FROM THE ARCHIVE · CAUSEWAY POLITICAL WEATHER · SEPTEMBER 21, 2026
The most important mistake in Miami politics right now may be confusing movement with realignment.
Something is clearly moving.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released today puts President Trump’s approval at 32%, while Democrats lead Republicans 43% to 35% when Americans are asked which party’s congressional candidate they would support.
At the same time, Miami-Dade remains structurally very different from the country at large.
As of August 31, Miami-Dade has:
458,389 Republicans
411,726 Democrats
392,300 voters with no party affiliation
Those two realities can exist at the same time.
And that is where I think the interesting story begins.
THE IDEA: COALITION ELASTICITY
For most of the last few years, Miami political analysis has centered on a familiar question:
Is Miami turning red or turning blue?
I increasingly think that may be the wrong question.
The better question is:
How elastic is the coalition that produced Miami-Dade’s dramatic Republican shift in 2020 and 2024?
In other words, which voters genuinely changed their political identity — and which voters simply changed their vote?
That distinction matters enormously.
A Hispanic voter who supported Trump in 2024 because of inflation, dissatisfaction with Democrats or concerns about the direction of the country does not necessarily become a lifelong Republican.
Likewise, disappointment with Trump today does not automatically make that voter a Democrat.
That voter may simply be movable.
And Miami has a lot of movable voters.
Nearly 400,000 registered NPAs alone should make us cautious about treating Miami as a permanently partisan electorate.
WATCH WHAT POLITICIANS DO, NOT JUST WHAT POLLS SAY
One of the most interesting Miami signals this week didn’t come from a poll.
It came from Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar.
Salazar publicly criticized aspects of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement approach, saying it had gone too far.
Whatever one thinks of the policy itself, the political signal is worth noticing.
A Republican incumbent representing a heavily Hispanic Miami district has decided that immigration enforcement is an issue she needs to address directly and publicly.
That tells us something about the local political temperature.
It doesn’t tell us how those voters will ultimately vote.
But it does tell us where pressure is developing.
ANOTHER STRANGE DATA POINT
Florida Democratic primary voters just nominated David Jolly and Gwen Graham with 60.95% of the vote for governor.
Jolly is a former Republican congressman.
Think about that for a moment.
At the same time Democratic voters nationally are expressing extraordinary dissatisfaction with Republicans, Florida Democrats overwhelmingly nominated someone who spent much of his political career as a Republican.
That’s difficult to explain through a simple left-versus-right framework.
It makes considerably more sense through a change-versus-status-quo framework.
And that brings me to the larger hypothesis I’m testing.
2026 MAY BE A CHANGE ELECTION — NOT AN IDEOLOGICAL ONE.
Voters can want something different without wanting something more ideological.
That may be especially true in Miami.
My working hypothesis is that a potentially powerful space is developing between the traditional partisan poles:
Change without ideological conversion.
A voter can be unhappy with Trump without becoming progressive.
A voter can be frustrated with Democrats without embracing every Republican position.
A voter can want stricter public safety policies while simultaneously believing immigration enforcement has gone too far.
A voter can support development but hate traffic.
A voter can care deeply about climate resilience while questioning the tactics of environmental activists.
Real voters are considerably messier than political Twitter.
That’s why the next several weeks are going to be fascinating.
THREE THINGS I’M WATCHING CLOSELY
Affordability may be the great connector.
Housing, insurance, groceries, fuel and the general cost of living increasingly cut across partisan identity. If there is one issue capable of moving voters who otherwise disagree politically, this appears to be it.The “Activist Gap” is real — and potentially misleading.
The loudest people at a commission meeting, in a neighborhood WhatsApp group, on Instagram or even in a primary electorate are not necessarily representative of the broader electorate. Intensity tells us something important. It does not automatically tell us where the median voter is.Miami’s 2024 coalition should not be assumed permanent — or assumed to be disappearing.
Republicans still hold a substantial registration advantage in Miami-Dade. At the same time, national conditions have moved considerably since 2024. Both facts belong in the model.
THE NEXT TEST IS BETTER THAN ANOTHER POLL
This week we begin moving from opinion to behavior.
Florida begins sending domestic vote-by-mail ballots for the November election starting September 24.
From there, we can begin watching actual participation.
Not who people say they support.
Who requests ballots.
Who returns them.
Which parts of the electorate are showing up.
Which parts aren’t.
We will still need to be careful: a Republican returning a ballot is not necessarily voting Republican, and the same is true for Democrats.
But participation gives us another instrument.
And as those instruments accumulate — polling, registration, primary results, ballot behavior, demographic movement and ultimately election results — the picture gets sharper.
THE CAUSEWAY READ
Here is how I would describe the political weather today:
The national environment has moved noticeably against Republicans. Miami-Dade, however, remains structurally more Republican than the country as a whole.
The interesting territory is everything in between.
Hispanic voters.
NPAs.
Younger voters.
Economically dissatisfied voters.
Low-frequency voters.
And voters who changed parties — or changed only their vote — during Miami’s political transformation.
That is the electorate I intend to keep watching.
Because the story of Miami in 2026 may not ultimately be that it turned left or stayed right.
It may be that Miami became politically elastic.
And if that’s true, it changes how we should understand almost every local political issue and race that follows.
— Ron Bilbao
Founder & Principal
CAUSEWAY
Bridging Business. Navigating Government.
Political Weather is Causeway’s ongoing analysis of national political trends and what they may — and may not — tell us about Miami.
Sources informing this edition include Reuters/Ipsos, New York Times/Siena, Florida Division of Elections and Miami-Dade election data.