Just a few months after the first issue of the Orange County Reporter rolled off the presses in June 1876, Florida found itself in a position that would become very familiar \u2014 as the key to a presidential election.<\/p>\n
Copies of those early editions of the Reporter \u2014 which would become the Orlando Sentinel \u2014 don\u2019t exist today, but a newspaper in the South in the first decades after the Civil War would have expected to be as solidly Democratic as its reader base. And while the Reporter indeed was, the Florida vote had a surprise in store.<\/p>\n
Today in 2026, Orlando and Orange County are again heavily Democratic, and for several decades the Sentinel\u2019s editorial board (which is separate from the newsroom) has endorsed Democratic candidates for the White House \u2014 including, most famously, anyone but the incumbent Republican president in 2019. But in the half century prior, it almost almost always gave its support to GOP nominees.<\/p>\n
Over the last 150 years, what it means to be a Democrat or Republican has changed and evolved dramatically. The politics of Central Florida have morphed along with it.<\/p>\n
Like many places in the South, the Orlando region was a Democratic stronghold in the days of Jim Crow. But then it was one of the first areas in the state to swing Republican after World War II, spearheaded in part by the pull of the powerful Orlando Sentinel publisher Martin Andersen.<\/p>\n
For decades, Central Florida was a battleground region for the White House, with presidents and candidates routinely swinging through and drawing crowds every four years. The newspaper\u2019s reporters and photographers covered the speeches, rallies and campaign stops, from Democrat Bill Clinton shaking hands at Loch Haven Park in 1992 to Republican John McCain being served his own \u201cMcCain \u201908\u201d pizza in College Park in 2008.<\/p>\n
But in the 21st Century, as Florida turned decidedly Republican and Orlando and Orange remained firmly blue, its role as a kingmaker ebbed.<\/p>\n
By 2024, for the first time in decades, neither major presidential candidate saw the need to campaign here.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-1876-poster-01.jpg\")
A historic Democratic illustration claims the party can “prove beyond a shadow of doubt that Louisiana and Florida voted for [Democrat Samuel] Tilden by decisive majorities” and not Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. But historians believe that Republicans were correct that intimidation and violence kept Black voters from the polls in states still under post-Civil War Reconstruction. (Library of Congress)
\n1876<\/p>\n
The first presidential race covered by the Orange County Reporter was the infamous presidential election of 1876.<\/p>\n
Nationally, Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, but Republican Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral college after a dispute over Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana led to the creation of a commission that handed Hayes all three states.<\/p>\n
Democrats threatened another civil war, and historians still debate if there was a backroom deal in which Hayes agreed to pull out the troops still stationed in the South in return for his victory.<\/p>\n
Republicans charged that the Democrats used violence and threats of violence against Blacks, who still backed the party of Lincoln, to suppress the vote \u2014 and they were almost certainly right.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all the complaints about ballot issues and vote counting, a lot of that came down to the fact that you had thousands of African American voters not allowed to cast ballots,\u201d said Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst based in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n
Though Hayes\u2019 victory meant a Republican was still in the White House, Reconstruction soon ended, Black voters in the South were abandoned and Democrats took power again in Florida and other southeastern states.<\/p>\n
In 1884, the Reporter took issue with an Ohio paper claiming the South was Democratic \u201cat the muzzle of a shotgun,\u201d through mass intimidation of Black voters.<\/p>\n
Such language, the editors wrote, only served to \u201cembitter the prejudices and inflame the passions of one section of our country against another.\u201d<\/p>\n
But after that year\u2019s presidential election \u2014 won by Grover Cleveland, the first Democratic president since the Civil War \u2014 the paper alluded to an ugly truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween 40 and 50 negroes who had been induced to register for this precinct stayed away from the polls on election day and did not vote,\u201d the Reporter wrote. \u201cMost of them had no legal right to vote and they did well to stay away.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Orlando](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-BW-votes-for-women-1913.jpg\")
Orlando was the heart of the movement to grant voting rights to women as the home of the Florida Equal Suffrage League, whose members rode in a 1913 parade past the old Orange County courthouse. (Orange County Regional History Center)
\nWomen\u2019s suffrage<\/p>\n
Though Black residents\u2019 voting rights were denied, Orlando gained a measure of fame as one of the first governments in the country to grant such rights to women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can really brag about our history in terms of the women\u2019s suffrage movement,\u201d said Linda Chapin, the first mayor of Orange County.<\/p>\n
In 1913, the Rev. Mary Stafford, a Unitarian minister from Orlando, co-founded the Florida Equal Suffrage League to lobby male politicians for the right to vote.<\/p>\n
Just one year earlier, \u201cOrlando\u2019s usually unflappable city clerk, Cassius Boone, nearly fell out of his chair when a group of women marched into his office and demanded to vote in a bond election,\u201d wrote Orlando historian Joy Wallace Dickinson in a 2004 Sentinel column.<\/p>\n
![\"Orlando](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-womens-movement.jpg\")
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, right, unveils a historical marker on Orange Avenue recognizing Orlando\u2019s pivotal role in the early 20th-century national suffrage movement during a dedication ceremony in 2023. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n
Many opponents of suffrage argued that women would damage their status and power in their proscribed place \u2014 the home \u2014 by muddying themselves with electoral politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to put yourself in that era and really try to understand what roles were and were not available for women,\u201d Chapin said.<\/p>\n
In 1913, the Orlando Sentinel ran a condescending editorial\u00a0titled \u201cThe Women\u2019s Brigade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conjuring up a world where women won the right to vote only to be told \u201cif you are voters, you must be soldiers,\u201d the piece described an imagined battle in which two women generals have a \u201cshrill\u201d argument about their wardrobe. Meanwhile, enemy soldiers distract female soldiers by firing fashion magazines at them. It was bylined by a woman.<\/p>\n
But in 1919, as a suffrage amendment was working its way through Congress, Orlando Mayor James L. Giles asked the Legislature to allow women to vote in city elections \u2014 a move praised in Sentinel\u00a0newspaper editorials.<\/p>\n
That May, women in Orlando \u2014 those who were property owners, at least \u2014 were able to vote on a bond issue, and Winter Park women joined them at the polls in July.<\/p>\n
After the 19th Amendment was ratified a year later, granting all women \u2014 all white women, anyway \u2014 the right to vote, the Florida Equal Suffrage League voted to disband after a victory dinner at the San Juan Hotel on Orange Avenue, Dickinson wrote, celebrating \u201cthe culmination of a lifetime of work.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Edna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-edna-giles-fuller.jpg\")
Edna Giles Fuller of Orlando, who appeared on the 1928 ballot as Mrs. John T. Fuller, was the first woman ever elected to the Florida Legislature. (Florida State Archives)<\/p>\n
The first woman elected to the Florida Legislature, Edna Giles Fuller, was an Orlando teacher who won her seat in 1928 under the name \u201cMrs. J. T. Fuller.\u201d The Sentinel defended her against the Miami Herald\u2019s claim she would be \u201csidetracked to innocuous committees\u201d because of her sex.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was pitted in the last campaign against an aggressive opponent and won in a straight, above-board contest,\u201d the Sentinel wrote.<\/p>\n
Since then, Central Florida women have served in the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and as mayors of Orlando and Orange County.<\/p>\n
![\"Orange](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-chapin-hood-lymmo.jpg\")
Orange County Chairman Linda Chapin and Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood hop on a bus during the first day of downtown Orlando’s new shuttle service Lymmo in August 1997. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n
But Chapin, herself a trailblazer, is concerned about recent rumblings on the right \u2014 including from some women \u2014 that women\u2019s suffrage should be reversed or restricted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope to God we\u2019re not going to experience a backlash,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Turning red<\/p>\n
Except for 1928, when Southern Democrats rejected Catholic candidate Al Smith, Central Florida favored Democrats for president from the 1880s through World War II.<\/p>\n
But in 1948, Orange and Lake counties switched to supporting the GOP, and Seminole and Osceola joined them four years later. Democratic candidates for president would not win any of the four counties again that century until Osceola voted for Bill Clinton in 1996, and no Democrat has won Lake since.<\/p>\n
Steven Noll, a professor of history at the University of Florida, said the the biggest reason for Central Florida\u2019s shift\u00a0to the GOP was increasing suburbanization.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of Northerners were coming to Florida looking for cheap land after World War II, looking for low taxes, looking for better weather, and Republicans kind of built on that,\u201d Noll said. \u201cThese are conservative people who at some level could tie into the conservative ethos of the Democratic Party, but not the overt, small-town, good-ole-boy, pork-chop-gang Democrats that were running the state of Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he added, \u201cwe can say that the Republican transition in Florida had less to do with race\u201d than elsewhere in the South. \u201cBut it certainly does have something to do with race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andersen, as publisher of the Sentinel, had backed Democratic President Harry Truman in 1948 despite his qualms about the party adding a civil rights plank to its platform. \u201cWe do not believe that Pres. Truman will force the anti-segregation laws on the South,\u201d an editorial stated that year.<\/p>\n
Black people, who were able to vote for the first time in city primaries in Orlando in 1950, \u201cwould get there quicker through the help of their sincere Southern friends than through political manipulators,\u201d Andersen said, according to his biographer Ormund Powers.<\/p>\n
![\"Arthur](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-pappy-kenney.jpg\")
Arthur “Pappy” Kennedy takes the Orlando City Council oath of office in 1973. Kennedy was the first African American elected to the city council, more than two decades after Blacks were allowed to vote in city elections. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n
It took another two decades, however, before an African American was elected to Orlando City Council with Arthur \u201cPappy\u201d Kennedy in 1973. Mable Butler became the first Black woman on the council in 1984.<\/p>\n
Andersen\u2019s uneasiness with civil rights, as well as Democrats\u2019 pro-union policies, pushed him to break with the party and back Republican Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were for Ike,\u201d Andersen said later. \u201cEveryone was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, it was hard for some longtime Dems to make the switch, so the Sentinel provided advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember, all you have to do is push the lever\u201d for Eisenhower, an editorial stated. \u201cYou can then return to the Democratic column and vote for all the rest of the Democrats as you wish.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-anderson-lbj.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n
President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and Orlando Sentinel Publisher Martin Andersen ride together during the Democratic president\u2019s visit to Orlando on Oct. 26, 1964. Andersen, who by then had become Republican-leaning, endorsed his old friend that year. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-lydon-johnson-1964_262547450.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n
The presidential caravan of Lyndon B. Johnson drives down Orange Avenue past the Orlando Sentinel building in 1964. (Courtesy Orange County Regional History Center)<\/p>\n
![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-lyndon-b-johnson-orlando_994470.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n
President Lyndon B. Johnson is engulfed by a hand-shaking crowd during his visit to Orlando in October 1964, shortly before Election Day. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n
Show Caption<\/p>\n
1 of 3<\/p>\n
President Lyndon B. Johnson (left) and Orlando Sentinel Publisher Martin Andersen ride together during the Democratic president\u2019s visit to Orlando on Oct. 26, 1964. Andersen, who by then had become Republican-leaning, endorsed his old friend that year. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n
Expand<\/a><\/p>\n For the rest of the century, the Sentinel\u2019s presidential endorsements would go to Republicans but for 1964. That year, Andersen backed his longtime friend, Democrat Lyndon Johnson \u2014 thanks to a little pressure.<\/p>\n After a Sentinel editorial praised Republican Barry Goldwater, an opponent of the Civil Rights Act, Johnson supposedly sent word to Andersen that if he didn\u2019t support him, Orlando would lose its airbase at what is now Orlando International Airport, according to Powers\u2019 book.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018They\u2019re not going to get that air base,\u2019\u201d Andersen supposedly responded.<\/p>\n Andersen\u2019s pro-LBJ editorials provoked reader backlash, but the publisher stuck by his Texas friend and sat next to Johnson in a campaign parade on Orange Avenue that drew thousands.<\/p>\n After that, the Sentinel went back to endorsing GOP presidential candidates until 2004, when it endorsed Democrat John Kerry.<\/p>\n But while the Orlando area remained a Republican stronghold, most of Florida was dominated by Democrats. John Mica of Winter Park was just one of 28 Republicans elected to the 120-member Florida House in 1976. In the Senate that year, there were just 9 Republicans out of 40.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Democrats kind of controlled everything,\u201d Mica said. \u201cI got paired off with some of the more conservative Democrats, and we became and still are very good friends. \u2026 I got a few bills passed.\u201d<\/p>\n But if Democrats controlled Tallahassee, Republicans began to win more statewide races \u2014 and it was Central Florida that provided the talent.<\/p>\n In 1968, former Winter Park Mayor Edward Gurney became the first Republican to win a Florida U.S. Senate seat in the 20th Century. He later resigned, however, after being indicted on bribery charges.<\/p>\n Twelve years later, the self-styled \u201cBattling Housewife from Maitland,\u201d Paula Hawkins, became the first and, to date, only Florida woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n Mica ran Hawkins\u2019 senatorial offices and recalled the freak accident in 1982 that injured her and overshadowed much of her single term.<\/p>\n During an interview at the WESH-Channel 2 studios in Winter Park, a large wooden screen fell on Hawkins, striking her in the head and neck and exacerbating a previous spinal injury.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Capitol, we put a hospital bed in there and put weights on her feet to stretch her out, relieve the pain, and give her some painkillers,\u201d Mica recalled.<\/p>\n In a 1986 year-end roundup under the subhead, \u201cThe Fickle Trends of Fashion,\u201d the Sentinel dismissively wrote about Hawkins\u2019 \u201con-again, off-again neck brace.\u201d<\/p>\n Democratic Gov. Bob Graham, who was ending his second term in Tallahassee, ran for Hawkins\u2019 seat. He was able to travel the state campaigning that year while Hawkins could not. Despite her comparing her debate against Graham to \u201cJoan of Arc against a robot,\u201d Hawkins lost.<\/p>\n Mica, though, was elected to Congress in 1992, ultimately rising to chair the House Transportation Committee and serving 24 years, the longest-tenured Central Floridian in the chamber.<\/p>\n For a time in the mid-2000s, a single neighborhood in Orlando, Baldwin Park, was home to both of Florida\u2019s U.S. senators: Democrat Bill Nelson, a former congressman who flew in space on the shuttle Columbia, and Republican Mel Martinez, a former Orange County mayor and cabinet member.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the developers need some help with the federal government, maybe they should talk to two of their homeowners,\u201d the Sentinel column \u201cThis Just In\u201d suggested after Baldwin Park applied for disaster aid following a hurricane.<\/p>\n Former President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace, visited Mount Dora in 1930 and stayed at the Lakeside Inn. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n President Calvin Coolidge and his wife sample fruit presented to them by the Florida Citrus Growers Clearing House during a stop in Sanford in 1929 in this photo that appeared on the front page of the Orlando Morning Sentinel. Coolidge also dedicated the Bok Tower during that visit, now immortalized with a statue at the site. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visits Rollins College on March 23, 1936. Also in the car is Florida Governor Dave Sholtz, Orlando Mayor Verner Estes, and Rollins President Hamilton Holt. (Orange County Regional History Center)<\/p>\n On March 8, 1949, President Harry S. Truman visited Orlando, arriving at the Orlando Air Force Base from Key West to honor former U.S. Sen. Charles O. Andrews Sr. He dedicated the Charles O. Andrews Causeway on Mills Avenue and later received an honorary degree from Rollins College. (Orange County Regional History Center)<\/p>\n On March 8, 1949, President Harry S. Truman visited Orlando, arriving at the Orlando Air Force Base from Key West to honor former U.S. Sen. Charles O. Andrews Sr. He dedicated the Charles O. Andrews Causeway on Mills Avenue and later received an honorary degree from Rollins College. (Orange County Regional History Center)<\/p>\n President Dwight Eisenhower is accompanied by two Defense Department chiefs as he tours the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Feb. 10, 1960. Standing before a gantry housing an Atlas intercontinental missile are, left to right: Eisenhower; Maj. Gen. Donald N. Yates, commandant of the missile center; Defense Secretary Thomas S. Gates, Jr.; and Air Force Secretary William H. Douglas. (The Associated Press file)<\/p>\n President Richard Nixon gives the commencement address at Florida Technological University on June. 8, 1973. (Orlando Sentinel Star)<\/p>\n In this Feb. 23, 1962 file photo, astronaut John Glenn, left, and President John F. Kennedy, center, inspect the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule which Glenn rode in orbit. At right is Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy presented the Distinguished Service Medal to Glenn at Cape Canaveral, Fla. (The Associated Press file)<\/p>\n President Ronald Reagan delivers his famous “Evil Empire” speech to the National Association of Evangelicals at the Sheraton Twin Towers in Orlando in 1983. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n President Ronald Reagan speaks at EPCOT Center, March 8, 1983. Looking on is Disney executive Dick Nunis. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n Sen. John McCain laughs with Sen. Mel Martinez (far left) and his wife, Cindy, as Jonathan Carroll presents a giant “McCain 08” pizza during a campaign stop at the American Pie Pizza Company in the College Park on Jan. 27, 2008. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n President Barack Obama surprises workers at the Obama For America Orlando field office with a stack of pizzas during an unannounced visit during the 2012 campaign. Obama won the state that year, the last Democrat to do so. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file) <\/p>\n President Trump speaks during his campaign kickoff at the Amway Center in downtown Orlando on Tuesday, June 18, 2019. (Stephen M. Dowell\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n Show Caption<\/p>\n 1 of 13<\/p>\n Former President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace, visited Mount Dora in 1930 and stayed at the Lakeside Inn. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n Expand<\/a> Presidents had been swinging through Central Florida for decades, but mostly they were here for pleasure and not work. Chester Arthur fished on Reedy Creek, Grover Cleveland visited Winter Park, and Calvin Coolidge vacationed at the Lakeside Inn at Mount Dora, where you can now stay in the Coolidge Suite.<\/p>\n But as Florida\u2019s importance increased, more presidents visited as part of the job \u2014 turning Orlando into the scene of some of the most famous, and infamous, presidential speeches.<\/p>\n It was at a newspaper editors\u2019 conference at Disney\u2019s Contemporary Resort that Richard Nixon insisted \u201cI am not a crook\u201d in 1973. Ten years later, Ronald Reagan coined the phrase \u201cEvil Empire\u201d at the Sheraton Twin Towers, now the Doubletree by Hilton Orlando at SeaWorld. Covering Reagan that day in 1983 was a young photojournalist for the Sentinel, Joe Burbank.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even remember if it was a big deal that news cycle or not,\u201d Burbank said. \u201cBut later I got invited to do a roundtable about that speech, so you know what a big deal it was. That photo has been used in textbooks.\u201d<\/p>\n Burbank got in on the ground floor of one of the biggest political phenomena in the late 20th century: the I-4 Corridor, the swingiest region in America\u2019s swingiest state.<\/p>\n \u201cOrange County was like basically the barometer for how the state would go,\u201d Isbell said. \u201cOrange County\u2019s margins often matched the statewide margins.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, Burbank said, Orlando became \u201cthe center of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody knew what you were talking about when you talked about the I-4 Corridor,\u201d he recalled.\u00a0\u201cThat whole thing, from about 1992 up until 2020, totally defined presidential politics in the state. \u2026 And I had the privilege of catching all these presidential visits.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida was the true flashpoint in the 2000 election, in which George W. Bush officially won the state by 537 votes over Al Gore. A Sentinel investigation the next year found thousands of potential votes were lost due to confusing ballot designs, most of which hurt Gore, and if counted would have narrowed Bush\u2019s margin even further.<\/p>\n Among Burbank\u2019s favorite photos is Bush being greeted at the airport by his younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who \u201cturns it into a total goof, where he pulls the president into him and messes up his hair. It made a great photo. It would never happen in this day and age.\u201d<\/p>\n Barack Obama shook up his official campaign schedule in 2008 by making a delivery to his Central Florida campaign phone bank center. \u201cThe photo I took was of him with a stack of pizza boxes and a really funny expression on his face,\u201d Burbank said. \u201cAnother time, Obama swung by a bar on Orange Ave.\u201d<\/p>\n Later, however, Burbank would take another picture, one he considers among his most important, of Obama solemnly laying a wreath at the makeshift Pulse memorial at the Dr. Phillips Center in 2016.<\/p>\n In 2020, Joe Biden held a small, socially-distanced event in Kissimmee, while Donald Trump \u2014 who had kicked off his reelection campaign the year before at the Amway Center downtown \u2014 held a rally in Sanford delayed a week by his COVID-related hospital stay.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bloom on the I-4 Corridor had already kind of come and gone, but there was still some of it,\u201d Burbank said. \u201cBut now, after 2024, we can hear the crickets chirp.\u201d<\/p>\n Those 2020 events were the last presidential campaign events in Central Florida. Trump won the state by about 3 percentage points that year, a margin that grew to 13 percentage points in 2024.<\/p>\n Since Jeb Bush\u2019s first term as governor in 1999, Florida\u2019s state government has been Republican-controlled. Now it\u2019s considered a safe Red state in presidential elections, too, making campaign stops unnecessary.<\/p>\n \u201cRepublicans felt that their money could be better spent at places that were in play, and Florida wasn\u2019t in play,\u201d Noll said. \u201cDemocrats felt that it wasn\u2019t worth it, because there was no way they were going to win in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n The state\u2019s political transition from a purple state to a solidly red one in the past two decades has been \u201cextraordinarily quick and extraordinarily deep,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The future<\/p>\n In 2026, Central Florida stands at a crossroads politically.<\/p>\n Orange County, once a red island in a sea of blue, became one of just a few Democratic-leaning areas in a state dominated by Republicans.<\/p>\n Major registration drives during Obama\u2019s presidential campaigns, Isbell said, created \u201ca massive spike in Hispanic and Black registration and political engagement in Orange County.\u201d That has since stuck, making the county a \u201cfirewall\u201d even as Republicans won seven straight governor\u2019s races.<\/p>\n But a controversial mid-decade redistricting pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis this year has carved up the area\u2019s congressional districts so that only one Democratic-leaning seat remains, while other Orange suburbs have been attached to Republican-leaning seats stretching out as far afield as Lake Okeechobee, Melbourne and The Villages.<\/p>\n Neighboring counties, though, are in a state of flux. Seminole County went from being \u201crock-ribbed\u201d Republican to voting for progressive Democrat Andrew Gillum in 2018 and Joe Biden for president in 2020, before tipping back to the GOP fold in elections since.<\/p>\n In Osceola County, what had been an increasingly blue bastion as the state\u2019s Puerto Rican heartland became a warning signal for Democrats nationally when it swung to Republicans in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n The area is also seeing a changing of the guard.<\/p>\n The only Democrat with a safe U.S. House seat is 29-year-old Maxwell Frost, the first Gen Z-er in Congress, whose district adjoins that of Republican Cory Mills, still young (for politics) at 45.<\/p>\n Longtime public figures such as U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, 77, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, 67, and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, also 67, are all retiring, with 36-year-old state Rep. Anna Eskamani the favorite to succeed Dyer at City Hall.<\/p>\n In 1934, a Sentinel editorial noted the same phenomenon when\u00a0a twenty-something challenger ousted the longtime head of the Orange Democrats, Josiah Ferris, who years before had owned the Sentinel.<\/p>\n \u201cOur younger leaders, God bless them, impatient, impulsive, ambitious, are confronted with a tremendously important opportunity in the field of politics,\u201d the Sentinel wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that young men are coming along to replace the veterans,\u201d the editorial concluded, \u201cis as definitely clear as a full moon on a cloudless night.\u201d<\/p>\n More stories and features from the Orlando Sentinel\u2019s 150 years of covering Central Florida can be found at OrlandoSentinel.com\/150<\/a>. Sign up for our free history newsletter at OrlandoSentinel.com\/newsletters<\/a><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Want more Orlando history? Buy a copy of the Orlando Sentinel\u2019s 150th anniversary book with 150 front pages from our 150 years.\u00a0Get it OrlandoSentinel.com\/150yearsbook<\/a> and see more anniversary merchandise at OrlandoSentinel.com\/150yearsmerch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a few months after the first issue of the Orange County Reporter rolled off the presses in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[53370,114,266,115,139,141,140,53371,99,109],"class_list":["post-360620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-flashbacks","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-sentinel-150","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Rep.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-mica.jpg\")
Rep. John Mica of Winter Park, shown questioning Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman during a committee hearing on Capital Hill in 2008, was one of the few Republicans elected to the Florida House in 1976. He was elected to Congress in 1992 and served until 2017. (New York Daily News)
\nFrom Tallahassee to D.C.<\/p>\n![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-gurney2_a82359.jpg\")
U.S. Senator Edward Gurney, a former Winter Park mayor, in 1968 became the first Republican to represent Florida in the Senate since Reconstruction. He resigned following several indictments. (New York Daily News)<\/p>\n![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-HAWKINS_PAULA-neck.jpg\")
U.S. Sen. Paula Hawkins was severely injured in a studio mishap at WESH-Channel 2 in 1982. She is seen here with her husband Gene while recovering from lower back surgery at Duke University Medical Center in 1986.(UPI)<\/p>\n![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-SENATE-NELSON.jpg\")
U.S. Senator-elect Bill Nelson waves to motorists passing by the Florida Capitol after his election in 2000. Nelson, who had represented Central Florida in Congress, went on to serve three terms in the Senate. (The Associated Press file)<\/p>\n![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-coolidge-1930.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-coolidge-citrus.jpg?w=620\")
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<\/p>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-truman-orlando.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-truman-orlando2.jpg?w=620\")
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<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tos-l-OS150-POL-kennedy-cape.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TOS-L-Reagan-Evil-Empire-01_265000781.jpg?w=620\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Sen.](\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TOS-L-McCain-Pizza-01.jpg?w=620\")
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\n\u2018The center of the universe\u2019<\/p>\n![\"One](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-nixon-crook.jpeg\")
One of the most famous quotes in U.S. presidential history took place at Disney\u2019s Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World in 1973. President Richard Nixon told the Associated Press Managing Editors at their annual meeting, \u201cI am not a crook.\u201d Nixon resigned the next year. (The Associated Press file)<\/p>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-Reagan-Evil-Empire-01_265000781.jpg\")
President Ronald Reagan delivers his famous “Evil Empire” speech to the National Association of Evangelicals at the Sheraton Twin Towers in Orlando in 1983. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n![\"Orlando](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-200-election-night-covers.jpg\")
The first Orlando Sentinel 2000 election night headline was, \u2018Oh, so close,\u2019 followed by \u2018IT\u2019S BUSH,\u2019 then \u2018IS IT BUSH?\u2019 and lastly \u2018CONTESTED.\u2019 Bush ultimately won Florida by an official count of 537 votes, but a Sentinel investigation found the true margin may have been even closer.<\/p>\n![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-jeb-george-BUSH_196534283.jpg\")
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush jokes with his brother, President George W. Bush, as the newly sworn-in president steps off Air Force One at Orlando International Airport in 2001. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-obama-biden-pulse.jpg\")
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden place flowers at the makeshift memorial at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando honoring the 49 killed in the Pulse nightclub massacre in June 2016. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tos-l-OS150-POL-trump-2019.jpg\")
President Donald Trump responds to cheering supporters as he kicks off his reelection campaign at the Amway Center in Orlando in 2019. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n![\"\u200b\u200bU.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-OS150-POL-maxwell-frost-pride.jpg\")
\u200b\u200bU.S. Representative Maxwell Frost rocks out on his float during the Pride Parade in downtown Orlando in 2023. Frost, the first Gen Z member of Congress, was elected as a Democrat to his Orange County district at the age of 25 in 2022. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n![\"State](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/TOS-L-OS150-POL-eskamani-mayor.jpg\")
State Rep. Anna Eskamani walks into the city clerk\u2019s office with cheering supporters in 2024 to file the official paperwork for her campaign to be the next mayor of Orlando. Eskamani currently represents Central Florida\u2019s District 42 in the Florida House. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n