Florida Republicans Hang On by a Thread as MAGA's Map Shrinks

Florida Republicans got their wins Tuesday night — but only just. Congressman Byron Donalds is headed to the governor's mansion as the state's first Black governor, and Ashley Moody is off to the US Senate. Both won by less than 3%, razor margins in a state that spent years looking like an unbreakable conservative fortress.

The national picture was brutal for the GOP. Democrats pulled off upsets in South Carolina, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere, leaving Florida as the lone defiant red flag still flying. Outgoing governor Ron DeSantis framed it that way at a Wednesday press conference, calling Florida the last main anchor standing and taking credit for the state holding the line.

DeSantis didn't sugarcoat what happened to his party elsewhere, describing the nationwide Republican wipeout as close to an extinction-level event. Then he turned the knife on state Democrats: if they couldn't win this year, he asked, what circumstances would ever let them win statewide in Florida?

The road ahead looks rougher for Donalds than it did for DeSantis. Democrats picked up a net of 15 state House seats, stripping the GOP of its supermajority — a blunt check on any ultra-conservative agenda. Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told the Guardian that Donalds is unlikely to have the clout DeSantis had in his prime. DeSantis was almost all-powerful, Jewett said, while Donalds may pull back on his super-Maga positioning now that he's in office — if only because Trump himself is in a severely weakened position.

DeSantis's mid-cycle gerrymander also flopped. Democrats captured all four of Florida's 28 congressional districts that were redrawn to disadvantage them, and held four others. Jewett called it a wash and a failed effort by Republicans, adding that the fight will continue next cycle. The Florida Democratic party piled on in a post on X, saying voters saw through the blatant power grab.

Democrats in the state are left wondering what might have been. Party chair Nikki Fried said Wednesday that they can only imagine what kind of day they'd be having with sustained national support. Angie Nixon, who lost to Moody by 2.9% after a shoestring, grassroots campaign with no television ads, agreed — a seat Marco Rubio won by more than 16% in 2022. Nixon said young, Hispanic and Black voters turned out for her in droves but that national money arrived too little, too late. She isn't sulking: she broke the supermajority, she said, and 2028 is around the corner.