Perhaps conservative Floridians can breathe a little easier about the influx of newcomers, especially those from blue states.
Christian Ziegler, the vice chair of the Republican Party of Florida, told Breitbart News on Saturday that Florida’s newest residents are overwhelmingly identifying as Republicans.
According to Ziegler, of the 1 million people who became new state residents since Republican Ron DeSantis became governor in 2019, roughly half of them have registered as GOP voters.
Among the rest, only 17,000 have registered as Democrats.
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The decision to identify as political independents, with no party affiliation, or as part of a minor political party may not guarantee they will vote for GOP candidates in the future.
Still, the upside for Republicans is that these new arrivals are almost all refusing to be Democrats.
As Ziegler told Breitbart News, “We’re just obliterating the Democrats.”
“I did not believe it. I had to go back and redo the numbers because I just couldn’t believe it, but it ends up being true,” he added.
Ziegler, who seeks to be the party’s next chairman, noted that the GOP will focus on local races, especially for county school boards.
“We’re gonna go aggressive in the local area to really remove these people that have overplayed their hand — and we saw that during COVID — and really deliver victories at the most local level, and that’s where we can frankly have the greatest impact. So it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he told Breitbart.
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Ziegler gave much of the credit for the GOP’s growth to DeSantis, especially for his willingness to fight liberals on cultural issues.
“He goes all in, whereas other leaders and other states are too scared or nervous to touch those issues because they’re not traditional political issues,” Ziegler said.
“But he went all in on the cultural issues, and because of that, I can’t tell you how many people walked into the polls, and as they were walking in, they’re like, ‘Hey, I’m here to vote for DeSantis because I want to get this stuff out of our schools. I gotta protect my kids.’ And these are people that are typically never involved politically.”
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