Florida State Mid-Term Election
Florida State was among the most competitive in the November 2022 midterm elections. After garnering 51 Senate seats, the Democrats will substantially influence next year’s politics. In the midterm elections, Florida elects one senator and twenty-eight representatives for each district. Determined based on population, Florida is comprised of congressional districts. Boasting 28 congressional House seats and 30 Electoral College votes, Florida has considerable weight in determining the national election map 2024.
Florida Senate
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio won a Florida Senate seat against his Democratic opponent, Val Demings. Other candidates for the mid-term elections included Libertarian Dennis Misigoy and independents, such as Steven Grant, Tuan Nguyen, Moses Quiles, Howard Knepper, Uloma Ekpete, and Edward Gray. Rubio won Florida’s Senate seat in a landslide after acquiring 57.7% of the votes compared to Demings’ 41.3% (Dixon, 2022).
Having served in the Senate for two terms, Rubio is a popular figure in Florida. Demings rose in the political domain in 2020 after being shortlisted for the vice president’s position. Before the consideration to vie with Biden, Demings served in the US House of Representatives in Florida’s tenth congressional district.
Florida’s House of Representatives
The Republicans held the supermajority in Florida’s House of Representatives. They cemented their control of Florida’s legislature in the just-completed mid-term elections by winning 20 of 28 districts. Conversely, Democrats elected in Florida include Kathy Castor, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Lois Frankel, Frederica Wilson, Debbie Shultz, and Jared Moskowitz. Ultimately, there was no partisan balance in the midterm results of Florida’s House of Representatives.
Major Issues
Senatorial Race
The major issues that emerged as important in Florida’s Senate race were Hurricane Ian, which swept through Florida, killing more than 100 people in September 2022, and chaos in Florida’s property insurance. Democrat Val Demings cited in campaigns and debates how her opponent, Rubio, put partisan politics ahead of disaster relief for the people of Florida. Rubio had voted against a relief bill for New York and New Jersey after a similar disaster hit the states.
Demings highlighted how Rubio skipped a vote on $18.8 billion supplementary financing for the Federal Emergency Management (Lerer, 2022). In response, Rubio dismissed the allegations by highlighting the differences between the 2012 incident and Hurricane Ian. While Ms. Demings accused Mr. Rubio of doing less regarding property insurance, Sen. Rubio countered that he held a special session regarding the matter when he was the speaker in 2007.
House of Representatives
Florida is no longer a swing state after the Republicans’ outstanding performance in the House of Representatives. Democrats lost their strongholds in Florida, like Miami-Dade County in South Florida. The defeat of Democrats by Republicans in their strongholds raises questions over their ability to compete in nationwide elections, particularly the 2024 presidential race.
As we can draw from the mid-term results, the red wave is dominating Florida politics. The economic downfall and Joe Biden’s middling approval ratings failed to propel the Democratic candidates to victory. The changes in the political landscape in Florida, among other states, have enabled Republicans to win back control of the House after gaining 222 seats compared to the 213 Democrats. Despite disappointing mid-term elections, the GOP has a toehold to oversee Joe Biden and other Democrats.
Leading Candidates
Ultimately, Sen. Marco Rubio is leading the polls for re-election. The Democratic Party is collapsing and losing ground in Florida, potentially influencing the party to lose the 2024 presidential elections. Besides Sen. Rubio’s victory in the Senate with 57.7%, Governor Ron DeSantis won re-election in the midterms. However, DeSantis is currently leading among the 2024 Republican candidates for the presidential race (Pengelly, 2022). Rubio was able to flip counties that have long been considered Democratic to achieve his victory in Florida’s Senate.
References
Dixon, M. (2022). GOP to DeSantis: Thanks for helping us flip the House. POLITICO. Web.
Pengelly, M. (2022). Trump is in trouble, says insider after DeSantis surges in 2024 polls. The Guardian. Web.
Lerer, L., & Astor, M. (2022). Four takeaways from the Rubio-Demings debate in Florida’s Senate race. The New York Times. Web.