NPR: How This Conservative Florida County Became A Surprise 2020 Battleground

[Tommy_Carcetti]

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/09/899944240/how-this-conservative-florida-county-became-a-surprise-2020-battleground

Sampson's story is part of a larger shift underway in Florida's Duval County — one that mirrors many of the headwinds facing Trump in large swaths of the country. In a county that for more than four decades has been a reliable Republican vote, Democrats are sensing new optimism ahead of the November elections, thanks to intense anti-Trump energy among Black voters like Sampson, young voters and college-educated professionals in the suburbs.

Duval County, a traditionally conservative area in Florida's northeast corner along the Atlantic Ocean, hasn't voted for a Democratic president since Jimmy Carter in 1976. But in recent presidential elections, it's begun tilting more toward the Democratic Party. In 2016, Trump won Duval County by 1.5 percentage points — one of his slimmest margins in the state.

Pollsters, political scientists and party leaders all agree the county's changing landscape is largely due to demographics and grassroots organizing. Stronger turnout among the county's relatively large Black population combined with an influx of college-educated transplants has turned this once-reliable red county into a contested political battleground in a must-win state for Trump.

Jacksonville already went blue in 2018 for the first time in decades for the Senate and Governor's races.

I would love to see all of Florida's major cities go blue for the 2020 presidential election.

[monmouth4]

1. Florida, for the most part, has no great love and admiration for DeSantis either..n/t