Former President Trump cemented Florida’s status as a deep-red state on Tuesday, flipping multiple counties up and down the state.

Miami-Dade County saw a Republican win at the presidential level for the first time in 36 years, while the greater Tampa area also went red. Trump also flipped Jacksonville’s Duval County and large swaths of blue-leaning Central Florida.

Trump carried the state by 13 points on Tuesday, dramatically improving on his roughly 3-point margin in 2020 and his 1-point margin in 2016.

While Florida has been on a GOP trajectory for nearly ten years, Trump’s victory and Vice President Harris’s underperformance underscores the degree to which he has tightened his political hold on the state and is also emblematic of the former president’s over-performance on election night.

“I looked at Duval and I said Duval is a microcosm of Georgia,” said Florida Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “He wins this by five, he’s going to win Georgia for sure.”

The economy and immigration reigned supreme for voters’ top issues in Florida, like in much of the country. According to the AP VoteCast, 41 percent of voters said the economy was their most important issue, followed by immigration at 23 percent and abortion at nine percent.

“Now we have Trump crushing it by 13 points. Part of that is kind of an affirmation of [Trump’s] agenda on........

© The Hill