TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

GOP No Longer Majority In Pinellas

ADVERTISEMENT

By WILLIAM MARCH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 3, 2008

TAMPA - For the first time since 1984, Democrats have edged past Republicans in voter registration in Pinellas County, considered by some to be the birthplace of the Florida Republican Party.

On Friday, the Pinellas County Election Supervisor's Web site posted the figures - Republicans, 233,181; Democrats, 233,240; others, 147,800; total, 614,221.

"A historic moment," crowed county Democratic Party Chairwoman Toni Molinaro. "This is just the beginning."

Republicans, including county Chairman Tony DiMatteo, were less impressed. Elections "still depend on performance, and on the quality of the candidate," he said.

He did acknowledge that the change, however, is the latest indication of a trend in Pinellas County, which is becoming more urbanized, younger and less a haven for GOP-oriented Midwestern retirees.

Republicans have held a small registration edge in the county since the 1986 election year. That has made it an exception from the rest of Florida, which still has a plurality of registered Democratic voters - a holdover from the days when Florida was part of the Democratic "solid South."
University of South Florida political scientist Darryl Paulson, a Republican who has written about the history of the Florida party, says the county's GOP leanings can be traced to Midwestern retirees, who came to the Gulf Coast while northeasterners headed for Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

They were organized into a functioning party largely by a lawyer named Bill Cramer, who led a group of candidates to victory in races for Pinellas County government posts in the 1948 election, and became leader of a dominant political machine.

Today, with the county largely built out and no room for new retiree subdivisions, "that flow of retirees has slowed to a trickle," Paulson said. Instead, they're going farther south, to the new Republican heartland of Lee and Collier counties.

"Some Republicans will look at this as a little blip on the radar screen and expect it to return to normal, but I think 'normal' has passed," Paulson said. "Demographics dictate politics, and demographics are trending Democratic."

He said he expects the county to "become a competitive, two-party area," with Republicans concentrated in the north and the Democrats in the more urbanized south.

Molinaro said she thinks the nationwide disillusionment with the Bush presidency, plus interest in the primary between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, also are part of the reason.

Republican voter registration dominance in Pinellas peaked in the 1990s, reaching margins of 30,000 or more - 239,000 to 209,365 in the 1992 presidential election, for example.

Democrats began closing that gap rapidly after 2000. Registration for January's 2008 presidential primary was 230,434 Republicans and 226,862 Democrats.

Ironically, Paulson said, even while Pinellas had more Republican registrants and more Republicans holding local offices, it has been more likely to vote Democratic in national races than its neighbor, Hillsborough.

Hillsborough, like much of the rest of Florida, has historically had a Democratic majority or plurality, but has voted largely Republican in the past several election cycles.

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761 or wmarch@tampatrib.com.

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT