FL-SEN 2022: Nothing to see here

[Frenchrepublican]

Per Wikipedia, Marco Rubio has announced on Facebook that he will run again.

Can any Democrat make this competitive?

I doubt it, especially in a Biden midterm, at the best they find a semi serious candidate (Murphy / Crist) who is able to keep his losing margin under 7 points.

[Frenchrepublican]

It probably begins as a strong likely R race ; the big question is more if democrats are able to keep their loss in the single digits

[Frenchrepublican]

Biden's team wants Val Demmings to run this race after being impressed with her vetting for VP, reportedly.

Why would she do that ? It’s basically a suicide mission which would end her political career (see (Patrick) Murphy)

[Frenchrepublican]

Rubio isn't going to lose, but I doubt he wins by that much.

The FL democrats are already pretty incompetent at turning out their voters in presidential elections but in midterms under a democratic president they’re even worse (look at the 2014 races)

[Frenchrepublican]

Rubio isn't going to lose, but I doubt he wins by that much.

The FL democrats are already pretty incompetent at turning out their voters in presidential elections but in midterms under a democratic president they’re even worse (look at the 2014 races)

I seen an election that the Democrat lost by one percentage point. How does that square with:

the big question is more if democrats are able to keep their loss in the single digits

?

In 2014 Crist was able too keep things very close in the Gov race but other statewide democrats were trounced. (Crist was helped by the fact that he had a lot of crossover appeal in the Tampa area)

[Frenchrepublican]

Likely R. Democrats need to be phoning up Shalala or Gillum to run. It's their only chance. I'm sure Nelson could make a comeback as well.

I'm sure the FL Democrats will indeed somehow sleepwalk themselves into nominating Gillum again despite the meth/escort scandal. HP-Hilarious Party.

But really, there's no reason to consider this Safe R. This is still Florida and it is still the case that any candidate that does not eat babies will get over 45% of the vote.

Patrick Murphy didn’t eat any children and still got less than 45%.

[Frenchrepublican]

Rubio isn't going to lose, but I doubt he wins by that much.

The FL democrats are already pretty incompetent at turning out their voters in presidential elections but in midterms under a democratic president they’re even worse (look at the 2014 races)

I seen an election that the Democrat lost by one percentage point. How does that square with:

the big question is more if democrats are able to keep their loss in the single digits

?

In 2014 Crist was able too keep things very close in the Gov race but other statewide democrats were trounced. (Crist was helped by the fact that he had a lot of crossover appeal in the Tampa area)

That makes no sense. The Democratic candidates for Ag Commish and CFO in 2014 were both no-name candidates who raised around $40,000, going up against popular incumbents who each easily cleared $4 million. Val Demings, a current member of Congress who would get a ton of financial support for her campaign against Lil Marco, is not at all comparable to Will Rankin or Thad Hamilton.

The point was just to illustrate how incompetent the FL Democratic Party is, if the party had some good infrastructures even a very weak / no name candidate would still get around 45% of the vote, in PA for example where the Democratic Party is much better organised you’re not going to see a democratic statewide candidate losing by double digits.

[Frenchrepublican]

Biden's team wants Val Demmings to run this race after being impressed with her vetting for VP, reportedly.

Val Deming's isn't beating Rubio, let's be real here. Val Deming's won't offset the losses that Biden substained in South Beach to overcome Rubio's appeal to Latinos

RUBIO 55
Val Demings 45

And she's too far-leftist extreme for Florida. She's been selected by Nancy Pelosi to serve as an impeachment manager in Trump's Senate trial, which will likely hurt her in a state that Trump won by 4 and even by an even larger margin than in 2016.

Yeah, it could certainly hurt her in a statewide race, not sure why she accepted because it was bascially a lose / lose situation for her.

[Frenchrepublican]

That makes no sense. The Democratic candidates for Ag Commish and CFO in 2014 were both no-name candidates who raised around $40,000, going up against popular incumbents who each easily cleared $4 million. Val Demings, a current member of Congress who would get a ton of financial support for her campaign against Lil Marco, is not at all comparable to Will Rankin or Thad Hamilton.

The point was just to illustrate how incompetent the FL Democratic Party is, if the party had some good infrastructures even a very weak / no name candidate would still get around 45% of the vote, in PA for example where the Democratic Party is much better organised you’re not going to see a democratic statewide candidate losing by double digits.

The Pennsylvania Democrats have never nominated a "paper candidate" for statewide office in the last decade, so I'm not sure what evidence you're relying on to make this comparison. How can you be certain that a some dude Democrat in Pennsylvania would clear 45% against a GOP incumbent?

PA dem voters are more realiable than FL ones (that's mostly due to the fact that PA has more white liberals than FL) but also because as I said the PA democratic party has a well oiled turnout operation while the FL democratic party is a nutshell : "That issue appears to have continued with the party’s latest report. In one column of the report, Florida Democrats reported holding $741,829 in the bank at the end of August. In another column, the party said it had just $127,044.''
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/368759-florida-democratic-party-struggling-to-account-for-its-operating-money

[Frenchrepublican]

Democrats can win with a Latino who can shore up their support among Latinos. Darren Soto should run.

If Democratic strategists unironically believe that nominating a ‘Latino’ to appeal to the famously monolithic voting bloc of FL ‘Latinos’ is the obvious solution to their problem, FL is going to be even tougher for them than I would have thought.

Also if democrats want to have success with latinos they have to refer to them as latinx, it's much more inclusive, if they do that they are guaranteed to get at least 85% in Miami Dade county.

[Frenchrepublican]

Democrats can win with a Latino who can shore up their support among Latinos. Darren Soto should run.

If Democratic strategists unironically believe that nominating a ‘Latino’ to appeal to the famously monolithic voting bloc of FL ‘Latinos’ is the obvious solution to their problem, FL is going to be even tougher for them than I would have thought.

Yes, because they've been doing so well thus far by not nominating Latinos. Of course, as a Republican, you're happy with this situation where only Republicans run people like Marco Rubio, Mel Martinez, Jeanette Nunez, Carlos Giminez, and Maria Elvira Salazar and Democrats keep losing while ignoring the states largest minority group like the plague.

Joe Garcia and Mucarsel Powell are obviously not latino ?

[Frenchrepublican]

Democrats can win with a Latino who can shore up their support among Latinos. Darren Soto should run.

If Democratic strategists unironically believe that nominating a ‘Latino’ to appeal to the famously monolithic voting bloc of FL ‘Latinos’ is the obvious solution to their problem, FL is going to be even tougher for them than I would have thought.

Also if democrats want to have success with latinos they have to refer to them as latinx, it's much more inclusive, if they do that they are guaranteed to get at least 85% in Miami Dade county.

Saying latinx is pretty stupid but its no where the main reason why Dems did relatively poorly in Miami Dade

Never said that

[Frenchrepublican]

After leaving GOP, David Jolly weighs his political future in Florida as an independent

The former Florida congressman is itching to run for public office in 2022 — possibly for U.S. Senate, though governor isn’t out of the question, either.

“I do think we could mount a viable campaign. But viable and winning look very different and require a lot of money.”

Jolly was named executive chairman of the Serve America Movement in March. He believes in the party’s mission enough to consider a quixotic run for U.S. Senate or governor to help grow the movement.

Jolly would be welcome to run under the banner of the Independent Party, said Ernie Bach, the party’s longtime chairman in Florida.

Actually it's democrats who would be hurt the most by a Jolly candidacy

[Frenchrepublican]

David Jolly left the GOP? When?

Yeah he officially became an independent in 2018, but even before switching he sounded more or less like a NeverTrump person, and to be honest his record as a congressman was very moderate.

Here what he said when he became an independent : '' Jolly was a Republican congressmen in Florida who was unseated in 2016 by Democrat Charlie Christ. He since has become an MSNBC contributor — a rare conservative presence on that cable news network — and has been critical of President Donald Trump and the GOP, recently saying he wanted the Democrats to win the majority of the House in the upcoming midterms because it would better protect the country ''

https://deadline.com/2018/10/david-jolly-leaves-republican-party-bill-maher-msnbc-video-1202477694/

[Frenchrepublican]

Actually it's democrats who would be hurt the most by a Jolly candidacy

?? I don't think I (or Jolly, or the article) said anything otherwise. Seems obvious that an MSNBC talking head would draw more from Democrats.

That was just a general observation

[Frenchrepublican]

My opinion is that she is going to run, there are few doubts about that, she is extremely opportunistic and is very ambitious, now Murphy is a massively overrated candidate (like most fake moderate democrats) and I could easily see her doing even a bit worse than the other Murphy (Pat). Also it is laughable how she is describing her district, yeah FL-7 was a R leaning district, before 2016, but in 2016 the liberal FL Supreme court redrawn the map and FL-7 went from being a Romney district to a Obama one, and since then the district has moved even more to the left, Biden/Nelson/Gillum all won it by double digits despite losing the state, so the idea that this district is a microcosm of the state as whole is ridiculous.

Also I'm not sure what exactly her strategy is, she would run in a Trump carried state which has trended to the right and which is now 8 points to the right of the country, despite that she called ''republicans, a threat to democracy'', if you want to increase turnout among your opponents it is exactly the kind of words you sould use.

[Frenchrepublican]

My opinion is that she is going to run, there are few doubts about that, she is extremely opportunistic and is very ambitious, now Murphy is a massively overrated candidate (like most fake moderate democrats) and I could easily see her doing even a bit worse than the other Murphy (Pat). Also it is laughable how she is describing her district, yeah FL-7 was a R leaning district, before 2016, but in 2016 the liberal FL Supreme court redrawn the map and FL-7 went from being a Romney district to a Obama one, and since then the district has moved even more to the left, Biden/Nelson/Gillum all won it by double digits despite losing the state, so the idea that this district is a microcosm of the state as whole is ridiculous.

Also I'm not sure what exactly her strategy is, she would run in a Trump carried state which has trended to the right and which is now 8 points to the right of the country, despite that she called ''republicans, a threat to democracy'', if you want to increase turnout among your opponents it is exactly the kind of words you sould use.

Depending on the primary she could never run as herself. She might have to tack (or come across at least) slightly to the left of her views in the primary and emphasise her Blue Dog status in the general, not that it would affect the result much. At least that's what her campaign manager told her.

The issue with a such strategy is that the Rubio campaign would then happily use these words against her in the general election, it would come back hurt her.

[Frenchrepublican]

Stephanie Murphy is going to beat Marco Rubio.

Nah, FL-Sen is Safe R in terms of winning chance and Likely R in terms of margin. Recent Dem performances in the state give me little hope this seat his worth targeting, and 2022 for sure is going to be a less Dem-favorable environment than 2018 and 2020 were. For sure this is kind of depressing because Mr. Rubio fully deserves to lose.

I understand the pessimism.  I really do. But I think there are some very important reasons to be optimistic.(Yeah, for the GOP) 2022 won't be like 2018 (Is that supposed to be a good thing for democrats ?) or 2020 for a number of very important reasons.  In retrospect, I think we can see that Democrats' 2018 candidates were not good nominees.  Nelson was older than Methuselah and it showed.  Gillum would have been a great candidate for a state like Virginia, but was self-sabotaging in Florida.  That "the racists think he's racist" line was disastrous--you can't up the salience of race as a campaign issue in a state like Florida and expect to win, especially if you're a black man!  Yes, he was the gubernatorial candidate, but I believe he dragged Democrats down a couple of points across the board.(It's probably why he overperformed congressional democrats + two other statewide democratic candidates)  Fortunately, Murphy isn't likely to make the same mistake. District 7 could be a tough district for Democrats, but Murphy obviously knows how to win contested elections (This is a district that Biden won by double digits and which voted for Gillum and Nelson by large margins, so winning this district is not very impressive, Pat Murphy's record was much more impressive as FL-18 leans much more to the right and actually voted for Romney the year when Murphy won his first election).  Also, unlike 2020, Trump won't be on the ticket.  Trump, as unpopular as he was nationally, could still drive Republican base turnout to ridiculous levels--an ability I don't see Rubio having. (So you expect that democrats are not going to suffer turnout drop off among their lower propensity voters ?) What's more, the economy is going to be banging on election day, and Rubio will have a record of voting against the economic measures that made that prosperity possible (Explain that to all the strong GOP incumbents who lost in 2018 despite the good economy). 

All in all, Rubio will be vulnerable, Murphy is a good candidate, and the mid-term environment won't be as bad for Democrats as many people assume.  Stephanie Murphy can and will win.

I will never understand why some people are so hackish/delusionnal.

[Frenchrepublican]

Stephanie Murphy is going to beat Marco Rubio.

Nah, FL-Sen is Safe R in terms of winning chance and Likely R in terms of margin. Recent Dem performances in the state give me little hope this seat his worth targeting, and 2022 for sure is going to be a less Dem-favorable environment than 2018 and 2020 were. For sure this is kind of depressing because Mr. Rubio fully deserves to lose.

I understand the pessimism.  I really do. But I think there are some very important reasons to be optimistic.(Yeah, for the GOP) 2022 won't be like 2018 (Is that supposed to be a good thing for democrats ?) or 2020 for a number of very important reasons.  In retrospect, I think we can see that Democrats' 2018 candidates were not good nominees.  Nelson was older than Methuselah and it showed.  Gillum would have been a great candidate for a state like Virginia, but was self-sabotaging in Florida.  That "the racists think he's racist" line was disastrous--you can't up the salience of race as a campaign issue in a state like Florida and expect to win, especially if you're a black man!  Yes, he was the gubernatorial candidate, but I believe he dragged Democrats down a couple of points across the board.(It's probably why he overperformed congressional democrats + two other statewide democratic candidates)  Fortunately, Murphy isn't likely to make the same mistake. District 7 could be a tough district for Democrats, but Murphy obviously knows how to win contested elections (This is a district that Biden won by double digits and which voted for Gillum and Nelson by large margins, so winning this district is not very impressive, Pat Murphy's record was much more impressive as FL-18 leans much more to the right and actually voted for Romney the year when Murphy won his first election).  Also, unlike 2020, Trump won't be on the ticket.  Trump, as unpopular as he was nationally, could still drive Republican base turnout to ridiculous levels--an ability I don't see Rubio having. (So you expect that democrats are not going to suffer turnout drop off among their lower propensity voters ?) What's more, the economy is going to be banging on election day, and Rubio will have a record of voting against the economic measures that made that prosperity possible (Explain that to all the strong GOP incumbents who lost in 2018 despite the good economy). 

All in all, Rubio will be vulnerable, Murphy is a good candidate, and the mid-term environment won't be as bad for Democrats as many people assume.  Stephanie Murphy can and will win.

I will never understand why some people are so hackish/delusionnal.

I'm not being "hackish."  I'm just trying to offer an alternative read of the situation, one that I think has just as much merit as the counter-position.  I don't think anybody is saying it's a slam dunk, but what is delusional is insisting that Democrats have no chance in Florida a year and a half from now.

There is a difference between saying that democrats have no chance to win Florida and saying that they are favoured, yeah the democratic candidate would have a 20% chance to flip the seat because after all despite their incompetence Florida democrats have a relatively high floor in this state but there is no way  to suggest that Murphy or any other democrat would be favoured to defeat Rubio, FL is a right trending R+8 state and even in a neutral/light blue year winning it would be extremely difficult for democrats especially against Rubio