reverse Texas and Florida's fates

samcster94

Banned
My goal is, with a POD after 1980, is to make Florida solidly red(albeit the trend is waning), but make Texas a swing state with a conservative Democrat as one of its Senators but all other statewide officials be Republican. What can be done to do this?
 
My goal is, with a POD after 1980, is to make Florida solidly red(albeit the trend is waning), but make Texas a swing state with a conservative Democrat as one of its Senators but all other statewide officials be Republican. What can be done to do this?
Well, Texas has managed to stay solid red for so long mostly because the Republican Party, especially under Bush, worked to co-opt Hispanic voters with things like affordable housing and low barriers to entry for businesses. All starting to slip because of the turn under Abbott. Florida's swinginess on the other hand arises from the fact that Miami is a major tourist destination, as is Orlando, plus all the snowbirds who come there to retire.

So with a post-1980 POD, it's entirely possible to make TX purple (basically the GOP decides to double down on Anglophone voters instead, like in CA, perhaps if Bush doesn't become Governor), but really hard to make FL solid red.
 

samcster94

Banned
Well, Texas has managed to stay solid red for so long mostly because the Republican Party, especially under Bush, worked to co-opt Hispanic voters with things like affordable housing and low barriers to entry for businesses. All starting to slip because of the turn under Abbott. Florida's swinginess on the other hand arises from the fact that Miami is a major tourist destination, as is Orlando, plus all the snowbirds who come there to retire.

So with a post-1980 POD, it's entirely possible to make TX purple (basically the GOP decides to double down on Anglophone voters instead, like in CA, perhaps if Bush doesn't become Governor), but really hard to make FL solid red.
Have that guy in 1990 who had a problematic record just barely win.
 
Third World War in the 1980s; mostly conventional except for a couple tit for tat city exchanges right at the end, one of which destroys Miami-Dade County (basically John Hackett's Third World War premise but modified). It's probably not possible but eh why not. Presto, Florida is a red state. In the aftermath, immigration as an issue is put on the back burner. More people are allowed in with most people going, "Sure, who cares?" type way. Texas becomes a swing state.
 
Florida actually was really red in national politics during the 1970s and 1980s, though the Democrats continued to control the state government. If you check the elections during that period, except for the anomalous election of 1976, Republican presidential candidates consistently ran 5% to 10% ahead of their national popular vote percentages in Florida.

The key to understanding late twentieth and early twenty-first century Florida politics is that in federal politics, the state pretty much votes the way the latest group of people to move there has been voting. In the 1970s and the 1980s, it wasn't just the Cubans, it was conservative midwesterners. Alot of the recent tilt back to the Democrats, though its still a Republian leaning state, is due to the Puerto Ricans.

You really just have to have alot of Republican voters move to Florida from other parts of the country to make Florida red. For some help, you can have the Russian Jewish emigres go to Florida instead of New York, in New York their votes get drowned out in in Florida they could strengthen the Republican edge.

Another factor in Florida politics, and something that could happen in Texas and keep Texas more of a swing state, is that the Democrats managed a series of really good governors that kept the party as a credible factor in Florida politics. The Republican governors weren't as impressive when they started being elected. Much of this depends on the personalities involved, though it would take multiple small PODs.
 
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