Fried overperformed b/c it was basically a single-issue race about legalizing various marijuana-adjacent products and nothing else. Good strategy to win, but not really something that she can transfer to a governor's race. Think she'd be able to beat him, but I wouldn't use the fact that she overperformed Gillum and Nelson as evidence that she'd be an all-star candidate in 2022.
In addition, while Fried did better than Nelson and Gillum in percentages, she received some 55,000 fewer raw votes than Nelson. Everyone who won in Florida last year won by accident because FL voters and election officials are morons and don't know how elections and this whole "voting" thing work. She also had the benefit of running against a massive dork, which I imagine swayed some votes.
Fried may be the obvious choice for the Democratic nomination in FL-GOV 2022 right now, but who knows how things may be come 2022 for both Fried and DeClowntis. Speaking of:
When was the last time a governor with a 60/25 approval rate lost reelection ?
Tell me what time machine you used to find DeSantis' 2022 approval ratings.
Look to see what former Ohio governor Ted Strickland's approval ratings were like in 2009.
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