Susan MacManus may have retired from teaching at the University of South Florida, but she’s still a political scientist eyeing the midterm reviews. As the campaign season kicks off, she chats with Margie Menzel about whether Florida is still a swing state and what issues could upend the upcoming election.

MacManus says Democrats in Florida have lost more than a year of time and organization, primarily due to COVID-19 and generational shifts. She says they have lost much of their ability to campaign locally during the pandemic. And she says young adults were reliable Democratic voters. But now they tend to NPA, or no party affiliation.

MacManus: I think the trend is a bit red for some of these reasons. Could it be reversed? Maybe, you never say never in Florida. We are a great state. We are still the most demographically, racially, ethnically and generationally diverse state. So things can change. But there is no doubt about it. Florida Democrats are catching up in this election cycle.

Menzel: Florida’s political leaders have indicated they want what proponents call constitutional carry, what would be the political costs of implementation?

MacManus: It’s really unknown because the states parties are really divided on this issue. However, I think it would be a bit difficult to move on in light of some of the horrific school mass shootings we’ve had recently. I know there is a split within the Republican Party between some kind of traditionalists and MAGA, as there is within the Democratic Party between centrists and progressives. But female voters have long been something of a swing vote in our state, especially suburban women. And I think open carry would be one of those issues that would probably make a lot of them vote Democrat. So I don’t think it would be politically wise for either party to propose that. And we’ll see, but I don’t foresee it being a very strategic move to go in that direction.

Menzel: Wouldn’t that have financial consequences for the state? Wouldn’t the foreign tourist slow down?

MacManus: It could definitely prevent businesses from moving here, if they were worried about, you know, mass shootings or worried about their employees or whatever. And that could affect visits to Florida. Even though there are a number of states that have open carry, it’s just not as large and diverse a state and the third largest state in the country, and, you know, a critical player in the national policy.

Menzel: So, gun violence, abortion, LGBTQ plus, do you think any of them will influence midterms?

MacManus: I do. But the question is, how much and who? Obviously the issues you mentioned are ones that Democrats in Florida and Democrats across the country see as winning issues for them – like getting out the voting issues, let’s say – and of course mobilizing a wavering base sometimes a little mid-term compared to a presidential participation. But it will certainly, I think, affect young voters more than other voters. The LGBTQ issue, we see a lot of issues around guns, abortion, [transgender rights], Critical Race Theory CRT – these are issues that, taken individually, would be a unique issue for some people, meaning that would be the reason to go vote on this issue alone. It’s just that historically we’ve had a small percentage of Americans who vote for a single issue, but clearly Florida probably has a bit more of a share than the others because of the diversity on the issues themselves that we talked about, and also the diversity of our population. But I’ve seen comments from some South Florida pollsters that focus on the Latino vote. For example, one pollster recently said he didn’t think abortion would be enough, and that guns would be enough to shift the Latino vote – which leans a bit more Republican – toward the Democrats, which I found it very interesting. I think we just don’t know. These are huge problems. But when you have economic issues that everyone faces every day when they’re buying groceries when they’re pumping gas when they have to pay the rent, or their credit card and you know, the interest rates go up, don’t they, any of those things. These questions tend to dominate. And there doesn’t seem to be a high likelihood that these economic problems will dissipate significantly by the time people start voting early for the November election.

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