Once again, the Democratic blue wave misses Florida

Tuesday night saw the near virtual destruction of the Republican Party power structure in this country.

Except in Florida.

Democrat David Jolly lost to Republican Byron Donalds by 1.3% in the race for governor. The races for attorney general, chief financial officer, and agriculture commissioner all went to the Republican incumbents by similarly close margins. And Angie Nixon, the Democratic candidate for Senate, lost by 3 points to Republican Ashley Moody, 51%-48%.

However, the Democrats did net 15 seats in the state House and one in the state Senate, moving them out of their superminority status in the state Legislature. The House District 33 seat is now in the recount process, with Democratic candidate Dan McDow ahead. Currently, the House Democratic Caucus is at 49 members. If McDow wins, the Democrats will have 50 members to the Republicans’ 70 in the 120-member House.

Some analysts say the blue wave, or tsunami, did hit Florida, noting that approximately 68% of registered Democrats voted statewide, compared to 63% of Republicans, according to the Fresh Take Florida Project. That’s the highest turnout for a midterm election for Democrats in living memory, said Matt Isbell, a Democratic data consultant.

“A blue wave did hit Florida,” said University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett, noting not only the wins in the state House but also how the Democrats staved off the Ron DeSantis’ redistricting map, specifically drawn to allow Republicans four more seats in the state’s 28-member congressional delegation.

Instead, Democrats appear to have won all four, including Darren Soto in Florida’s 9th Congressional District, which voted for Donald Trump by 18 percentage points in 2024. (Soto leads Republican Dan Green, 50.26% to 49.74%, a race so tight that the Associated Press has not yet called it).

Isbell says Florida Democrats overall overperformed Tuesday, especially with independent voters and even some “soft Republicans.”

So why did Florida Democrats not win statewide when Kansas Democrats and Texas Democrats did? Isbell believes that’s because of the Republicans’ 11-point lead in voter registration, which Jewett calls their “insurance policy.”

Massively outspent

Following Jolly’s narrow loss, don’t overlook is how massively outspent he was. The Donalds campaign raised nearly $174 million, while Jolly’s campaign took in less than $28 million. During a campaign event in Tampa in late September, Jolly said he needed the national Democratic Party to start spending money on his behalf, arguing the only way he could lose was if national Democrats “chose to take a pass on Florida like they have in the past 10 years.”

Speaking to reporters on a remote conference call Wednesday morning, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried acknowledged that, “for years, Florida has been written off by people who believe this state is no longer competitive and too expensive.”

“Well, I hope that they are paying attention this morning,” she said. “Because what we saw last night should send a very clear message to our national Democratic Party and our partners: Florida is worth investing in.”

Noting Democrats’ wins in the Legislature, Fried said, “We demonstrated what can be accomplished with very limited resources.”

“Florida Democrats are looking at the results across the country and can only imagine what kind of a day we would be having if we had sustained national support and the investment this state deserves,” she said. “It is not about spending in Florida. It is about investing early in Florida the infrastructure that is necessary to win the third-largest state.”

Isbell noted that the national Democratic Party and its political committees that fund races pulled out of Florida after 2018 and 2020 election cycles, and voter registration efforts since then have fallen off a cliff. Only 67% of eligible adults are registered to vote in Florida, the fourth worst registration rate in the country, he said.

“That’s because we as Democrats of Florida have a couple of coins and a shoestring to try to register people in a state where if you make mistakes with forms you can be hit with lawyer fees and all of this other crazy stuff. And the Republicans, who have more money than God, have been able to at least sustain their level,” he said.

Limits on voter drives

In 2023, the Florida Legislature passed SB 7050, a law that imposed new regulations on the activities of third-party voting registration organizations. Under that law, those groups must re-register with the state before each election cycle to collect voter registration forms, and they have a shorter time to return forms to the county supervisors of elections, with a penalty of $50 per late day, up to $2,500 per application.

Meanwhile, during a press conference in Tallahassee Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said it would be an understatement to call the electoral earthquake that took place Tuesday simply a “wave.”

“It’s the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States,” he said — adding that the one state able to “hold the line and withstand that was right here in the free state of Florida.”

The reason for that, DeSantis said, was that Republicans in Florida had built a record of achievement and trust from voters “that even in the worst situation that you can imagine politically, we were able to hold the line and prevent the worst from happening here.”

Specifically, the governor cited Central Florida Republican state Sen. Jason Brodeur’s loss to Democrat John Lowndes in the Senate District 10 race by 10 points as an example of how no Republican was safe from the national headwinds against the GOP. “That wasn’t a reflection of him. He got caught up in a wave,” he said.

In addition to the recount in the Florida House District 33 seat, Fried noted that the race in Florida’s 27th Congressional District between Republican incumbent Maria Salazar and Democrat Eliott Rodriguez was headed for an automatic machine recount. The latest totals have Salazar up 50.23% to Rodriguez’ 49.77%, within the 0.5% margin that triggers a recount.

Salazar won the seat in 2024 by 20 points. “The voters have spoken loud and clear all over District 27 and the rest of my country, that my party — my Republican Party — needs to course-correct on the economy and on immigration,” said Salazar, according to WLRN Public Media.

With additional reporting from Jay Waagmeester.