Of the state’s nearly 14.3 million registered voters, 5,118,357 were registered as Republicans and 5,114,039 were Democrats as of Oct. 31, according to the Division of Elections website.
Another 252,492 were registered with third parties and 3,814,567 had no party affiliation. During an appearance Nov. 5 at the National Conference of State Legislatures Republican breakfast in Tampa, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Republicans had surpassed Democrats.
“When I got elected governor, we had 280,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in the state of Florida," DeSantis said at the time. "Today — and it'll probably be fully publicized very soon — today, for the first time in the history of Florida, we've now overtaken Democrats.”
Party organizations have long compiled data from county supervisors of elections, making numbers available to them before it is posted by the state.
While Democrats historically have had a registration edge, Republicans have dominated state politics for more than two decades, controlling the governor’s office, the state House and the state Senate.
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This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2021.