This is fantastic! I spent a lot of time in and around that district between 1996 and 2003 or so and everything you were saying in this article is absolutely correct. Also the fate of Bill Grant had a deterrent effect on potential party switching for while in the area. While we saw state legislators and county officials from West Florida or from Central Florida switch parties with regularity in the 1990s there was very little movement in the Big Bend at the time because of how Grant had been easily defeated after switching in 1990. Then the party switching picked up after about 2005 in that region as we all know.
This is fantastic! I spent a lot of time in and around that district between 1996 and 2003 or so and everything you were saying in this article is absolutely correct. Also the fate of Bill Grant had a deterrent effect on potential party switching for while in the area. While we saw state legislators and county officials from West Florida or from Central Florida switch parties with regularity in the 1990s there was very little movement in the Big Bend at the time because of how Grant had been easily defeated after switching in 1990. Then the party switching picked up after about 2005 in that region as we all know.