By Jim McCraw

The Villages, in Central Florida, is the country’s largest retirement community, with some 130,000 residents in one contiguous settlement spread across three counties. It has been a Republican stronghold for a long, long time.

The population here is vastly white, upper middle-class Christian, with a few Jewish, Black and Hispanic residents.

The Villages boasts the world’s largest American Legion post. It helped elect U.S. Navy veteran Rick Scott governor twice, then helped send the Republican to the U.S. Senate.  He was replaced by former Congressman Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican and now the youngest governor in the country, just 42 when he took office.

The Villages are represented in the House by Republican Daniel Webster. Almost all of the county supervisors in Sumter, Lake and Marion counties, on which The Villages are built, are Republican. 

Sumter county routinely has the highest voter turnout in the entire state. Trump was swept into office in 2016, but his margin over Hillary Clinton was 1.2 percent in Florida. That’s about 112,900 votes.

Things have changed over the last four years, and now there is much more support here for Democrat Joe Biden. Disenchanted Republicans have been coming in to The Villages Democratic Club headquarters in Wildwood, the largest in Florida, since May to complain about Trump and ask how they can volunteer to help Biden’s campaign, says its president, Chris Stanley. 

She estimates 5.8 percent of Republicans in The Villages who voted for Trump in 2016 will vote for Biden on Tuesday. The disaffected cite three big reasons for switching candidates. 

“Reason number one is his handling of the coronavirus and his lack of leadership.  Reason number two is his view of military veterans as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’ They don’t like that. Reason number three is policy, the elimination [deferral] of the payroll tax [to mitigate economic effects of pandemic shutdowns], because it will affect their children and grandchildren.”

Republican Voters Against Trump recently completed a $3 million disgruntled-voter billboard campaign across Central Florida with messages like “I’m a Republican.  I’m a patriot.  I’m voting Biden.” … “I’m a Republican. I’m a Marine veteran.  I’m voting Biden.” …  “I’m a Republican. I’m a Christian. I’m voting Biden.”

“A lot of Republican voters are going to be casting their votes for Joe Biden because the last four years, what they expected they were going to get from the Trump administration has not been what they want, and Joe Biden is offering them an alternative to bring this country back,” says Daniel Henry, a young, Black Republican voter.

This year more than 40 percent of the state’s 14.4 million registered voted early, and Florida election experts predict the turnout in 2020 will exceed the 1992 record of 83 percent -- which could mean more than 100,000 from The Villages alone. There are signs that Florida could swing to the Democratic side, much as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin flipped to the GOP four years ago, and The Villages, so solid-red for so long, will contribute to this swing.

Jim McCraw is a semi-retired writer and columnist. He has been a resident of The Villages for nearly five years.