There's an orthodoxy based on the 2010s elections that Florida is invariably razor-thin regardless of the national environment. But Obama won it by 3 in 2008 and, before that, Dubya won it by 5 in 2004, so clearly it is capable of producing low-to-mid-single-digit results. It just hasn't done so in the last few cycles.
Yeah, but the image of Rick Scott being projected as the winner/FL flipping red on the Senate maps of NYT, Politico, CNN, etc. (especially after a somewhat protracted recount battle) has been burned into people's minds forever even if the objective reality remains that a slight change in outside factors or even sheer chance could have produced a Democratic victory with a near-identical county map/result, as it did in the Agriculture Commissioner race. The meme itself is hilarious, but the hysterical/illogical FL takes are testament to the powerful, long-lasting impact of single peculiar (negative) events/outcomes on the human psyche. If a little more than 5,000 Puerto Ricans who saw Rick Scott in a good light due to his tenure as governor/outreach to Democratic-leaning voter groups/etc. but held unfavorable opinions of Trump/national Republicans had changed their minds and voted for Nelson, Titanium Tilt R Florida would be tipping-point Florida right now because even their best possible Republican candidate/strongest recruit of the cycle couldn’t beat sleepy Bill Nelson!
Sure, there was no third-party candidate on the ballot in 2018, Scott outspent Nelson almost 3-to-1 and had higher favorability/approval numbers than Trump, Nelson did worse than Biden seems to be among seniors/retirees, Scott's campaign reached out more efficiently to non-white voters than Trump ever will, etc., but too bad all of this + current polling/fundamentals do not matter, as red FL is indelibly engraved in the minds of Atlas posters suffering from PTSD.
