Was Florida going Republican in any matchup in 2020?

[TodayJunior]

It was an uphill battle no doubt. Not too dimmsilar to Nevada always being just out of reach for the gop. Covid accelerated it obviously with intra-country migration, but that didn’t really show up though until this year. As we all know now, 2018 was the turning point, but Florida was still winnable in 2020, as it was in 2018, but the former was the last time it was truly a swing state.

My final margin prediction for 2022 was DeSantis +9, hardly swing state territory, but he doubled that and then some. DeSantis losing Orange County by only 7, broward by 15, pummeling Charlie in Miami dade by 11, and flipping palm beach by 3 was shocking.

To my Republican friends, you want to win nationally? Study Florida. But tread lightly, you can’t go full culture war without an economic message to back it up. DeSantis’s culture war fights alone would not have given him the 19-point margin. Florida isn’t by and large ideologically a conservative bastion like Texas or even Georgia used to be (see our state constitution right to privacy laws). Even with throwback ham sandwich Charlie, he should’ve only gotten half of the margin he did since I, and many thought, he was way too polarizing to win Florida by double digits. woopsie!