The current eclectic population of the nation's fourth-largest state is a reflection of its heritage. During its history, parts of Florida have been under Spanish, English, French, American, and Confederate rule. Just as the European powers clashed over control of the huge peninsula known for its riches and strategic location, modern American presidential hopefuls battle for its bounteous supply of 27 electoral votes.

More than any other issue, growth has proven to be the key to Florida's political history -- and no region of the state has grown more rapidly than South Florida. Between the 1960s and 1980s, Miami replaced Jacksonville as the state's political power center.

South Florida had been a major retirement destination with elderly northerners making permanent homes there, but a huge influx of Cuban exiles -- either fleeing or expelled by Castro -- filled the region from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The Cuban community proved to be economically and politically powerful. Miami-Dade County passed a statute making itself officially bilingual -- codifying and legitimizing Cuban influence and culture.

The Cuban community has also proved to be solidly Republican. Cubans, however, made up just the first wave a large immigration boom, mostly from Latin America and the Caribbean, that forever changed the region. Those that followed the Cubans have made South Florida more diverse.

Miami is now widely considered the financial capital of Latin America, but the city is still decidedly Cuban and conservative Republican.

Central Florida was also transformed during the same period. In 1971, the region's rural landscape gave way to the Walt Disney World resort -- the pioneer business in what would become a burgeoning tourism industry. In intervening years, resorts, theme parks, condominiums and golf courses were built at a blistering rate, drawing both professionals and service industry employees to the area in large numbers.

This population makes up a large portion of the state coveted "swing voters." The area has seen so much growth that "it is becoming its own megalopolis - a 'Tamplando' or 'Orlampa,' as the Orlando Sentinel called it," wrote Michael Barone in the Almanac of American Politics.

In recent years the growth of Central and South Florida has started to spill into the Northern part of the state. Panhandle cities like Panama City Beach have reinvented themselves as spring break destinations, earning the region the title of "Redneck Riveria."

Retirement communities are beginning to spring up in North Central Florida areas that are predominantly rural and Southern in culture. The state's surging growth has caused a unique demographic makeup. This is one reason, experts say, that the state seems to be trending Republican but is moderate to the point of deadlock in national and statewide elections.

"This new Florida, like today's America, has no real center," Barone writes. The 2000 presidential election exposed flaws in Florida's decentralized system of elections and proved the state's citizens were almost evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters.

Republicans, Barone says, have gained solid majorities in the legislature through adept political organizing and power brokering, but haven't been able to tip the balance completely. For example, the last few contests for governor have been reflective of the 2000 election.

"Republican Jeb Bush lost to Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles by 51%-49% in 1994, then beat acting Governor Buddy MacKay 55%-45% in 1998," Barone writes.

If recent polls are an indicator, this year's gubernatorial election will also be close. Gov. Jeb Bush has seen his early lead dwindle to single digits as Democratic challenger Bill McBride closes the gap.

Both campaigns are poised to sprint hard for the finish. The clash of campaign cultures during this year's gubernatorial race is par for the course in Florida, where a constantly evolving population has been the norm for nearly 500 years. The Spanish became the first and most famous European arrivals in 1513, when Ponce De Leon waded ashore on the East coast, dubbing the land "La Florida" in honor of "Pascua Florida," the "flowery Easter" or "Easter festival of Flowers."

In response to the French establishing Fort Caroline, near present day Jacksonville in 1564, Spain built a city just to the south, which it dubbed St. Augustine. It remains the oldest continuously populated community in the continental U.S. The English constantly challenged Spanish control of the economically and strategically valuable east coast region, but Spain retained control until 1756, when it gave Florida to Great Britain in exchange for Havana, Cuba, which the English had captured. Spain regained control of Florida after the American Revolution.

Around the time the peninsula was ceded to the United States in 1821, however, American settlers seeking land and fortune had begun moving south from Georgia and South Carolina. Early settlers battled with Seminole Indians for control of the territory before Gen. Andrew Jackson (for whom the city of Jacksonville is named) finally drove the remaining vestiges of the tribe deep into the Everglades in the 1840s.

The region remained part of a wild southern frontier long after it became a state in 1845. The state's economy was mostly agrarian and its culture decidedly southern. Florida seceded from the Union along with the rest of the South in 1861, but Union forces soon controlled the vital port city of Jacksonville and no major battles took place on Florida soil.

After the war, Florida remained poor and rural throughout the Reconstruction period. Agriculture remained the top industry, and it began to flourish. Citrus, lumber and cattle were, and continue to be, the state's major agricultural exports. During its early history, the new state grew slowly.

As late as the 1940s, sixty years before the 2000 presidential election debacle held the nation's attention, it was still the smallest of the Southern states. With the railroad, which stretched the length of the state by 1912, came more migration and faster development.

The boom that would create modern Florida began during World War II, after severe financial setbacks caused by the Great Depression, a fruit fly epidemic and a handful of powerful hurricanes. During the war, the state's geography made it a strategically important location for military bases, many of which remain. NASA set up shop on federal land at Cape Canaveral in the 1960's. Today, the U.S. military's Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over operations in the Middle East, is located in Tampa.

--By Jason Manning, Online NewsHour