florida
Times-Union
[Jacksonville]
(Oct.
26,
2012)
98,580
(77) +
*Florida Today [Brevard County] (Oct. 27,
2012) +
*Naples Daily News (Oct. 28,
2012) +
*Orlando Sentinel
(Oct. 19, 2012) 173,576 (41) +
*Pensacola
News
Journal
(Oct.
26,
2012)
+
*South Florida
Sun-Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale] (Oct. 26, 2012) 165,974 (42)
+
Tampa Tribune (Oct. 21, 2012) 144,510 (50) +
Also note: The Times-Union split 3-3 on an endorsement in
2008.
|
NO ENDORSEMENT
Bradenton Herald (Oct. 26, 2012)
+
Long Ballot and Long Lines
Florida
voters faced a long ballot. In addition to Obama and Romney,
there
were ten other candidates for president (together they obtained about
0.9% of the vote), and there were 11 constitutional amendments.
Early voting started on Oct.
27. Although courts had upheld the changes to early voting,
long lines in the early voting period led Democrats to again seek an
extension of early voting, but Gov. Scott declined to take
action (
+). However, in
some instances the
reduced early voting period may have actually boosted turnout,
evidenced by the "Operation Lemonade" effort led by Bishop Victor T.
Curry (
+). The Secretary
of State's office reported that more than 2.4 million early votes were
cast and nearly 2.4 million absentee votes were cast, both
records. Thus, of a total turnout of 8,539,274 more than half of
Floridians voted prior to Election Day.
On Election Day itself there were problems with long lines and
tabulating
votes in some areas. The
Orlando
Sentinel reported that based on an analysis of data it collected
"at least 201,000 voters likely gave up in frustration on Nov. 6," and
that the situation was worst in Lee County where the last precinct did
not close until 2:54 a.m. Wednesday.
2
Gov. Scott called for improvements in the election process
including more early voting days, more early voting locations, and
shorter ballots (
+). On
Feb. 4, 2013 Secretary of State Detzner presented his recommendations,
and these will be taken up by the governor and the legislature.
Notes:
1. Steve Schale. "Orlando Rising." Steve Schale blog, April 15,
2012.
2. Scott Powers and David Damron. "Analysis: 201,000 in
Florida didn't vote because of long lines." Orlando Sentinel, Jan. 23, 2012.