Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

held an election for president of the United States on November 3, 1992. The race was extremely close – so close in fact that some news networks mistakenly reported that Democratic challenger

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

had won in the state, although incumbent President

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

was eventually declared the winner. Bush received 40.89% of the vote to Clinton's 39.00%. The final result in Florida reflected the reluctance of many Southern states to back fellow Southerner Clinton, although Clinton was polling well in other parts of the country. Bush won by about 100,000 votes, marking the first time Florida had backed the losing candidate since 1960, when it voted for

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

over

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

.Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas
1992 Presidential General Election Results – Florida
/ref> This was also the last time until the

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

election that Florida would back the loser of the presidential election as well only the second time since

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20– 30 – Kuomintang in China hol ...

. Despite Bush's narrow victory, this election marked the start of Florida's transition from a strong GOP state into a closely divided

swing state In American politics, the term swing state (also known as battleground state or purple state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to pre ...

for future presidential elections; just four years earlier Bush had carried Florida by 22 points, making it his second-best state in the South. This is also the only election since 1944 that Florida did not vote the same way as Ohio, a state with a similar voting history. Florida was one of 5 states that gave Perot more than 1 million votes, including

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. Clinton flipped the heavily populated

South Florida South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...

counties of Palm Beach County, Florida, Palm Beach, Broward County, Florida, Broward, and Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade, which had all voted for Bush in 1988, into the Democratic column, and they have remained reliable Democratic bastions in the state ever since, buoying Democratic base support in the state.Sullivan, Robert David
‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’
''America Magazine'' in ''The National Catholic Review''; June 29, 2016 Clinton's victory in Palm Beach County was noteworthy in as much as that county had not previously backed a Democratic presidential nominee since Florida's "Solid South" days when Franklin D. Roosevelt swept list of counties in Florida, all sixty-seven counties in 1944 United States presidential election in Florida, 1944.Menendez, Albert J.; The Geography of Presidential Elections in the United States, 1868-2004, p. 164-165 This was the last time St. Lucie County, Florida, St. Lucie County voted for a Republican presidential candidate until 2016. As of 2023, this is the last time that Florida has voted to the right of Montana, Kentucky, and Tennessee in a presidential election.

Results

Results by county

Note

References

{{United States elections, 1992 1992 United States presidential election by state, Florida United States presidential elections in Florida, 1992 1992 Florida elections