Continuing a trend that’s been occurring in the area for the past few election cycles, both Flagler and Volusia counties voted for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at a higher percentage than they have in the past two elections. They supported the Republican nominee more strongly this year than they did for previous choices Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George W. Bush.
Flagler County as usual voted slightly more red than Volusia, though both counties were not close to competitive for supporters of Democrat Kamala Harris. Flagler in particular, which voted 59.90% for Trump, came close to breaking the 60% barrier for a Republican for the first time since they did so for George H.W. Bush in 1988, with only a fraction as many voters as they have now.
Volusia, meanwhile, increased its GOP support to 56.42%, also their highest support for a Republican since the ’88 election. Democrats actually accounted for a higher percentage of the Volusia vote than they did in 2020; Joe Biden scored 41.44% of Volusia County voters last cycle while Kamala Harris elevated that number to 42.38%. The trend coincides with greatly decreasing support for third-party presidential candidates in this election.
That same phenomenon occurred in Flagler County, with Harris increasing her share of the vote to 39.19% from Biden’s showing of 37.98% in 2020. Like in Volusia County, those votes largely came from third parties and not from Trump. Volusia County’s third most popular pick was the write-in line which accounted for 0.37% of their vote, followed by Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 0.33%.
Flagler County also wrote in candidates more than it voted for any third party, with 0.32% of voters getting creative. Libertarian Chase Oliver was Flagler’s next choice, while no other candidate eclipsed the 200 vote threshold. For comparison, Trump and Harris amassed 51.0k and 35.4k votes apiece in Flagler. Volusia’s support for Oliver was just behind its support of Stein, with only six votes separating the two. No other candidate reached even a tenth of a percentage point.
Neither Flagler County nor Volusia County have voted in majority for the Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama’s first campaign in 2008. Flagler picked Obama with a 50.24% majority, while Volusia took him at 52.19%. Prior to that, Volusia had voted blue in every election dating back to 1992. The same can be said for Flagler with the lone exception of 2004, in which they narrowly chose George W. Bush over John Kerry.
