‘A wake up call.’ Broward is South Florida’s only deep blue county, but can that change?

Democrat Nan Rich was not surprised that she won her Broward County Commission race on Election Day, but something else shocked her: The race was much closer than she expected.

Rich, a longtime Florida politician and the District 1 incumbent representing the western slice of the county from Weston south to Miramar, was up against Herbert Vargas, a first-time Republican candidate with a negligible campaign lacking signs and mailers. In Broward County, a historically Democratic bastion, Vargas got nearly 47% of the vote. Rich won with 53%.

“In the past, doing the things I’ve done enabled me to win by a bigger margin,” Rich said. “So now you have to look at it and say, ‘What is the difference?’”

After President-elect Donald Trump’s win over Vice President Kamala Harris, Broward emerged as the only solidly blue county in South Florida. To the north, Harris narrowly won Palm Beach County by less than one percentage point. To the south, Miami-Dade made headlines when it favored a Republican candidate for the first time in over three decades, with Trump winning the county by 11.5 points. Broward, however, gave Harris a solid 17-point win over Trump.

For decades, Florida was a swing state, largely because of a dependable blue base in South Florida. But Trump’s support has grown among Miami’s Hispanic communities three elections in a row.

Broward appears to be South Florida’s only remaining Democratic stronghold, but some local politicians don’t feel so secure.

Republican candidates made notable inroads, giving several Democrats a run for their money in federal, state and local elections. Take U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat from Parkland whose margin of victory was the closest of all 27 congressional races in Florida, according to the Sun Sentinel. He received 52% of the vote, beating Republican Joe Kaufman’s 47%.

In 2020, President Joe Biden won Broward with 64% of the vote. This year, Harris beat Trump in Broward with 57% of the vote.

“Shame on us if we don’t do anything,” Rich said. “This is a wake up call and we need to respond to it.”

What makes Broward blue?

Despite the alarm bells some Democrats are sounding, Democratic candidates still win in Broward and registered Republicans are still greatly outnumbered.

Out of over 1 million active registered voters in the county, 519,299 are Democrat and 272,784 are Republican. In fact, there are more “No Party Affiliation” voters than registered Republicans.

Compare that to the whole state, where there are about 1 million more registered Republican voters than Democrats, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

“In the last couple cycles, we’ve seen the Democratic voter registration advantage not only evaporate, but we are now at about a million-voter registration disadvantage,” said Ashley Walker, a Broward-based political consultant. “With numbers like that, it is very tough to win statewide.”

Broward has been and continues to be deep blue largely because of its Black voter population, said Sharon Wright Austin, a University of Florida political science professor. Due to segregation in Miami-Dade, many African-American families migrated to Broward and remained there for generations, Austin said. Similarly, Caribbean immigrant communities that were shut out of white neighborhoods settled there, too. While Trump made gains among young Black men, the majority of Black voters sided with Harris.

Austin posited that Republicans may be able to appeal to some Black Caribbean voters in the future, but Trump’s inflammatory and false comments on Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, ruined his chances with Broward’s Haitian-American community this election.

“Caribbean voters have been shown to be more willing to vote for Republicans than African Americans who don’t have a Caribbean background. I think if [Republicans] would increase that outreach, there are people in different communities, especially Black communities, that will listen to them and vote for them. This election showed that,” Austin said. “If they were to focus on issues that are of concern to Black voters, as they did in this election with the economy, I think that will be a way to possibly flip a lot of people in Broward.”

The county’s increasing Hispanic population, which has gone up by 34 percent over the past 12 years according to Census data, could also affect future elections, as this election revealed the Hispanic vote, particularly in Florida, rallied behind Republicans more than ever.

What’s next for Democrats?

County Commissioner Rich has been studying the numbers.

Most of the votes she received to secure her win were from mail-in ballots. Most of her opponent’s votes were from early voting or Election Day. In one Broward precinct of 6,600 voters, Rich narrowly beat Vargas with just 59 votes. In another precinct of 4,700 voters, Vargas beat her by one vote.

“Numbers don’t lie,” she said. “I look at my numbers and my strength was in winning vote by mail to overcome what happened with the early votes and Election Day votes where I lost, not by a large amount, but certainly enough to be concerned.”

Rich, a former state senator who ran a losing campaign for governor in 2014, has her theories as to why a candidate with little campaign funding compared to hers had a shot at winning. Maybe some Hispanic voters saw that Vargas, who is from Bolivia, is Hispanic and figured his values would align with theirs, she said. Or maybe, many voters voted for Republicans down ballot, even if they weren’t familiar with the candidates.

Regardless, Rich said the election results show that Democrats need to campaign differently and change their messaging.

“We have to go back and look at how we’re doing things and how we educate people,” she said. “You can’t just start [campaigning] a short time before the election. It’s clear you have to be organizing, going door to door, sending out mailers, having events where you can invite people.”

In the wake of Harris’ defeat, Democrats nationally have been trying to decipher not just why she lost, but why Trump made serious gains across demographics. Austin, the UF professor, noted reports about some Democrats wondering if the party has “gone too woke,” particularly on transgender rights.

“They need to clarify their message, especially with the working class,” Austin said. “Once upon a time, the Democratic Party was the working class party, but not anymore.”

Democrats’ post-mortem on the election has lead to some infighting over who or what is to blame.

Progressives blame Harris’ loss on her truncated campaign and inability to distance herself from Biden’s unpopular presidency. Centrist Democrats say Harris lost because the party went too far championing progressive issues that don’t resonate with the average voter, Politico reports.

Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller is among the centrists.

Republicans have been successful in painting Democrats as socialists, which particularly resonates with many Hispanic voters, like Miami-Dade’s Cuban-American community, Geller said. He placed some blame on progressive lawmakers in Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan for Democrats’ losses.

But not all hope is lost for Democrats who want to see Broward stay blue, he said. If Trump follows through on his economic plan, which includes tariffs economists warn would raise prices, Geller said he anticipates voters will retaliate against Republicans in the midterm elections and Democrats will make significant gains.

“I deeply regret how polarized the parties have become. I think the Republican Party has moved further from the center than the Democratic Party, but I think both parties have moved away from the center,” he said. “I want to bring us back to the center.”