FL-Gov: Who's a stronger GE candidate?

[Donerail]

Crist is the greatest retail politician this state has ever known. Not sure how much that counts for these days, but if you have to roll the dice, he's probably more able to make something happen.

[Donerail]

Fried. Crist has already lost three statewide races. Plus, the fact that Fried won when Bill Nelson lost surely counts for something.

Are you counting... the 1998 Senate race? Hardly relevant to today. As for the other two, in one he outpolled the Democratic nominee as an independent, and in the other he lost by a point in a very Republican year. Not sure either demonstrates a glaring weakness.

[Donerail]

What's interesting is that I assume Fried had to have been a somewhat strong candidate / campaigner to win in '18 given no other statewide Dems did (maybe I am missing something, like a flaw with her opponent?) She should be trying to just replicate that message / strategy rather than this bizarre extremely online resister style campaign.

The Fried strategy in 2018 was fairly simple: ride the coattails of two strong Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket to 49.5%, and distinguish yourself enough on one issue to get a handful of crossover votes to get you over 50%. Not a bad strategy to win downballot, but not exactly something you can replicate when, uh oh, it's you who's now at the top of the ticket.