Florida ballot law favors GOP, researchers argue

Florida voters this November will see Republican names listed first on general election ballots.

The placement stems from a state law enacted in 1951 that grants the top ballot position to the party that won the most recent gubernatorial race. Since Ron DeSantis won reelection in 2022, the Republican Party holds that spot for the 2026 cycle.

The rule has been in effect for over a quarter century. Rick Scott, Charlie Crist, and Jeb Bush all won as Republicans in prior cycles, securing the party's top placement for the current election.

Political scientists argue this ordering provides a measurable advantage to the top-listed party. Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University political scientist who served as an expert witness in recent ballot-ordering lawsuits, attributes the benefit to the primacy effect.

Krosnick explains that people naturally gravitate toward the first acceptable option when facing choices, a bias he observes in elections, beer tastings, and parking lot navigation. He notes that this effect is driven by a lack of information and voter ambivalence.

In closely contested races, Krosnick estimates the primacy effect could add two to three percentage points to a candidate's total. He cautions that the impact varies in higher-publicity contests, where negative campaigning might increase voter ambivalence and strengthen the effect.

Darren Grant, an economics professor at Sam Houston State University, finds the effect particularly pronounced in down-ballot races. He traces Florida's recent gubernatorial results to this dynamic, noting that Charlie Crist's 2006 win placed Republicans on top for the 2010 and 2014 elections.

Grant points to Rick Scott's 2010 victory by 1.2% and his subsequent reelection by just over one percentage point. He also cites Ron DeSantis's 2018 win over Andrew Gillum by 0.4%. Grant argues that Crist's initial victory created a compounding advantage, or "hat trick," that helped secure these narrow Republican wins over a twelve-year span. Grant notes that a one to three percentage point boost is substantial, as candidates often spend millions in advertising to gain similar ground.