Between the imposition of a poll tax in 1889 and the migration of numerous northerners seeking a hotter climate in the 1940s, Florida had been a one-party Democratic state, lacking any traditional white Republicanism due to the absence of mountains or German "
Forty-Eighter" settlements. So late as the landmark court case of
Smith v. Allwright (1944), half of Florida's registered Republicans were still black, although very few blacks in Florida had ever voted within the previous fifty-five years. New migrants from traditionally Republican northern states took up residence in
Central Florida and brought with them their Republican voting habits at the presidential level. In 1964 there was a complete reversal of the 1950s voting pattern of a largely Republican south and central Florida and continuing Democratic loyalty in the North, with almost zero correlation between 1960 and 1964 county returns. Following his landslide sweep of the northern states, Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society at first appeared to be helping him in Florida; however, the relationship soured quickly as the Democratic Party factionalized. In 1966, via a campaign portraying his opponent as a dangerous liberal,
Claude R. Kirk defeated Miami mayor Robert King Hugh to become (alongside
Winthrop Rockefeller) the first GOP governor of any Confederate state since
Alfred A. Taylor in 1922. , this is the last election in which
Escambia County,
Clay County,
Okaloosa County, and
Santa Rosa County did not support the Republican candidate. ==Notes==