📊 Florida Democrats losing cohesion, as GOP membership grows

Vote patterns from last Session reveal a strained House and unified Senate.

1/15/25

Good morning,

First - I’m praying for all those directly and indirectly affected by the devastating wildfires in California. 💗 I long for the day our government takes a more proactive role in protecting our lives and properties, but appreciate community groups like Communities for a Better Environment for compiling a list of wildfire & smoke resources to support safety and sheltering efforts. Stay safe, y'all.

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I’ve largely stayed away from politics and the news while enjoying the baby bubble, but when I heard that two Democratic state legislators switched over to the Republican Party after winning their re-election bids in November, I got curious.

How often did they vote with Republicans prior to the switch?

To answer this question, I compiled a dataset of the final roll call votes on the 261 bills signed into law last year and examined how often every Democratic member of the legislature agreed with the top Republican’s (Rep. Renner or Sen. Passidomo) position on the bill — this is the “Republican agreement score”.

The analysis revealed something I didn’t realize: Florida Senate Democrats are more cohesive than their House counterparts.

Each dot represents a Democratic state legislator’s Republican agreement score

The Republican agreement score ranged only 8 points among Senate Democrats, compared to the House Democrats’ 14 points. You can view each legislator’s Republican agreement score on my blog post here.

The wide distribution of Republican agreement scores between House Democrats reflects a divided caucus, but also a Democratic Party struggling to understand itself or agree on the path forward.

This confusion must be fixed.

Without a unified party, Democrats will continue to fail to weaken Republicans’ control of Florida, which is hindering their ability to deliver results for Floridians, who want expanded public services, infrastructure, and rights to live a better life and better provide for their families.

You can read the rest of my analysis here.

Talk soon,

Shelby