Red Florida’s Blue Silver Linings

Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly conceded to Republican Byron Donalds, but he significantly outperformed previous Democratic candidates.Gerardo Mora/Getty Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Democrats in Florida may have been nursing their FOMO hangovers Wednesday morning as they assessed remarkable Republican losses in other ruby-red statewide races for governor, attorney general, and US Senate. It seemed like the blue wave largely missed the Sunshine State, as voters in neighboring red states elected a Democrat to the US Senate in South Carolina, as well as to the US Senate and the governorship in Georgia, not to mention the Texas trifecta. But as the dust settled on the election results, there are some glimmers of blue hope across Florida. As I reported Tuesday night, several congressional districts heavily redrawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature earlier this year to favor the GOP have just elected Democrats. And across the state, in almost every single county, according to an Associated Press analysis, there was movement to the left. “We didn’t win every race we fought for, and we won’t pretend otherwise. But we built a foundation we’re going to build on.” The shifts were greatest in metro areas such as Miami, Tampa Bay, and Orlando, where MAGA had solid support in 2024. And despite losing in the governor’s race, Democrat David Jolly won in several key counties where Trump had won, including Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, and Pinellas. “Let’s be very clear about what happened in Miami-Dade tonight. For two years, every pundit and every talker counted us out.,” Laura Kelley, chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, said in a statement. “We didn’t win every race we fought for, and we won’t pretend otherwise. But we built a foundation we’re going to build on.” In the Florida Legislature, Democrats also saw some gains, where their party was expected to flip about 15 state House seats, ending the Florida GOP’s supermajority. Crucially, that means, “Republicans can no longer act alone on certain major decisions, including overriding a governor’s veto or bypassing legislative rules, which require a two-thirds vote,” the Miami Herald noted. Republicans are also expected to lose their supermajority in the state Senate as well. “The people of Florida had a good night despite us not securing the top of the ticket races.” These Democratic victories also trickled down to the local level. In Hillsborough county, which Trump won by 3 points in 2024, voters just elected four Democrats to the county commission, flipping control of the board, the Tampa Bay Times reported. “The people of Florida had a good night despite us not securing the top of the ticket races,” said former state Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando who just termed-out of her seat after serving eight years. “MAGA, as far as I’m concerned, is dead and we should act like it.” Eskamani, who is now running for Orlando mayor in 2027 and was involved in assisting other Florida Democrats’ campaigns this election cycle, told me many voters shifted to blue in spite of Republicans significantly outspending Democrats in the state. In the Florida governor race, for instance, Donalds raised more than $125 million compared to Jolly’s roughly $22 million. Eskamani pointed to the fact that national Democratic funders largely skipped investing in the state. She urged them to “stop ignoring Florida. We are on the ground doing phenomenal work with very little.” In the future, she said, “I want to see us build upon these successes to secure bigger wins in 2028.”