For decades, Florida was an essential element of every candidate’s strategy for winning the presidency. Its status as a swing state — with victory within reach for either party — and the enormous trove of electoral votes for the winner often made it the nation’s most hotly contested election battleground. Candidates, for whom time is their most valuable commodity, lavished attention on Florida. Celebrity surrogates poured into court pockets of voters from the state’s diverse communities. And enormous sums of money were spent on TV ads and field organizers.
But, in 2024, much of that time, energy, and money will be traveling to other states — not Florida. The state is on a longer Inside Elections list of 15 competitive states, especially after President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory showed that a Democrat can win the presidency without Florida’s electoral votes. #queer_up_politics