President Donald Trump has once again won Florida, which is considered as the largest battleground of the 2020 presidential election and an important piece of the puzzle of states he needs to lead and assemble for another term.
Trump was 3.35% points ahead of Democratic nominee Joe Biden. That percentage is larger than Trump's 2016 win and more than qualifies for a "Florida landslide."
Trump's Florida victory
Gov. Ron DeSantis made the public proclamation of a Trump victory. He shared the news on his Twitter account, but Twitter added a warning that 'official sources may not have called the race." Fox News also declared President Trump as the winner of Florida, followed by the Associated Press and CNN.
President Trump was confident that he would bag Florida, which he declared as his home state in 2019. Trump immediately capitalized on his Florida victory, using it in a fundraising solicitation for his presidential campaign.
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Joe Biden underperformed and President Trump performed well in Miami-Dade, the largest county in the state. Biden was leading Trump 53.3% to 46%. That put Joe Biden up by only 83,353 votes from the country. Unfortunately, he needed more to win.
Although President Trump didn't win the county, Biden performed worse there than Hillary Clinton back in 2016. Clinton captured 63% of the vote and she received 290, 147 more votes than Trump.
Senior adviser for the Trump campaign, Jason Miller, said that Trump's victory is due to the resources that President Trump invested into South Florida. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders professed optimism but they were also nervous about Biden's chances in the state.
Miami-Dade County may be the biggest reason for Biden's loss in the state, but that is not the only one. Trump was 377,039 votes ahead of Biden in Florida at around 1 a.m. on November 3, with more than 11 million votes cast in the race.
In Broward County, Biden had 64.5% of the vote and Trump had 34.6%. Biden was 284, 729 votes ahead in the county that was considered a Democratic area, but his votes were not enough to overcome Trump's performance in Miami-Dade County. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 292, 369 more votes in Broward County than Trump.
In Palm Beach County, Biden was at 55.9% and Trump was at 43.3%. Biden had 96,103 more votes than Trump in Palm Beach County. In 2016, Hillary Clinton's advantage over Trump in the county was 102, 271.
History repeating itself
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties are the source of Democratic strength in Florida. Without a strong chance from South Florida, Democrats can't win a statewide election.
The Republicans made sure that enough voters turned out to prevent the Democrats from getting the advantage from the three key counties when the votes in the state are tallied.
Democrats had a slight edge in the mail ballots and the early votes cast before Election Day. The victory depends on which party did better in pushing its voters to the polls and which candidate the majority of no party affiliation/independent voters choose.
There were already early signals that Florida could go for President Trump, the way that it did in 2016. Republicans registered more voters than Democrats this year.
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