Florida used to have bitterly close statewide elections.
Now it’s reliably red terrain.
That conservative shift and Democratic decline have brought both opportunity and burden to party primaries in turn. Tuesday’s results were clarifying about the directions each is headed: A GOP that nominated a Black conservative for governor while handing a clear share of its vote to a man who campaigned against him in explicitly racist terms; a president whose endorsement couldn’t carry a safe red seat; and a Democratic Party where the favorite to win the Senate nomination raised $16 million and lost to a democratic socialist few saw coming.
Here are five takeaways from Florida’s primary.
Donalds triumphed despite an opponent’s racist attacks
Perhaps no state has embraced Trump-era Republicanism as fully as the president’s adopted home. The ranks of the state’s GOP are filled with political brawlers who take the president’s already combative and vitriolic approach and push it a step further. Whoever the party nominated for governor was going to be a product of that dynamic.
On Tuesday, it was Rep. Byron Donalds. Come November, a victory would make him the first Black Republican governor in the nation since Reconstruction.
Getting even this far took finesse. Gov. Ron DeSantis, term-limited and free to anoint a successor, never picked a side. Donalds, who had Trump’s early endorsement, faced campaigns from Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, former state House Speaker Paul Renner and James Fishback — a far-right voice who ran an openly racist campaign against him and came away with a not insignificant share of the vote.
Donalds said little about any of it on Tuesday after he easily won. His approach was to instead train his attention on David Jolly, the former Republican congressman Democrats nominated for governor, as a way of unifying the party’s factions behind him against a common opponent.
“We’ve just come through a hard-fought primary. I got a call from Paul Renner and James Fishback tonight,” Donalds said. “And they congratulated me and all of us on a hard-fought victory. And my conversation with both of them is very simple: ‘Congratulations. Let’s go beat David Jolly in November.’ You see, because individual opinions and passionate supporters are the beauty of our conservative movement.”
Money and a national profile can only get you so far
Alexander Vindman was good on paper: A child immigrant from Soviet-controlled Ukraine who rose to become a U.S. Army officer and a key figure against Trump in the president’s first impeachment. His campaign drew support from party infrastructure and raised $16 million since he first announced. From certain corners of the party, there was a sense that he could help put Florida back in play for Democrats.
On Tuesday, he lost to Angie Nixon, a state representative who has been involved with the Democratic Socialists of America and whose financial resources paled in comparison to Vindman’s. She will be the Democratic nominee for the seat Marco Rubio left behind when he became Trump’s secretary of state.
Nixon will face Ashley Moody, who was appointed to fill the vacancy. While Moody lacks the same national political talent as her predecessor, she has inherited a Florida that has drifted steadily out of reach for Democrats. Tuesday’s results likely push that even further, as Nixon’s primary success signals that the left wing can still surprise and win intraparty fights — even as victory in the general election is an altogether more daunting challenge.
Incumbents got tested for very different reasons
Rep. Cory Mills, contending with allegations of misconduct, was among the most vulnerable Republicans in the country this primary season. When two of his Florida Republican colleagues endorsed his chief GOP rival — former local television anchor Ryan Elijah — the writing was on the wall.
Mills is now the 13th congressional incumbent of either party to lose a primary this year, joining a group whose defeats have little in common: Some upset Trump, some were seen as too old and others not liberal enough.
Elsewhere in Florida, the Republican reshaping of the state’s congressional maps led to drama, as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz won the Democratic nomination in the heavily Black 20th District. While this seat is likely to stay in Democrats’ hands, the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman’s decision to run there spurred tensions given the important local Black voting base. She won anyway.
A Republican primary where Trump’s pick lost
Perhaps the most bizarre primary contest in Florida was the scramble for the seat Donalds is vacating. The Republican hopefuls included a pardoned felon who once represented a district in New York, a former one-term congressman in North Carolina and a model who had spent time behind bars for his part in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Given those choices, Florida voters went with none of them — and they didn’t follow Trump either. The president recently announced his support for Catalina Lauf, who lost a congressional race in Illinois a few years ago. Instead, local conservative media owner Jim Schwartzel built enough support to stand out among the assorted collection of Republican personalities.
The DSA lost in a must-win congressional district for Democrats
Earlier this year, Florida Republicans altered the state’s congressional maps in a move expected to help their party’s bid to keep control of the U.S. House. The eventual effect of the changes could bring the GOP control of four more congressional seats in the state later this fall.
That push was somewhat complicated, however, by Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz’s decision to run for one of those redrawn seats Republicans are eager to win under the new lines. The moderate Moskowitz, while potentially being a tough opponent for the GOP, was challenged in Tuesday’s primary by Oliver Larkin, a democratic socialist.
Despite Larkin’s wing of the party finding success in blue districts in recent months, the candidate endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America struggled in the primary as Moskowitz heads to November and tries to blunt Republicans ambitions.
The post Five key takeaways from Florida’s primaries appeared first on MS NOW.
