A Brief Look At Florida's 2022 Key Races: Rubio More Vulnerable Than DeSantis, Dems Fall In The House
2022 Looks Grim For Team Blue In The Sunshine State
Florida is immune to waves. This is purely historical, of course, but I trust my instincts on this one when I say that even if the environment is something crazy like R+4, Florida won’t be anything like R+20. In 2018, the GOP flipped a senate seat here despite the nation environment being D+9. In 2014, despite the national environment being R+6 (something that I would consider far more than incredible today), Florida’s gubernatorial election only went for Republican incumbent Rick Scott by 1%. This was the last time that Florida voted to the left of the national environment, and it represents something quite significant that we’ll be sure to touch on later.
Anyways, I’ve consistently said that 2022 could be anywhere from an R+2 to a D+4 environment. Florida will certainly vote to the right of the country, but let’s just assume for a second that the national environment is D+2, which is my current prediction. If this happens, it’s very unlikely that the Democrats pick up a senate or gubernatorial seats here because both Rubio and DeSantis ran around ten points to the right of their respective nationwide environments in both 2016 and 2018. We’re also not taking into account the fact that Florida is (kind of) moving right relative to the national environment, so even a D+10 type year wouldn’t be enough to guarantee a flip in the state.
Here are two maps I’d like you to look closely at. The first is my current senate prediction, and the second is my current gubernatorial prediction. Take a look at these maps, specifically the Tampa Bay area, Orlando area, and Port St. Lucie area.
First, Tampa. Why would I have Hillsborough going for DeSantis but not Rubio? Well, first, I think that Stephanie Murphy is a much more formidable challenger than Nikki Fried. Fried isn’t a bad candidate, but Murphy has terrific appeal. How is Rubio going to call her a socialist when she was born in Vietnam? Murphy also ran significantly ahead of Joe Biden in her district last November. Second, Ron DeSantis has significantly better appeal to the Trump base in upper and central Florida (Miami will be discussed later, don’t worry) so I see him winning Hillsborough as a result of a) his popularity and b) well, he’ll just do better than Rubio with white rural voters/get them to turn out more for him. It’s that simple. That’s the overarching them here. This is the same logic for Seminole and the same deal for St. Lucie.
Let’s briefly jump down to Miami-Dade and company, or as I like to call them, “The Big Three Blue Three” (creative, I know). These three solidly blue counties are the backbone of Democratic support in the state. Joe Biden did pretty well upstate but still lost Florida because of his disastrous performance in Miami-Dade. In 2016, Hillary Clinton ran behind Barack Obama by double digits in most of upper Florida, but because she did two points better in Miami-Dade, she only lost the state by a point. In 2022, I expect Rubio and DeSantis to lose Palm Beach by 20, and Broward by 35. It’s possible that Rubio does slightly better than DeSantis in these southern counties, but not entirely likely. Then again, the GOP base in Miami is notoriously moderate and unpredictable.
Democrats in Florida are in trouble statewide and in the House. Ron DeSantis is a popular enough governor to win by around 5, and Marco Rubio will probably do a little better than Trump statewide and continue to stay in the senate. Looking ahead to 2024, I don’t think it’s particularly likely that Rick Scott loses (even if Biden/Harris carries it at the presidential level) and we all know that the FLGOP is going to gerrymander the hell out of the state. It’s why Stephanie Murphy is (probably) running for senate.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Tell me what you think about DeSantis and Rubio’s chances below, but I’ll leave you with some numbers I’ll pull out of my behind.
CHANCE OF VICTORY: DeSantis 90%, Rubio 75%
MARGIN PROJECTIONS: DeSantis +5.4, Rubio +4.7
CLOSEST COUNTIES FLGOV: Seminole (DeSantis +0.2), Hillsborough (DeSantis +0.5), Pinellas (DeSantis +1.3)
CLOSEST COUNTIES FLSEN: Pinellas (Rubio +0.4), Seminole (Murphy +0.5), St. Lucie (Rubio +1.7)
Hopefully Purple Political Talk can win.
On paper, DeSantis seems like a good candidate. However, he has so much dirt on him that most people don't even know about, from the time he had the police raid someone's house for whistleblowing and held her children at gunpoint to his proposal to move all schooling across the state fully in-person. Regardless, the Dems could win here if they find a way to expose DeSantis's actions and present them in an easy-to-believe manner. Then again, the Dems can't run a controversial candidate, either, or else DeSantis could just fire right back with even worse dirt. So the best bet for flipping DeSantis's seat, in my opinion, would be Gwen Graham or Stephanie Murphy (if she doesn't run for senate) Then again, even though Fabianni's name was removed from the Wikipedia article for Senate, he could run for governor and primary DeSantis, in which I think he'd easily win. But at the end of the day, a lot is left undecided yet, so nothing is set in stone as of yet.