Democrats worry that Florida may be slipping away this fall — and perhaps beyond — as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis eyes a big win.
, the Democratic nominee for governor, said he would attend a private fundraiser with Biden on the day of the rally, but he wasn’t sure whether they would appear together in public.
“Customarily, when you come out of a primary, people will move to the middle. He’s clearly not doing that, to say the least,” Crist said of his Republican rival.But to the horror of many Democrats, DeSantis could become the first Floridian to win a governor’s race by more than 1 point since 2006. That kind of showing might lift Rubio in the U.S. Senate election while helping the GOP win as many as 20 of the state’s 28 U.S. House seats.
He beat Democrat Andrew Gillum four years ago by 32,436 votes out of more than 8.2 million cast, a margin so narrow that it required a recount.But in the four years since then, Republicans have erased a voter registration advantage that Florida Democrats had guarded for decades. When registration closed for the 2018 election, Democrats enjoyed a 263,269-vote advantage. As of Sept.
Strategists in both parties believe Florida’s political shift is due to multiple factors, but there is general agreement that Republicans have benefited from an influx of new voters since DeSantis emerged as the leader of the GOP resistance to the pandemic-related public health measures. Meanwhile in southwest Florida, thousands of Republican voters are literally picking up pieces of their shattered homes and vehicles in the wake of Hurricane Ian, which left more than 100 people dead and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage.