To understand what Republicans pulled off — and Democrats allowed to happen — in Tuesday’s elections, let’s let the numbers tell the story.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried Miami-Dade, Florida’s largest county, by 29 points.
In 2018, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis lost the county by 21 points.
In 2020, Joe Biden won it by a mere 7 points.
On Tuesday, DeSantis flipped Miami-Dade and made gains in other Democratic strongholds, including deep-blue Broward County.
The last Republican to win Miami-Dade was former Gov. Jeb Bush in the early 2000s. If Democrats cannot win it back in future elections, they can kiss goodbye ever winning statewide elections again.
Back in 2016, Clinton lost the Sunshine State to Donald Trump by a razor-thin margin typical of a “swing,” or “battleground,” or “purple” state. DeSantis beat Democrat Charlie Crist by double digits, according to preliminary results Tuesday night. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio won reelection as easily.
These results seem like they could have just as easily happened in a deep-red bastion, and that’s what Florida might as well be called from now on.
In the following days, pundits, political consultants and journalists will ponder: Is Florida still a swing state? It will be hard to keep the state colored in purple in the next presidential election electoral map.
National Democratic donors all but abandoned the state this year, spending their money in states where they could get more bang for their buck, like Georgia or Arizona. The math to win presidential elections becomes harder for Democrats without Florida’s 30 electoral votes, and easier for Republicans.
“Florida tonight becomes the MAGA red center of the political universe, sadly,” Miami-based Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi told the Herald Editorial Board.
For a governor who squeezed in a victory in 2018, DeSantis has proven that his confrontational style of politics, his obsession with culture wars about race, gender and sexual orientation, and his approach to the COVID-19 pandemic are a winning formula. Expect more of it in his next term as he’s expected to run for president in 2024. Expect the GOP to export this model to other states with a large Hispanic voting base.
No surprises
It can be hard to make assumptions based on the results of a midterm election. The party holding the White House traditionally loses seats, Biden is facing low approval ratings, and inflation is at a historic high. But the GOP’s expansion of its dominance and Democrats’ shirking footprint in a state so crucial to national elections is no surprise to anyone who’s been following state and local politics.
The Democratic Party infrastructure is a skeleton of what it used to be when Barack Obama won the state in 2008 and 2012. Back then, Democrats thought they had figured out how to crack the code with Hispanic voters in Miami-Dade. The common complaint from Democratic consultants and candidates is that instead of building on that success, the party picked up and left, returning only when it needed votes and often too late. They dismissed, instead of disproved, the “socialist” label Republicans attached to every candidate with a “D” next to their name. Democrats lost ground with Hispanics, not only among conservative-leaning Cubans, but Latinos of other backgrounds.
Republicans played the long game. They remained engaged in communities important to them year-round. They built infrastructure like a Hispanic center in Miami-Dade that hosts a U.S. citizenship exam prep clinic for soon-to-be voters. They have a unified message and follow the script, unlike Democrats who struggle conveying their vision in a succinct, direct way like Make America Great Again did. Republicans quickly rallied behind Trump and, then, DeSantis — there’s no room for dissent in the GOP, as Republicans who went head to head with Trump and DeSantis have learned. Such muzzling is not healthy for democracy, but it sure can pull in the votes.
Most telling, the GOP closed the Democratic advantage in voter registration, and then surpassed it. It’s important to note, however, that despite that growing coalition, early and mail-in voting turnout among Republicans in Miami-Dade was mostly among longtime voters, not recent ones who registered in the past four years, according to an analysis by University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith. That same analysis is not yet available for votes cast on Election Day. If it holds true, it will show the GOP succeeded thanks to enthusiasm among traditional voters, not necessarily by converting new ones.
The moral of the story is that no party should take Florida for granted. Democrats can teach us anything is that you snooze, you lose.
“Do I think (Florida) is lost forever? No, but we need a game changer of a candidate,” Democratic consultant Evan Ross told the Editorial Board.
Andrew Gillum could’ve been that candidate in 2018, but his political baggage, thanks to an FBI investigation into Tallahassee City Hall, sunk him. He lost to DeSantis by 32,000 votes. Gillum this year was arrested on charges of conspiracy and fraud.
Crist, a former Republican governor turned independent, then Democrat who lost in 2014, was anything but exciting. To be fair, not even the second coming of Obama could’ve likely beaten the popular DeSantis.
If Democrats are going to wait for the next charismatic leader to save them from doom, that’s a big gamble. But politics is driven by hype. If donors don’t think Florida Democrats have the right candidates, they will take their money elsewhere. Without money, Democrats cannot have basic infrastructure to groom and support candidates.
It’s a self-fulling prophecy that will likely continue to haunt them in the Sunshine State.
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