Trump, Scott on Track to Win in Florida
by J. Andrew Sinclair, Ph.D. & Kenneth P. Miller, J.D., Ph.D.
Trump poised to defeat Harris in Florida.
Former President Trump is likely to defeat Vice President Harris in his home state of Florida. Once among the most competitive states in the nation, Florida has drifted toward Republicans in recent years. In 2020, Trump defeated Biden 51%-48% in the state. In our poll of registered Florida voters, Trump leads Harris 50%-45%, with a margin of error of 3.46. About 5% of Florida respondents remain undecided or prefer a third-party candidate. The poll was designed by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and implemented by YouGov. It includes 1,094 voters in Florida as part of a larger national poll.
When Florida’s undecided or third-party voters are asked whether they lean toward either major candidate, Trump maintains his advantage, 51%-46%. Restricting the sample to likely voters and reweighting keeps Trump’s advantage at 51%-46% (N=1,076; MoE=3.49). Polls have consistently shown a Trump advantage in Florida since August. Our results, with 96% of the answers coming in after Oct.9, show that Hurricane Milton, which hit Florida on that day, did not alter the race.
In Florida, our data shows that Harris is the preferred candidate of younger (18-29) registered voters by 54%-41% and Black registered voters by 75%-19%. Unlike in the national data, women break evenly between the candidates (47%-47%), and men prefer Trump (54% to 42% for Harris). Our survey finds Florida’s Hispanic/Latino registered voters prefer Trump over Harris (50% to 44%).
Scott leads his race with similar support as Trump.
Incumbent Republican Senator Rick Scott also leads the Florida U.S. Senate race over Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, 49%-45%. The margin of error is 3.46, and about 6% of voters remain undecided. While it is possible Mucarsel-Powell will outperform these estimates, either through polling error or the late movement of undecided voters, our results are largely in line with election forecasts like the Sabato Crystal ball which rate Florida’s U.S. Senate seat as “likely R.”
Partisanship drives roughly one-third of Florida voters to express interest in leaving the state.
The 2022 CMC-Rose Institute Poll1 included a series of questions asking about whether respondents wished to move to a different state. While many residents may never move, desiring to move is the first step to doing so, and the desire itself serves as a measure of satisfaction with life in the state. In 2022, 33% of Florida registered voters were interested in moving, a statistic which contrasted favorably with California’s 44%. We asked the same question in 2024, with the vast majority of respondents taking the survey in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
In 2024, 34% of Florida’s registered voters are interested in moving, mirroring 2022 results. Among respondents who express interest in moving, many fewer took concrete steps to move, again similar to responses in 2022. The difference with California, however, has evaporated as only 33% of Californians are now interested in moving. In both states, partisanship explains interest in moving, as it did in 2022. In Florida in 2024, 48% of Democrats, but only 19% of Republicans, are interested in moving. Given an opportunity to explain their interest, many voters complain about heat, hurricanes, and the cost of living. Democrats are much more likely to also make political comments. One writes: “it’s too Republican and too hot.” Democrats seem to sense the voting trends evident in our poll results as Florida has become increasingly more Republican, and is likely to remain so in the 2024 election.
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1 See here: https://roseinstitute.org/2022-red-vs-blue-states/
The Survey
The data for this survey comes from the CMC-Rose Institute Fall 2024 Poll. The survey was designed by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government and implemented online by YouGov between October 7, 2024 and October 17, 2024. The total sample of 1,094 registered voters was collected as part of a larger national survey, including respondents from the national sample and an additional 1,000 voters as a Florida oversample. The data was weighted by gender, age, race, education, past presidential vote, and home ownership. YouGov created the “modeled frame” (the target YouGov uses in selecting respondents for inclusion and uses to create the survey weights) by using the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and the 2020 presidential vote. The survey has a margin of error of 3.46 for registered voters. To create a likely voter weight, respondents were screened for vote intention and the data reweighted; the likely voter sample has a margin of error of 3.49.
The CMC-Rose Institute 2024 Poll is funded by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont McKenna College Faculty Major Grant Award, and Betsy Sinclair, Washington University in St. Louis.
For more information, visit www.roseinstitute.org/2024-poll or contact CMC-Rose Institute Poll Director J. Andrew Sinclair at asinclair@cmc.edu.