Miami-Dade swings blue in midterms, backing Jolly and Nixon
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Miami-Dade voters favored Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate and governor in Tuesday's midterm elections, signaling a potential shift back toward the county's purple status.
Why it matters: The outcome is a sharp rebuke of the Republican Party's top-ticket candidates and shows its weakening hold over Hispanic voters in the county.
State of play: Miami-Dade voters swung 18 points toward the Democratic Party compared with the 2024 presidential election, according to the Associated Press.
- Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Angie Nixon earned 53% of the vote, compared with Republican incumbent Ashley Moody's nearly 46%, according to unofficial results from the county's supervisor of elections.
- In the gubernatorial race, Democrat David Jolly garnered nearly 53% of the vote to Republican Byron Donalds' nearly 46%, results show.
Meanwhile, the closely watched 27th Congressional District race between Democrat Eliott Rodriguez and incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar is heading to a recount.
- The supervisor of elections on Wednesday confirmed the race's margin stood at 0.46%, falling within Florida's 0.50% automatic machine recount threshold.
What they're saying: "This is a reversion back to the mean," Democratic strategist Steve Schale told Axios on Wednesday, adding that President Trump and Gov. DeSantis were "outliers."
- Schale said "the hangover" from 2020, when Democrats evoked socialist talking points and discussed defunding the police, prevented the county from seeing even larger margins, particularly among Hispanic voters.
Zoom in: Voters in Miami's majority-Black and -white neighborhoods propelled the leftward swing, according to an analysis by the Miami Herald.
- Nixon won the county's majority-Black neighborhoods by more than 70 percentage points and beat Moody in white-majority neighborhoods by about 4 percentage points, the outlet found.
- Jolly outperformed Donalds in the county's majority-Black neighborhoods by about 70 percentage points and by about 9 percentage points in white-majority neighborhoods.
The intrigue: Unlike in other parts of the country, where Latino voters helped Democrats win crucial races, Miami-Dade's Hispanic voters sided with the GOP — though by smaller margins than in previous elections.
- In 2022, DeSantis earned 65% of the vote in majority-Hispanic precincts, outlets reported.
- On Tuesday, Moody beat Nixon by around 4 percentage points in majority-Hispanic neighborhoods, while Donalds outperformed Jolly by about 5 percentage points with less than 52% of the vote, per the Herald.
Yes, but: In some neighborhoods, including Doral, nicknamed "Doralzuela" for its large Venezuelan population, a slim majority supported both Nixon and Jolly, per unofficial results.
- In 2024, the area went with Trump by 23 points, per reports.
The bottom line: For Democrats to win statewide elections, they'll likely need even larger margins in Miami-Dade.