Despite Republican victories in all statewide contests, narrower-than-expected margins in last week’s midterm elections could prompt national Democrats to reengage in Florida, according to Florida International University political science professor Kathryn DePalo-Gould.
Even so, DePalo-Gould said Florida remains fundamentally a “center-right state,” as Democrats nationally capitalized on voter dissatisfaction with Republicans controlling the White House and Congress.
“Every time I think I understand Florida politics, and I’ve been down here almost 30 years … the next election happens, and we’re right back to, what is going on?” DePalo-Gould, who has taught political science at FIU for more than two decades, said on Monday’s episode of State Affairs’ “Between the Lines with Dara Kam” podcast.
For DePalo-Gould, Democrat Angie Nixon’s narrow loss to Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody may have been Nov. 3’s biggest surprise. Nixon, a community organizer from Jacksonville, ran a grassroots campaign and defeated former National Security Council official Alex Vindman in an August primary.
“The day after the primary when she won, everybody, including me, said, ‘Forget it. There’s no way a Democratic socialist is going to win Florida,’ and she didn’t win Florida,” DePalo-Gould said. “But what is fascinating is that that didn’t really stop a lot of voters.”
DePalo-Gould pointed to an FIU poll showing that a sizeable number of Hispanic voters were unconcerned about Nixon’s identification as a Democratic socialist, reflecting a shift in sentiment from previous elections.
“This idea of a Democratic socialist taking hold in an election statewide wasn’t as important as, ‘What am I going to do about affordability? How am I going to afford a house, rent, food, gas, all of those things,’” she said.
Nixon’s focus on affordability resonated with younger voters, Black voters and progressives, whose turnout, especially in South Florida, gave Democrat David Jolly a boost in the governor’s race against Republican Byron Donalds, DePalo-Gould said. Donalds, who defeated Jolly by about 100,000 votes, will be sworn in as the state’s first Black governor — and the nation’s first Black Republican governor — on Jan. 5.
By comparison, Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection in 2022 by more than 19 percentage points, and then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio was reelected by more than 16 points.
“Angie Nixon was able to get people in a coalition of voters that largely we hadn’t seen come out before as strongly,” she added. “The fact that you could have Angie Nixon and David Jolly come within that three percentage points of a win, that is close in Florida. We have very close elections statewide, but still, three points is extremely close.”
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Statewide Republican candidates, including Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, got a boost last week from Amendment 3, a measure designed to lower property taxes for homeowners, according to DePalo-Gould.
DeSantis for more than a year championed a proposed constitutional amendment to do away with or dramatically reduce homeowners’ property taxes. DeSantis initially said Amendment 3, placed on the ballot by the Legislature, did not go far enough but campaigned for the proposal, which received 62% approval.
Speaking to reporters in Tallahassee the day after the election, DeSantis credited the property-tax measure with driving Republican voter turnout and allowing the GOP to “hold the line” during a midterm cycle he described as a “political equivalent of a meteor strike” and an “extinction-level event” for the GOP nationwide.
DePalo-Gould agreed with DeSantis’ analysis about the measure’s impact on statewide races.
“I think you had enough Republicans who would have stayed home had Amendment 3 not been on the ballot, and that was enough” to boost Republicans to victory, she said.
In some other states, ballot measures aimed at pumping up GOP turnout, such as proposals banning transgender girls from playing on women’s sports teams, passed although voters backed Democrats in statewide races.
“I think it [Amendment 3] helped. And in a state like Florida, every vote certainly helps,” she said.
Nationally, Democrats won control of the U.S. House and Senate and captured a number of governor’s races. Part of Florida’s status as an outlier amid the blue wave lies in Florida Republicans’ 1.5 million voter-registration edge, which DePalo-Gould also credited in large part to DeSantis.
DeSantis’ presidential run in the 2024 primary against President Donald Trump allowed the governor to separate “what's happening in D.C. with what is happening in Tallahassee.”
The distinction could lift DeSantis for another presidential bid in two years.
“Capitalizing on what is going wrong in D.C. is going to then translate and help Gov. DeSantis. At least you have to say he’s a front runner,” she said.
Florida Democrats made significant legislative gains, breaking the GOP’s supermajority in the state House and staving off attempts to boost Republican seats in Congress after a midterm redistricting effort. DePalo-Gould attributed the legislative successes — Democrats flipped 16 seats in the state House — to the quality of candidates as well as the national Democratic wave.
Enough Republicans stayed home or crossed over to vote for Democrats, who turned out “motivated and angry,” and independent voters leaned toward Democratic candidates, early analysis of the election results showed. Together, that was enough to swing some legislative seats, the professor said.
“A midterm election is never good for the party in power, and so it was always going to be a tough slog for any Republican anywhere,” she said.
Last week’s Democratic wins in Florida, a presidential election and another contest in 2028 for Moody’s Senate seat could draw national donors back to a state largely written off as ruby red for the past two cycles.
“I think the Democrats will come back into the state of Florida,” DePalo-Gould predicted.
Dara Kam is the senior Statehouse reporter for State Affairs Florida. Reach her at dkam@stateaffairs.com or on X @TheDaraKam.
