FL-GOV 2022 Democratic Underperformance

[2016]

Dem incompetence and long term trends were obvious factors. Especially the influx of Midwestern and/or white retirees plus the shift among Cuban Americans towards the GOP. In addition, Crist was an uninspiring, has-been candidate that lost multiple statewide races on multiple ballots (R, I and D) before.

Was it those groups (particularly Cuban Americans) defecting or voting for Desantis for the first time? I suspect more it's more of the latter.

Crist ran an unexpectedly horrible campaign, doing basically everything wrong.

Yeah, I'm not sure what happened there. From what I can tell he let up on Desantis during hurricane Ian and was short on funding. Crist also has a lot of losses on his record.

Crist never ever had a chance EVEN if he had ran a perfect Campaign. Two Major Factors contributed to DeSantis big win: Hurricane IAN + his COVID Policies. Most people in Florida voted for DeSantis because he defied the Democratic Propaganda Machine and kept the State open. Crist openly said in various Events he held throughout the State that he would bring back Mask Mandates among other things.
A third factor was his poor Running Mate Choice with Karla Hernandez-Mats who turnout out to be quite a dumpster. Also, the Voter Registration Changes: R's had a 300,000+ Registration lead heading into the Election with many Voters coming from northeastern lockdown States such as New York, New Jersey + California in the west.

Finally Crist became a single issue Candidate for the Final Month of the Campaign turning into an "Anti-Abortion Crist" ignoring Inflation, the Border among other things. Not surprising since he had no Record to run on having voted with Pelosi, Schumer (from 2017-2021) and Biden (since 2021) 100 % of the time since he got elected during the 2016 Elections.

[2016]

It's an all-of-the-above situation: candidate quality, DeSantis' relative popularity, Florida Democrats' incompetence, investment differences, trends, etc. It all yielded a perfect storm of Florida giving the rest of the country the biggest middle finger yet, out of so many it's given in election years.

However, if the Florida GOP wasn't so crafty in waiting until after the election to pass their six week ban, and they did pass it prior to November 8, 2022 it still probably would have decreased the margins of victory for DeSantis and Rubio. Obviously they would still win substantially though. There is only so much that would do.

Going forward it might be the only thing Florida Democrats have now to run on in the state.

LOL, Demings and Crist became single Issue Candidates for the Final 4 Weeks of the Campaign running attack after attack ad on abortion against DeSantis and Rubio and it did not work. The Economy will still be the Top Issue for Voters in 2024 and Florida has among the 5th lowest UE in the Country about 2.5 to 3%.

Finally as long as the Voter Registrations don't change (Republicans currently own a 453,000 edge) D's have no shot at a Statewide Win unless Trump or DeSantis become really unpopular in the State. Plus Rick Scott can delf finance his Campaign which was the case for Rubio last year.

[2016]

Dems didn't turn out

Wrong. The Overall Turnout in 2022 was 53 %, in line with 2014 which was 51 %
They were never going to replicate the Turnout from 2018 which was 63 %.