How the Democrats lost Florida
RATHER THAN simply making America great again Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, is bent on making America Florida. That rallying-call should send shivers down any Democrat’s spine. In a state that used to swing, today Republicans hold supermajorities in both legislative chambers, control both Senate seats and every statewide executive office. The policies passed in its statehouse this session were some of the most hardline in the country.
In February Mr DeSantis called the Florida Democratic Party (FDP) a “dead, rotten carcass on the side of the road”. His diagnosis was not all wrong. The party that delivered two consecutive wins for Barack Obama is now in disarray, its foot soldiers dejected. “You can put Jesus Christ on the ballot, but if he’s got a ‘D’ next to his name no one in Florida will vote for him,” says one party strategist.
This is an important change, given Florida’s 30 electoral-college votes. Before 1996, the state leaned Democratic. Even after the Republicans flipped the state legislature that year, the Democrats remained competitive for a decade. But the blue wave that washed over much of America in the 2018 midterms—House Democrats clinched 10m more votes nationwide than Republicans, the largest-ever vote margin—missed Florida. And four years later, the Democrats got a thrashing in the state. Mr DeSantis was re-elected governor by 19 points and won Miami-Dade County, a Democratic stronghold that no Republican candidate for governor had carried in 20 years. The chair of the FDP resigned.
2023-08-06 06:04:21
Link from www.economist.com
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