Issue #212: How Osceola County foretold Donald Trump's Victory

When I knew things were going to be bad

There is one moment from election night in 2024 that I will always remember as the “oh no” moment for me. Back in the 2020 election, Joe Biden’s terrible numbers out of Miami-Dade confirmed that he would not win Florida. In 2024, my “oh no” moment was not confined to Florida results - but rather how the entire national election would go. The moment in question came when I saw the results for the majority-Hispanic, and heavily Puerto Rican, Osceola County, Florida. This is the county that sits just south of Orlando.

This county, which is home to over 125,000 Puerto Rican residents that make up at least 30% of the county’s population, has been a steadfast Democratic county since Obama’s 2008 election. It is one of the fastest growing counties in Florida, only getting more racially diverse with time. While much of the south and western portions of the country remain rural and heavily white, the rapidly growing Kissimmee and St. Cloud regions are growing as an expansion of the Orlando metro.

Osceola is currently the base for the 9th Congressional District; Florida’s latest majority-Hispanic seat in Congress. The voter registration map of the district shows the corridor of Hispanic voters that stretch from Orange County and into western Osceola. Among Hispanic voters in the region, around 60% are Puerto Rican.

Florida’s growing Puerto Rican population has come from migration from the New York City area and a growing migration from the island of Puerto Rico itself. Back in 2020, I covered how the growing Puerto Rican population was shifting the I-4 corridor solidly to the left of the state. Sense Puerto Ricans are US citizens, and hence can register to vote once establishing mainland residence, the Hispanic share of voter registration does not lag census numbers as much as it does in South Florida.

Back in 2020, Biden had won Osceola County by 14%, which even then was well down from Hillary Clinton’s 25% margin. Biden in 2020 had lost Hispanic support across the country - and that had included Osceola. This swing was overshadowed by the story in Miami-Dade. I covered all this in my 2020 Florida Retrospective.

The Biden drop was part of a broad Republican gain with Hispanics that Democrats. Then in 2022, Ron DeSantis narrowly carried Osceola. However, this win was not due to a massive gain with Hispanic voters; but rather a history 18% turnout gap between Democrats and Republicans in the country. As Democratic ground games in 2022 were un-funded, the midterm saw the worst Democratic turnout on record; which hit especially bad with Black and Hispanic voters. I delved into that story here.

Despite these setbacks for Democrats, there was much more optimism for 2024. Turnout was not expected to be as much of an issue (and as best I can see right now it wasn’t the issue). Democrats also hoped they could win back some of the Clinton-Trump Hispanics. The notion that Osceola would go Democratic by over 10 points was the regular state of play. Republicans were not heavily invested in the State Senate race there - nor was Congressman Darren Soto considered at major risk.

The Results Come In

If you were following my election coverage heading into the big day, you know that I never considered Florida really in play for Harris. My focus was on different down-ballot races; from state legislature to county commissions. It was with that local focus in mind that I was tuned into the Osceola County elections page. Several of the legislative districts that I considered in-play in my State House ratings overlapped with Orange and Osceola counties.

But my hope for a good night of legislative results in Florida, followed by Harris winning the national contest, quickly faded as Osceola County began to report. The initial early and absentee voting, what would for sure be Harris’ strongest showing, only had her up 3%. Seeing that margin, after quickly making sure something wasn’t mistaken, made my heart sink and my heartbeat accelerate. These were terrible numbers, and if they were not just a Florida thing, then the night was not going to go well.

The final results after election day had Trump winning Osceola by 1.4%.

The loss in Osceola, the massive shift from 2020, indicated that something was very wrong for Harris with Hispanic voters. This sentiment would be further confirmed by Orange slipping in margins, though it remained firmly blue, as well as Miami-Dade swinging massively to the right. As I got a sense of things, the Osceola figure was much more concerning, as it specifically was heavily influenced by Puerto Rican voters; a group Harris needed heading into places like Pennsylvania. My initial hopes that somehow this was a Florida-specific problem did not pan out - and Osceola proved to be an early warning sign of the red swing to come with Hispanic voters.

Broadly, Harris still won the Hispanic vote in Osceola, albeit very narrowly. Compared with Biden’s 25%+ margin in 2020, or Clinton’s 40%+ margin in 2016. I won’t be able to try and lock in a more firm 2024 margin until final turnout data comes out.

How the 2016 and 2020 elections within Osceola can be seen below.

The Trump win here is a much bigger deal than the 2022 DeSantis win in the county. The DeSantis win was based on having a much more white and Republican electorate showing up. In 2022, Republican turnout was 18% higher than Democrats; while in 2024 the gap was just 6%. Trump’s win is thanks to him winning over 2020 Biden voters and likely winning over many of the newer arrivals in the county.

The loss of Osceola led to a massive drop in Harris’ margin within the 9th Congressional district. While Biden had won the seat by 17 points in 2020, Harris was down to just 3.5%. In total this was a 14 point swing.

What is fairly notable from the 2020 and 2024 maps in the 9th is that most areas remained either blue or red. However, Democrats went from massive margins in the heavily-Hispanic west end of the district. Now it is shades of light blue.

Congress and Legislative Results

While the top of the ticket races were bitterly disappointing for Democrats, down ballot the story in Osceola was much more mixed, and even downright good for team blue.

At the Congressional level, Darren Soto remains a strong over-performer in his district. Soto, who is Puerto Rican and a former State Senator for the area, has been a strong representative for his district since his election in 2016. I actually covered his run for the seat in this piece. This go-around, Soto won the district by 12.5%; far outpacing Harris.

Soto’s margin was up from 2022, when he’d won the district by 7.3%. To me this further confirms how much turnout hurt Democrats in that election. The older and whiter electorate of that year even dragged down Soto. Here, however, the story is much more about people splitting their tickets. There are many Trump-Soto voters in this district.

While Soto was a big over-performer, there was less ticket splitting at the legislative level. The race for State Senate 25, which I had as Safe Democratic heading into the election, wound up being very close. State Representative Kristen Arrington narrowly bested businessman Jose Martinez by 3%.

This State Senate seat had voted for Biden by 18% in 2020, but fell to just Harris by 2.7%. One issue that likely prevented Arrington from having a Soto-like overperformance is that she is white and Martinez argued that a Hispanic person should represent the majority-Hispanic seat. Arrington bested Hispanic candidate Carmen Torres in the Democratic primary, which saw Arrington win the Hispanic voters in that contest. Polling had initially shown Arrington up over 15 points in the race; so clearly something was missed or changed radically.

The whole saga of the Senate 25 Democratic Primary and this closer-than-expected general election is something I intend to write about as its own piece down the line.

Further down-ballot, as the State House level, the Trump gains with Hispanic voters led to several of the Biden house seats flipping to Trump. Seminole County has yet to release their precinct data, but the totals I have for the Orange and Osceola seats shows three Biden-Trump seats.

All districts swung to the right, but the largest swing correlated heavily with Hispanic share. The Hispanic HD43 and HD44 in Orange went from solid Democratic to much more modest. Seats like HD41, which remains heavily Democratic thanks to a 45% Black population, swung to the right by so much thanks to a sizeable Hispanic minority - in that case 25%. The seat with the smallest swing, HD42, is over 65% white and less than 20% Hispanic.

Down in House District 47, which is majority-Hispanic and heavily Puerto Rican, the district went from Biden +13 to Trump +3; a massive 16 point swing.

This district, which was won by Republican Paula Stark in 2022 amid the turnout issues discussed before, was considered an easy pickup for Democrats. Stark faced Maria Revelles, a Democrat born on the island of Puerto Rico. Revelles managed within 1.5% - but could not overcome Stark. I’ll be delving more into the state house races in the area in a future article.

Democratic at the Local Level

While Osceola remained red or very close at the top of the ballot, it got much more steadily blue at the local level. All of Osceola County’s countywide offices were up this year and all of them went Democratic.

From Clerk of Court down to Supervisor of Elections, Democrats won with little issue. The closest race was Clerk of Court, just under 9%. The biggest Democratic win was Property Appraiser Katrina Scarborough’s 60%.

The down-ballot Democratic strength shows there is still a chance to turn things around for Osceola Democrats. However, the realignment always starts at the top of the ticket and works downward. Democrats should not look at the race for Clerk and Tax Collector and assume all is ok - but rather these will be the last to flip if the county continues to trend red.

In the meantime, Democrats in Osceola County and nationwide need to figure out how to reconnect with Hispanic voters.