As much as Democrats might want to exult over midterm-election results — one of the better recent outcomes for the party in power — they can’t ignore the drubbing they took in Florida, a longtime purple-colored battleground that has now turned solid red. Without a prompt assessment of what went wrong, the party risks losing the country’s third most populous state for the foreseeable future.
For the first time since the 19th century, no Democrat will hold statewide office in Florida come next year. Not only did Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Marco Rubio handily win reelection, both trounced their opponents in Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county, with 2.7 million people, more than two-thirds of whom are Hispanic. In doing so, they underlined an awkward trend: Democrats’ brand with Latino voters is collapsing in Florida — and shows worrisome signs nationwide.
In narrowly losing Florida to Donald Trump in 2016, Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade by nearly 30 percentage points. Four years later, Joe Biden’s margin there dropped to some 7 points. How did DeSantis and Rubio rack up double-digit wins in the county?
