this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Is there an alternative to DeSantis?
Not this last governor election but the one before it was a close race between DeSantis & Andrew Gillum. Gillum lost by a very small margin although some months after the election he was caught having sex with a male prostitute in a hotel room smoking meth. This was obviously unpopular, especially since he espouses family values and is married with kids.
The next election DeSantis won more or less unopposed and the electoral map of Florida looked like one of Reagan's maps where he painted the whole country red.
DeSantis's popularity seems to be dropping like a rock, however. A) he's trying to challenge Trump, which has been a bad idea for any Republicans who want to be elected in the last few years B) he's engaging very heavily in culture war which is financially hurting Florida and people are starting to see it
He's trying to fight Disney, one of the main reasons Orlando is a major city. He's passing anti-illegal legislation where Florida has some of the highest rates of illegals and Latinos in the country - essentially guaranteeing price increases and inflation for all sorts of manual labor intensive services. Ie construction, landscaping, etc
And of course housing prices are skyrocketing with Florida having the highest inflation in the country, topping 10% last year.
And while Floridians are struggling to pay rent, his messaging is focusing on "anti-wokeness" and he's turning down federal aid money.
Essentially DeSantis had a chance to be relevant nationally and he's throwing it all away while also pissing off his entire base in Florida. He thought he was untouchable and his overconfidence, I think, is backfiring.
So going forward what will happen in Florida? It's hard to say. If there's a good candidate from the Democrat side, they have a chance. However Gillum did stain the Dem reputation for a while in Florida.
Covid brought a lot of "anti-vaxxer / anti-lockdown" migrants so the Republicans have a good ~400k highly politically motivated new voters. However like I said, the Republicans policies are hurting Florida economically and that's never a good way to win elections.
There really isn't a left or centerist champion in Florida right now to my knowledge, but two people to keep an eye on might be the former agriculture commissioner and the new mayor of Duval county.