The blue tsunami that washed away the Republicans’ majority in the U.S. Senate, House and governorships was nothing more than a puddle in Southwest Florida.
Republicans continued their stranglehold on countywide, regional and congressional offices, outperforming statewide races by wide margins. The five-county region of Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties performed more than 12 points better than the rest of the state in the governor, Senate and cabinet races.
Southwest Florida’s strong showing helped governor candidate Byron Donalds and Senate candidate Ashely Moody cross the finish line, said Terry Miller, a Republican political consultant who ran Congressional District 19 winner Jim Schwartzel’s campaign and almost all of the campaigns of Lee County commissioners and constitutional officers.
The only Democratic victory came in the District 22 congressional race that included parts of Collier, Hendry and Democratic dominated Palm Beach and Broward counties.
“I think it shows a couple of things, that Southwest Florida is an extremely conservative region and for the most part people are happy with their governance and their elected officials here,” Miller said.
The second thing is Southwest Florida Republicans still love President Donald Trump, who won the Lee, Collier and Charlotte vote by an average of nearly 32 percent in 2024.
“I think Southwest Florida is still Trump country. Other parts of the nation may not reflect that quite as much as we do,” Miller said.
People kept asking why Trump was coming to Southwest Florida days before the election when it already was ruby red.
“Trump came here to make sure we turned out in Southwest Florida,” Miller said.
The percentages of victory in Southwest Florida are usually the same in the congressional races no matter if it’s a presidential year or gubernatorial year; no matter if a larger percentage of Democrats turn out like they did in Collier and Lee this year. The numbers of Republican registered voters are so overwhelming that they will offset any strong Democratic showing.
Schwartzel had 61.1 percent of the vote to Democrat Victor Arias’ 37.6 this year. Donalds won by almost the same percentage when he ran for Congress the first time in 2020.
Schwartzel’s 23.5 percent winning margin was the largest among Florida’s congressional races. His 198,765 was the second most votes received in a congressional race. Greg Stube, from District 17, which includes part of Lee and all of Charlotte and Sarasota counties received the most with 209,186 votes.
“That tells you how strong we are,” Miller said.
More numbers tell the story. If every Democrat and non-party affiliated voter in Lee County voted for all the Democrats on the ballot, they still would fall12,000 votes short if every Republican voted. Democrats in Collier County had a 70.4 percent turnout last week, 3.1 percent higher than Republicans but that translated into nearly 63,000 fewer votes.
“That’s the way it’s going to be for a while,” said Jim Rosinus, chairman of the Lee County Democratic Executive Committee. “That’s why we try to appeal to the NPAs and get as many of them to vote for our candidates.”
NPAs outnumber register Democratic voters in Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties, but getting them to vote for Democrats isn’t automatic. Political consultant Miller said NPA voters tend to mirror the percentage breakdown of the county’s registered voters; for example, in Charlotte County the independent vote would be about 3 to1 voting for the Republican candidate.
Rosinus said there were some bright spots. He was happy with the nearly 70 percent Democratic turnout; some precincts pushed 90 percent.
He pointed out that James Anderson won a seat on the Bonita City Council; Debbie Jordan was re-elected to the Lee County school board and Amber Ware defeated the incumbent in the Fort Myers mayor’s race, but those were all in nonpartisan races.
Voters overwhelmingly approved Lee County switching to single-member district voting for county commissioners, which Rosinus says should help in future elections.
Jane Schlechtweg, Collier County Democratic chairwoman, also saw a silver lining. A large part of Collier will be represented in Congress by a Democrat for the first time in 46 years, she said. East Coast resident Pia Dandiya defeated Collier resident Casey Askar in the District 22 race. She received 36.5 percent of Collier’s vote, enough to push her across the finish line.
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