Florida voters head to polls Tuesday in a presidential primary that’s already decided
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When Florida Republicans head to the polls on Tuesday to cast their ballots in the state’s presidential primary, there won’t be any big surprises.
Donald Trump, now the only Republican still actively running for president, has already won all the delegates he needs to secure the GOP nomination. Florida Democrats scrapped their presidential primary this year after the state party submitted only President Joe Biden’s name for the March 19 ballot.
For most Floridians, the Tuesday elections will serve more to highlight Trump’s broad support among Republicans and the sense of duty that many voters have to show up to the polls, even in the absence of any real competition.
WHAT TO KNOW about Florida’s Tuesday Presidential Primary
“I think it’s just an exercise in civic duty,” said Justin Sayfie, a Florida-based Republican lobbyist. “Most voters know at this point that the polls are meaningless; that Donald Trump has this nomination locked up. But a lot of them will still vote to express their preference.”
Still, Sayfie said he couldn’t remember a Florida presidential primary that felt as if there was so little at stake.
“For Florida to not play a role in the primary is, I think, unusual and something that probably won’t happen again for a while,” said Sayfie, who worked as an advisor to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. “I would suspect Florida will be much more significant in the future.”
Trump won’t be the only name on the Republican presidential ballot. Ahead of a state-mandated deadline that passed months ago, the Florida GOP submitted the names of six other candidates for the ballot, including Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. All but Trump have dropped out of the race.
Trump’s team isn’t expecting any surprises in Tuesday’s primary vote. Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the campaign, said that Republican voters had already lined up behind the former president, and declared Florida “Trump Country.”
“President Trump has dominated the primary and continues to rack up overwhelming wins all across the country,” Cheung said in a statement. “The party and the movement have clearly coalesced behind President Trump because Americans know that they were better off with him in the White House.”
Voter turnout is already trending lower from past years. In Miami-Dade, about 54,000 of the county’s nearly 433,000 active registered Republicans have already cast their ballots, either by mail or by voting early in person, according to the Supervisor of Elections Office.
By comparison, more than 100,000 Republicans voted early or by mail in Miami-Dade in 2016, the last time there was a GOP presidential primary without an incumbent on the ballot, according to state elections data. Even in 2020, when Trump was running for reelection as an incumbent, about 62,000 Miami-Dade Republicans voted early or by mail.
Statewide, turnout isn’t faring much better. In 2020, just over 2 million Florida voters — Democrats, Republicans, independents and third-party voters — cast ballots early or by mail. As of Monday, fewer than 800,000 Floridians had voted ahead of the Tuesday elections.
Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, said that even if there’s not a lot of competition in the presidential primary, it could still carry some weight. Republicans will still have the option to vote for other candidates – even if they’re not still actively campaigning for office – and Tuesday’s turnout could provide an early indication of how motivated Republican voters are to have their voices heard.
“On the national level, one way of looking at this is as a referendum on Trump’s support within the Republican party,” Jewett said. “You might try to read the tea leaves and say if Trump’s support is less than 90% of the vote — if he doesn’t win strongly and overwhelmingly — then it might open up questions about how deep his support actually is.”
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Jewett also noted that the lack of a Democratic presidential primary could have an impact on local elections. While the Republican primary is the main attraction, many cities and towns across the state will have municipal issues on the ballot on Tuesday. In Surfside, Fla., for example, voters will decide their mayor and town commissioners.
Without a Democratic presidential primary, Democratic voters have fewer reasons to show up to the polls.
“That might have an impact on local races here or there. Most local races are technically nonpartisan but we have seen over the past few years that some local races have actually become quite partisan,” Jewett said. “I suspect it’ll be a pretty imbalanced turnout.”
Despite the circumstances, both Jewett and Sayfie said that Tuesday’s elections are still worth paying attention to – even if Trump’s victory is predictable.
“Voters are going to the polls. And any time voters go to polls, that’s newsworthy,” Sayfie said. “That’s the essence of our democracy.”
