MAP: Where Trump won big in Broward — and where he performed poorly

With all his opponents having dropped out, former President Donald Trump won every city in Broward in Florida’s presidential primary, though he didn’t perform quite as well as he did in the rest of the state.

And the Republican votes in the county’s cities and towns weren’t uniform. Some communities provided him a much larger share of the vote than the 79.8% he received countywide, and others much less.

There was a swath of Trump support in the southwest part of Broward — Miramar, Pembroke Pines, and Southwest Ranches — and a stretch from the northeast through the north-central part of the county, including Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Margate, Lauderhill, Tamarac and Sunrise.

He also overperformed in Hallandale Beach.

Trump’s two worst cities were Fort Lauderdale and, especially, neighboring Wilton Manors.

He also underperformed in some of Broward’s most affluent enclaves near the coast — Lighthouse Point, Hillsboro Beach and Sea Ranch Lakes — and in the western part of the county — Parkland and Weston.

Many of the Republicans who live in the cities where Trump performance lagged are more like a previous generation of fiscally conservative but socially moderate Republicans, and less like adherents of the Trump-inspired MAGA movement.

He also received a lower percentage of the vote in Cooper City and Plantation.

One city stood out: Wilton Manors. It was by far Trump’s worst performance, at 57.8% of the vote, and Nikki Haley’s best performance in the county, at 35.3%. Ron DeSantis also received a notably higher share of the vote, 4.1%, than he did in the rest of the county or the state.

Statewide, Trump received 81.2% of Republican primary votes.

Haley

Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, delivered her best performances in cities and towns in which Trump’s performance wasn’t as good.

She received about one in five votes in Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale, her two best cities, and Lighthouse Point, Weston and Parkland.

Haley was Trump’s last remaining opponent for the Republican presidential nomination, ultimately dropping out on March 6. Most vote-by-mail ballots had been distributed to voters by then, and some Haley votes were undoubtedly cast by people who hoped she’d still be in the contest by primary day. It’s impossible to know how many cast votes for Haley after she dropped out because they wanted to send a message about Trump.

Overall, Haley did better in Broward, with 15.8% of the vote, than she did statewide, where she received 13.9% of the vote.

DeSantis

DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, dropped out of the presidential race in January after losing the Iowa caucuses to Trump and just before he would have suffered a loss in the New Hampshire primary.

DeSantis’s Broward showing, where he received 2.9% of the vote was worse than his statewide result of 3.7%.

His best performances in Broward were in the communities where Trump did worst: Hillsboro Beach, Sea Ranch Lakes, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Wilton Manors and Lighthouse Point.

DeSantis also did well in two of the more pro-Trump cities, Pembroke Pines and Deerfield Beach.

Primary test

Even though six of the seven names on the ballot — DeSantis, Haley, former Govs. Christ Christie of New Jersey and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ryan Binkley — had dropped out of the race, the votes cast for them were counted under Florida law.

Statewide, the six non-Trump candidates received slightly less than one in five votes; in Broward the non-Trump names received slightly more than one in five votes.

The Republican presidential preference primary was a more pure test than in some other states. Florida has closed primaries, which means only registered Republicans can participate, and unlike some other states, people must be registered in the party a month before Election Day, and people can’t switch on the same day they decide to vote.

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Trump critics

Christie and Hutchinson, the Republicans who were consistently the fiercest critics of Trump during their time as active candidates, had almost no support.

Christie received 1.0% in Broward and 0.8% in Florida. He had 2.8% of the vote in Sea Ranch Lakes, 1.5% in Lauderhill, 1.4% in Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale and Davie.

Hutchinson received just 44 votes countywide, putting him in last place at 0.13%. Statewide, he had 0.11% of the vote.

Countywide, unofficial results showed Trump received 27,622 votes in the primary. Haley received 5,456; DeSantis got 1,016 and Christie 338. Each of the other candidates received fewer than 100 votes.

City by city

Here are the results for 30 Broward cities, starting with the city where Trump had the highest percentage of the vote to the city where he had the lowest percentage of the vote. (Cities with fewer than 200 Republican presidential votes cast are marked with an *.)

West Park* — Trump, 92.42%; Haley, 6.06%; DeSantis, 1.52%.

Southwest Ranches — Trump, 80.04%; Haley, 8.64%; DeSantis, 1.33%.

Hallandale Beach — Trump, 87.82%; Haley, 10.81%; DeSantis, 0.98%.

Lauderdale Lakes* — Trump, 86.05%; Haley, 11.63%; DeSantis, 1.16%.

Margate — Trump, 85.66%; Haley, 10.69%; DeSantis, 2.35%.

Coconut Creek — Trump, 85.58%; Haley, 11.33%; DeSantis, 1.63%.

Sunrise — Trump, 85.39%; Haley, 10.82%; DeSantis, 2.91%.

Tamarac — Trump, 83.74%; Haley, 13.03%; DeSantis, 1.78%.

Pembroke Pines — Trump, 83.60%; Haley, 11.04%; DeSantis, 3.62%.

Lauderhill — Trump, 82.29%; Haley, 14.39%; DeSantis, 1.11%.

Miramar — Trump, 82.11%; Haley, 14.39%; DeSantis, 2.25%.

Unincorporated* — Trump, 81.93%; Haley, 12.05%; DeSantis, 4.82%.

Deerfield Beach — Trump, 81.81%; Haley, 13.41%; DeSantis, 3.63%.

North Lauderdale* — Trump, 80.73%; Haley, 14.58%; DeSantis, 2.08%.

Dania Beach — Trump, 79.95%; Haley, 16.78%; DeSantis, 2.33%.

Davie — Trump, 79.72%; Haley, 16.16%; DeSantis, 2.26%.

Coral Springs — Trump, 79.54%; Haley, 16.38%; DeSantis, 2.62%.

Hollywood — Trump, 79.42%; Haley, 16.78%; DeSantis, 2.64%.

Pompano Beach — Trump, 79.16%; Haley, 16.26%; DeSantis, 2.33%.

Oakland Park — Trump, 78.89%; Haley, 17.53%; DeSantis, 2.33%.

Lauderdale-by-the-Sea — Trump, 78.56%; Haley, 14.67%; DeSantis, 5.08%.

Plantation — Trump, 77.79%; Haley, 17.04%; DeSantis, 3.30%.

Cooper City — Trump, 77.42% Haley, 18.76%; %; DeSantis, 2.39%.

Pembroke Park* — Trump, 77.42%; Haley, 19.35%; DeSantis, 0.00%.

Hillsboro Beach — Trump, 77.38%; Haley, 12.80%; DeSantis, 8.63%.

Weston — Trump, 76.61%; Haley, 20.20%; DeSantis, 2.43%.

Parkland — Trump, 76.27%; Haley, 19.88%; DeSantis, 2.81%.

Lighthouse Point — Trump, 74.92%; Haley, 20.35%; DeSantis, 3.94%.

Sea Ranch Lakes* — Trump, 71.83%; Haley, 18.31%; DeSantis, 7.04%.

Fort Lauderdale — Trump, 71.31%; Haley, 23.25%; DeSantis, 3.45%.

Wilton Manors — Trump, 57.80%; Haley, 35.32%; DeSantis, 4.13%.

Analysis

State Rep. Chip LaMarca, R-Lighthouse noted the low turnout. Only some Broward communities had local elections on the same day, so the only contest for the vast majority of voters was the presidential primary.

In LaMarca’s home city, Lighthouse Point, 15.4% of registered Republicans voted in the presidential primary. In nearby Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, which had blistering hot town elections, 43.6% of Republicans voted.

By comparison, Republican turnout for the primary was 13.9% in Broward, compared to 21.5% statewide.

LaMarca, a former chair of the Broward Republican Party, said the turnout numbers show the Trump campaign should spend time in Broward, and attempt to pick up more of its Republicans and some no party affiliation/independent voters.

Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller, a former Florida Senate Democratic leader, said the differences among cities have a lot to do with the kinds of Republicans who live in those communities.

Geller said Haley’s better-than-average performance in Fort Lauderdale makes sense, given what he said is a large community of “what I would call the traditional business Republicans, the downtown group. It’s not surprising that they went for Nikki.”

He said Cooper City, Parkland and Weston would also be home to “more of the traditional, pro-business Republicans.”

“It’s not a great surprise to me that Trump did very badly in Wilton Manors. It has a very large gay population and Trump has just been horrible” to the LGBTQ community, Geller said, adding he thinks that also was a factor in parts of Fort Lauderdale as well.

Fine print

The Supervisor of Elections Office reports preliminary results by precinct, the small neighborhood areas used for voting.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel analyzed unofficial precinct results posted by the Broward Supervisor of Elections Office to determine the results for each of the county’s cities and towns.

Tiny Lazy Lake, which has 24 registered voters, including only three Republicans, isn’t broken out. Its votes are included in neighboring Wilton Manors.

Broward’s elections office posts unofficial precinct results before it’s legally required. Palm Beach County’s elections office planned to post results closer to the April deadline, so a city-by-city analysis there wasn’t possible.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Facebook, Threads.net and Post.news.