The Swing Voter Project, Florida: January 2023

The Swing Voter Project, an ongoing collaboration between Schlesinger Group and Engagious, continues in 2023. This initiative gives swing voters—those who voted for Trump in 2016 and then for Biden in 2020—the opportunity to share their viewpoints through monthly online focus groups.

Each respondent group comprises swing voters from 10 key battleground states. In January 2023, we put the spotlight back on Florida.

Some Context for the Florida Swing Voter Group

Florida is a state where Republicans have gained supermajority control of the legislature (House and Senate) and where the incumbent Republican candidate Ron DeSantis was re-elected as Governor in November 2022.

Republicans won all statewide races in 2022 by double digits, and this is the first time since the end of Reconstruction that Democrats do not hold at least one of the statewide positions. These results have led some analysts to debate whether Florida has transitioned from a Republican-leaning swing state into a true red state.

This month’s focus group participants included six Democrats, four Republicans, and three Independents. Below are the highlights of what they shared on some of the most burning topics as 2023 gets underway.

Speaker of the House Drama

The online focus group session was held just days after the televised drama leading up to Kevin McCarty’s selection as House speaker. And yet, respondents struggled to recall these events accurately or to identify photos of the key individuals involved. The most prevalent news story of the year so far was apparently of little-to-no concern for this Florida swing voter group.

Republican-led Investigations

House Republicans will pursue a wide variety of investigations this year. Here’s how the respondents weighed in on these proposed initiatives:

The least divisive response concerned the crisis at the southern border. Eleven out of 13 respondents said they feel it is a necessary issue for Congress to look into.

“I would love to welcome people in a proper way. But there’s got to be better oversight.”

“The way they’re coming in is like in a criminal way. And there are a lot of ways to come to this country legally.”

“The cartels control it as opposed to us controlling it, and that’s an issue because with that comes some dangerous elements.”

As for other proposed investigations:

Nine out of 13 support investigations of the DOJ and FBI.
Five out of 13 support looking into tech companies and their ties to the Biden administration.
Four out of 13 are in favor of investigating Dr. Fauci and the roots of the pandemic.
Two of the 13 are interested in investigating the Afghanistan withdrawal that took place in 2021.
Two out of 13 want Congress to look into the Hunter Biden situation.

DeSantis Keeps His Seat

For context, nine out of the 13 participants voted in the Florida gubernatorial election, with five casting their vote for DeSantis. And nine respondents would take DeSantis over Biden if the next presidential election were tomorrow. Only six would take Trump over Biden.

Where Governor DeSantis seems to leave himself vulnerable with swing voters is on the matter of “attacking wokeness.” However, most of our participants were not able to define wokeness in their own words. But that didn’t hold them back from forming an opinion on the matter:

“I like DeSantis and I like a lot of his policies. It just seems like he shouldn’t go so heavy on the woke. It seems like he’s almost fighting against an invisible boogie man in a way.”

“I understand he’s pandering to his base, but it’s just a little bit too much. There’s legitimacy on both sides, and to say that one side has no legitimacy seems silly to me.”

Most of these respondents are very concerned about immigration, yet only two supported DeSantis’ decision to send immigrants up to northern U.S. cities by bus.

“You just don’t treat people that way…”

Top Concerns Heading into the Midterms

When asked to choose their top three out of 17 listed issues affecting the nation around the time of the midterm elections, some responses were more popular than others. The most popular were as follows: