This book places the 2010 elections in Florida in historical context and offers insight into and an explanation for the substantial gains made by the Republicans that year. This book provides narratives of gubernatorial, U.S. Senatorial, congressional, and state legislative campaigns along with empirical data on voter registration, voter turnout, and the electoral behavior of groups in the Florida electorate. It also speaks to the importance of national forces on state level elections and the impact of external advocacy groups in such elections.

During 2008, the Democrats achieved in Florida a goal that had eluded them in all but three of the national elections since 1964: victory in the presidential race. Despite this success, the Republicans retained their dominance in the U.S. Congress and in the Florida State Legislature. The 2008 Elections in Florida utilizes multiple types of data to provide an explanation for the disparate outcomes of these elections. The book chronicles changes in voter registration and turnout over time and compares the electoral behavior of groups in Florida to that in the nation as a whole. It examines the importance of legislative apportionment, term limits and incumbency to the outcome of congressional and state legislative races and provides important clues to the future of electoral behavior in one of the nation's most important states.