Midterm elections have one of the clearest patterns in American politics. Since 1946, the president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of 20 midterms, and the losses were heavier when the president was unpopular. President Donald Trump’s national approval ratings stand at 37% in YouGov’s early October tracking, with 61% disapproving of his job –– a level that in Gallup’s historical series no president had carried into midterm elections since Harry Truman in 1946, when his party lost 56 House seats and 12 in the Senate. By the textbook, Democrats would be gaining ground everywhere, including Florida.
But Florida is not everywhere. Our latest Stetson University Center for Public Opinion Research (CPOR) survey, conducted Oct. 1-9, shows Trump’s approval ratings at 50% among Florida likely voters –– roughly 13 percentage points above his national standing. This difference may explain why the congressional pattern seen nationally, with recent numbers showing Democrats leading by 8 percentage points, breaks in the Sunshine State, where Republicans lead by 9 percentage points. The immunity extends down the rest of the ballot: Ashley Moody leads Angie Nixon by 11 points for the U.S. Senate (52-41), while Byron Donalds leads David Jolly by the same margin (also 52-41). The national midterm wind is blowing, but Florida isn’t feeling it.
Stetson professor Dr. Gustavo Venturelli.
Neither the candidates nor this cycle explains it. Florida has undergone a significant shift in party registrations –– and 2026 is the first midterm fully on the other side of it. As recently as 2021, registered Democrats and Republicans were at parity in Florida, and in 2019 Democrats held the edge. As of this August, Republicans lead by more than 1.5 million –– an 11-point swing in the registration gap in five years.
How did that happen? Registration records show that around 95,000 Democrats in the state of Florida have switched to the Republican Party, while about 40,000 have gone the opposite way. The newcomers pushed in the same direction: after two years of the pandemic, Florida gained nearly a million net residents, most of whom registered as Republicans. Finally, the rolls have been shrinking from the other end. Since 2020, Florida’s active voter rolls have contracted by nearly a million registered voters even as the state population grew. This decline is concentrated on the Democratic side, whose numbers fell by 1.2 million, while Republican registration rose by over 400,000. No one can say exactly how much each factor contributed to this shift. Together, they have reshaped the electorate.
Our recent survey shows how this change in party registrations can affect election outcomes, with at least 85% of partisans on each side backing their own party’s candidate. In 2026 Florida, Jolly can win independents by 25 points and still trail by 11, because the electorate now has many more Republicans than Democrats. The two coalitions are not even voting in the same spirit: three-quarters of Republicans describe their vote as being for their candidate, while only about half of Democrats say the same. Roughly one in five Democrats vote mainly against the Republican. Even the president’s national unpopularity doesn’t weigh on the state’s Republicans. Trump’s approval in Florida runs 13 points above the national mark, and the state’s own Republicans stand higher still, with Gov. Ron DeSantis at 57% among Florida likely voters and Sen. Ashley Moody at 55%. The referendum that midterms usually hold on unpopular presidents has no quorum in Florida.
Stetson professor Dr. Kelly Smith.
None of this means the races are over. Polls are snapshots, not predictions. One in 10 likely voters still hasn’t settled on a major-party candidate, though decades of research suggest most late deciders ultimately choose the party they already lean toward rather than cross over. The likelier source of movement is turnout itself. Midterm electorates are smaller and more selective, and the clearest remaining Democratic path in Florida runs less through changing minds than by changing who shows up, by bringing registered voters who usually abstain in midterm elections. Our numbers, meanwhile, show the Senate race has narrowed slightly since April. The question in 2026 is no longer whether Democrats can ride a favorable national environment to victory here. It is whether a favorable national environment even reaches Florida anymore. On the numbers so far, the gravity that governs midterms everywhere else stops at the state line.
Gustavo Venturelli and Kelly Smith are professors in the political science department at Stetson University. They direct the Center for Public Opinion Research.