Since Zohran Mamdani won last week’s Democratic primary and put himself in pole position to become New York City’s next mayor, a fresh cohort of Gothamites seems to be eyeing the exit ramp toward the Sunshine State.
This Floridian says: Sorry, we’re full.
For more than five years now, Florida has been the top destination for fleeing northerners, émigrés seeking something more than milder weather and lower taxes.
These new Floridians arrived to join a freedom movement led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, escaping the insane blue-state policies that the COVID-19 pandemic brought to a head.
The newcomers — myself included — made the state redder than it had ever been before.
In the 2024 election, President Donald Trump romped in the formerly deep-blue Miami Dade County and turned Palm Beach County purple, losing it by just a single percentage point.
Pundits pointed to the increasingly Republican Hispanic vote, and that was a factor. But the energized newbies made the shift a GOP tsunami.
To this day many Floridians habitually send real-estate listings to their ideologically aligned friends up north — those who longed to join the “Great Migration” but whose work or family obligations made them stay put.
When those friends complained about their deteriorating schools, the congestion tax or rising crime, we’d send back an alligator gif, a Florida flag emoji or a video of tough-talking DeSantis describing the fate of protesters who dare to block Florida traffic.
Come join us, we’d say.
Now a different group is looking in our direction — and we’re not feeling so encouraging.
These people didn’t think the COVID restrictions that kept NYC children in masks outdoors through 2022 were too much.
They were fine with cashless bail and New York’s sanctuary city status.
Boys in girls’ sports? Who cares! They vote blue, no matter who.
But even these Democrats find Mamdani to be a bridge too far.
They were OK with the city’s leftward drift and the accompanying chaos — yet they know Mamdani’s agenda of government-owned grocery stores, higher taxes on “whiter” neighborhoods, destroying screened schools, disdain for Jews and more will degrade the city to a place they can’t abide.
But Florida is not the place for them.
This new Florida-curious group, we fear, still thinks Democrats’ policies work, and that it’s just a funny coincidence that in so many major blue cities those policies have led to disarray.
Real liberalism has never been tried, you see.
Floridians, old and new, understand this is not so.
“I’m seriously concerned” about Mamdani flight, a man who moved here from Connecticut told me. “His socialist policies — like rent freezes and free everything — are exactly the kind of insanity I left behind.”
“If they move here, they better keep their blue votes at home,” his wife added, “and learn to appreciate the true reasons why Florida is so amazing.”
A lifelong Floridian living on its west coast told me he worries about blue-state newcomers who arrive “not simply to build a better life, but often bringing with them political agendas that risk altering the character of our communities.”
“Bring your money, leave your liberal views,” as a long-time Floridian in Boca Raton put it.
Florida has been at the top of the net migration list for years, a point of statewide pride. This spring the Citizens Budget Commission reported that at least 125,000 New Yorkers fled for Florida since 2018 — taking nearly $14 billion of income with them.
But money isn’t everything.
Or, as Florida state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia warned “all of my Republican friends” on X, “Georgia ‘welcomed’ people with tax credits for the liberal film industry. Now they’re a swing state” — one that was once solidly red.
“It’s not about an influx of money. It’s about an influx of ideology,” Ingoglia added. “IF you come, please leave your leftist ideas behind.”
One Floridian man suggests handing out “Don’t New York My Florida” t-shirts at the Fort Lauderdale airport — but I say that’s too late.
Let’s distribute them at JFK or LaGuardia and require our wannabe neighbors to wear them on the trip.
Floridians have built something great here, and we want to keep it that way.
“Kind of left” is too far left for us, and a “moderate Democrat” is, too.
Understand that Mayor Eric Adams might be New York City’s voice of civic moderation — but his stances would never fly here.
So stay and fight, all you New York Democrats dismayed at your party’s leftward swerve. Take your city back!
Don’t come to Florida and try to “moderate” us. Do it at home.
Karol Markowicz is the host of the “Karol Markowicz Show” and “Normally” podcasts.
