Florida: Why Democrats Fail, And What The Next Victory Looks Like

How To Fix Democratic Woes In Florida

With the contours of the 2022 Florida races becoming increasingly clear, whether or not Democrats can win either or both of the marquee races has been plastered online, with Charlie Crist being seen with a plausible-but-not-likely chance of pulling the upset over Ron DeSantis for the Governorship. Val Demings is not generally afforded the same benefit of the doubt in her bid against Marco Rubio for the Senate, and I staunchly agree with that - Rubio will not lose even if DeSantis does. He is safe, and nothing - and nobody - can change that fact. Could Crist win is the more interesting question, and one that is slightly harder to answer.

Let me be very clear - Ron DeSantis is overwhelmingly likely to be the Florida Governor in 2023. This is not a claim that his race is at substantial risk - it isn't. It would require either a blue wave of the sort I'm not expecting or Crist to be a substantially better candidate than any publicly available evidence suggests is the case. I have nothing against Crist, and he ran an admirably close race in 2014 against Rick Scott, but there's no evidence that he should be considered anything other than a longshot pseudo-contender for the Governorship. That said, what a Charlie Crist path to victory would look like is worth discussing, mostly because rebuilding in Florida might help Democrats downballot and could start to turn the tide on a growing state with the 3rd most Congressional Districts and Electoral College votes. Within the constraints of knowing Democrats almost assuredly lose the race, there is probably value in fighting anyways. So, why do Democrats lose in Florida?

Nationally, 60% of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, per the 2020 Fox Exits, and of those voters, Joe Biden won them by 45%. In Georgia, 53% of voters agree with that premise, and there, Biden won those voters by 46%. In North Carolina, those voters, who make up 54% of the electorate, voted for Biden by 44%. In most places, the margin Biden gets amongst those voters doesn't change much, just the share of the electorate holding those views. As a proxy for social liberalism, views on abortion work very well - I'd prefer a gay marriage question, but this works well enough - and the findings broadly show the same trend we see everywhere else. In 2014, nationally, Democrats won voters who think abortion should be legal in all or most cases by 32%, now they win them by 45%, with similar falls in their standing with voters who think it should be mostly or wholly illegal, consistent with the falling Democratic fortunes in rural, culturally conservative areas and improving fortunes in bastions of social liberalism.

In Florida, 60% of the voters think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a number on par with the nation and very close to Virginia's 61% mark. It is substantially higher than Georgia or North Carolina, which voted more Democratic than Florida. Why did it happen, then, if there are so many more socially liberal voters in Florida? Because the GOP do massively better with those voters in Florida than they do elsewhere. Democrats only win these social liberals by 25% in Florida, a disastrous result for the party and the cause of their ills. Put aside everything else - the question of Cubans, Democratic issues with the elderly, and everything else - because this is the fundamental question of Florida politics.

How does Charlie Crist become Governor? Flipping these GOP voters who hold socially liberal views. This is both very easy and very not easy, in that it is easy to diagnose the problem but not nearly that easy to solve. I have no idea why Florida Democrats bleed with social liberals this badly, but they do, and that failure is the seminal - or, should I say, Seminole - problem for the state party. Victory will not come in the state through mass registration of new voters, although it will absolutely help. It will actually come through flipping these social liberals who have stubbornly stayed red as they have moved blue nationally. Hell, Florida social liberals vote to the right of South Carolina ones, for fuck's sake.

The path to victory is winning the big, non-South Florida cities by more and more - Jacksonville, Tampa, Tallahassee, and Orlando - while stopping the bleeding in Miami. That sounds easier than it actually is, I'm aware, but this does show that Democrats are pushing against a more open door than they realise. The voters we need to get are overwhelmingly social liberals with money - Biden won voters making over $100k by 5% nationally, and lost them by 17% in Florida, which really seems like a problem with voters who live in what can pass for Florida's equivalent of Southlake. Maybe Crist - a former Republican himself - is the answer to the problem and he can turn things around enough in one year to win the state next year, but I seriously doubt it. Again, DeSantis almost assuredly wins in 2022. What I don't doubt is that the future Demcoratic successes in Florida will be found in converting social liberals with money to our cause in much greater numbers than they currently are. Anyone passing off solutions to fixing the most persistent problem in Democratic politics that doesn't start here is more interested in looking like a serious person, and not actually interested in flipping the state.