Story at a glance
- Amendment 2, the measure on Floridian ballots to raise minimum wages, garnered more support than Trump or Biden.
- Analysts say this could be a shift in the Republican party base priorities.
Florida is always a battleground state to watch during presidential elections, but one measure on the 2020 ballots in the Sunshine State garnered more votes than either incumbent President Trump or Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Amendment 2, which would gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, passed, and received a total of 6,377,937 votes from Floridians.
Conversely, President Trump, who ultimately won the state, received 5,658,219 votes, and Biden trailed behind him with 5,283,367.
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The Treasure Coast Palm notes that this vote volume indicates the popularity of raising the minimum wage for workers in Florida, but also reveals some Republican or President Trump voters supported a measure that tends to track more with Democrat voters.
This could be due to changes in the traditional GOP values, a change that could be credited with President Trump’s campaign and election in 2016 that focused on uplifting working class Americans.
“The coalition of Republicans has changed because of Trump and those Trump Republicans are more sympathetic to working-class people, where historically the GOP has been know [sic] as the country club party,” Eric Hoppenbrouwer, executive director of Business Voice PAC, told reporters.
The current minimum wage in Florida is $8.56, an hourly rate that advocates for greater minimum wage say is unlivable.
“Amendment 2 would lift pay for hundreds of thousands of Floridians and reverse decades of growing pay inequality,” Florida for a Fair Wage, the advocacy group backing the amendment, says. “It allows individuals to take pride in their work rather than fight the endless cycle of poverty.”
Business owners are concerned that lifting wages will result in more expensive operating costs, which could lead to layoffs.
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