Why, oh why, do Democrats who know they’re unelectable choose to run and siphon off votes from good Democrats like Gina Ortiz Jones who can win? I find that sort of behavior truly flabbergasting – and it hurts our party.
In this particular case, with a few less Democratic opponents, Ortiz Jones would likely have won an outright majority, eliminating the risk of a time-consuming and costly runoff.
And a 10 percent turnout?? Except perhaps to JD Vance, when has the couch seemed that much more attractive?
I suspect the huge number of people running might have turned some voters off.
I don't know anything about the local dynamic in San Antonio, but it is a general phenomena that when presented with a plethora of options people make worse decisions than when given a smaller number. This may have translated into people just skipping the primary.
The election occurred in the midst of the annual Fiesta, citywide merriment that distracted many voters. It was officially nonpartisan, and in fact the campaigns focused on local issues not easily reduced to red vs. blue.
Not entirely true. Many of the other candidates were members of the city council who had legitimate shots at the mayoralty. Also, because of a recent change in the city charter, this was the first time that the term would be four years rather than two; that especially attracted candidates. The race was not conceived of as Democrats vs. Republicans.
Assuming the runoff is between only two candidates, thus meaning that no pouty-pants losing Dem can run as a third candidate and potentially hand the race to the GOP.
Yes, but, given rational decisions by marginal Democratic candidates not to run in the first place, that runoff – and the risk it entails – would not have been necessary.
You just can't expect candidates not to run for open seats. It's like musical or sports competitions. The only reasonable thing to fault candidates for is if they attack fellow Democrats in injurious ways or act sullen after being knocked out, instead of giving the runoff candidate their wholehearted endorsement.
Not going to beat a dead horse, but as a San Antonian I'll second the other reasons given.
1) Election was during Fiesta.
2) Our city elections are non-partisan. It does happen that political affiliations emerge, but they usually take a back seat. One of the biggest issues this time was over the funding of Project Marvel and whether taxpayer dollars should be used to fund a new Spurs arena downtown. On this issue alone, the unofficial Democratic candidates had differing views on it, but it seemed to be matter of degrees.
3) It was an open seat, and the new mayor will get four years instead of two.
As an aside, I didn't vote for Gina Ortiz Jones. I actually voted for District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda, who happens to be my current council person. I will be voting for Jones in the runoff.
The major paper, San Antonio Express-News, endorsed the District 4 Councilwoman for mayor and then followed it with their 2nd (CD8), 3rd (CD9), and 4th (Jones and Pablos) choices for mayor.
My biggest surprise was Beto Altamirano not doing better considering his supporters read like a who's who of city leaders who usually back the front runners.
How prominent is Tommy Calvert in local politics there? There was an election for freshmen seats on the student senate immediately after we moved in and one of my first memories of college was Tommy canvassing me for my vote.
I first worked with Tommy on a U.S. Senate race in 2007 (the candidate eventually didn't run). He does stay active in local politics and makes sure to get his name out there. He's now the most senior member on our Commissioners Court and seems to have solidified his hold as the incumbent for Precinct 4. I remember when he first won the seat and his name would pop up whenever there were open seats. Depending on how long the new county judge stays on, I could easily see Tommy running to replace him.
Now that I think about it, Tommy might have been the first person I ever voted for, I had just turned 18 the month before and the 1998 midterms were a few months away.
I’ll just add that none of the other major Dem-aligned candidates were “unelectable.” They were very good and qualified, and in a race where only three of them were running, would’ve done better. The field was just spread too thin, even disregarding the 18 or so candidates who had zero chance of getting more than a few hundred votes. It helped GOJ (and Pablos) to have a ton of PAC money behind them — I got so many more mailers from GOJ’s campaign than any other, by far. I’m not saying anything bad about GOJ here — just that it’s not that the other major candidates inherently had no chance. Gina’s resources allowed her to drive up name ID and break apart from the pack in a big way, but that wasn’t a given / it’s not that she was obviously a better candidate from the beginning and the others just decided to run because why not.
Since Florida turning red was being discussed, I feel that the reason why it happened in the first place has simply been gotten wrong by the MSM.
A lot of ink has been spilled over it and the mainstream explanations such as Cuban conservatism (which was always present and rivaled by growth of other liberal voting groups) or other demographic shifts, have always felt somewhat shallow, and even the popular "voter migration" narrative (retirees move there but Florida's median age is still lower than most).
The possibly disproportionate conservative migration was during the entire course of pandemic while the election was in November 2020 and is still built on very limited data (only the voting registration of a small numbers of movers - 300k in the NYT Upshot analysis - are known and and their previous home state registration might not even reflect their votes since decades). Rather than focusing on local narratives, I've based it on broad national trends.
During the oft cited 2000 election, the Democrats' erstwhile Solid South hadn't completely vanished even after 1994 (some areas where the party is completely toxic today still voted for them, college educated voters preferred the GOP and New Deal-era voters were still alive). Democrats were also centre-right compared to the centre-left Democrats of today though that's a different story.
We all know Obama won Florida twice - in 2008 and 2012 - thanks to his unique strength among working-class and rural white voters, as well as some residual loyalty in New Deal-era socially conservative rural counties. These strongholds began to collapse in 2016, shifting states like Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana into the Republican column more permanently. Yet Florida was actually closer in 2016 than in 2020: Hillary Clinton only lost by a single percentage point, while Biden - despite increasing investment in the state and improving on Clinton's performance in places like Texas, Iowa, and Ohio – lost by 3.4 points.
Interestingly, Biden improved across almost all demographics nationally but performed worse among Latinos and rural whites. In fact, no Democrat has ever matched Hillary's 2016 performance with Latino voters. Her relative strength is likely attributable to Trump's not yet normalized anti-Latino inflammatory rhetoric at the time and Hillary's solid promise of immigration reform. Hillary even won an estimated 46% of the Cuban vote — a rare high-water mark for Democrats with a group that barely voted for Gore or Kerry. Hillary also won Latino populated Nevada while losing the remaining swing states.
So here's the core of my theory: Florida was only competitive in 2016 because of a once-in-a-generation showing among Latino voters, including Cubans. That anomaly masked the broader realignment already underway and clearly seen in Ohio or Iowa. Without Obama-era levels of support from rural and working-class whites, Democrats simply could not win the state. If you dig into the precinct-level data, the trend becomes clear: small cities, towns, exurbs, and rural counties have trended increasingly red, while urban centers and suburbs have gone bluer - but not by enough to overcome the former (in 2020). Florida's demographics are also not typically Southern except in North Florida.
This structural Republican dominance isn’t new either. Consider 2010: Democrat Alex Sink lost to Rick Scott , a literal Medicaid fraudster and human ghoul, by just 1 percentage point, yet Republicans won the statewide House vote in Florida by an astonishing 18 points during the Tea Party wave. In 2014, Scott narrowly beat Charlie Crist by just 1 point again, but Republicans carried the House vote by about 12 points. In both cycles, you can see the same story: even when Democrats come close in top-of-ticket races against unpopular nominees, the GOP holds firm control down-ballot.
Now look at 2018, a "blue wave" year nationally. Democrats narrowly lost the governorship when Ron DeSantis beat Andrew Gillum by just 0.4 points. Yet even that close gubernatorial result masked a deeper trend: Florida Republicans still won the U.S. House vote by 6 percentage points statewide. This was a midterm where Democrats were flipping seats across the country - yet Florida stood out as an outlier. Democrats ran a charismatic candidate (atleast at that point) with strong urban turnout and improved among all demographics except Latinos, but it wasn’t enough to counter the entrenched Republican strength in less urban areas, with non college educated white voters. DeSantis was not yet popular and was an average candidate who had seemingly lost the primary until Trump's sudden endorsement.
Maybe, Florida Democrats can get their shit together in 2026-28, the results may be close as 2020 (or 2018 due to midterm electorate differences) with another Latino swing resembling the Biden-Trump spread or maybe a lot of conservatives actually moved there and it will be never reach those margins again. Maybe, they might eke out a victory with a moderate common sense candidate... Also, a lot of COVID era movers have been going back to New England and California since the end of remote work and due to Florida's affordability crisis contributing to the current housing price crash in Florida.
I hope this makes some sense and look forward to hearing what you guys think about this theory.
Edit: Florida is a quarter Latino (in total population not voting population) and is not a majority-minority state like many assume.
In 2016, it was the WWC shift in the exurbs. FL outside of several city centers, is just a giant exurb.
Rural FL is tiny even it showed an overwhelming areas of red shift, since the state was the smallest one in the Old South. If you look at the numbers, all the bright red rural shift caused HRC losing by about 30k more than 2012, less than half of Obama’s winning margin. Had Everything else been equal, wouldn’t flip the state.
2020, Biden got better number in the cities not in SE, matched or improved marginally in the exurbs, fell further behind in the rurals, and crashed in Dade. The later two were where the further deficit of 250k votes came about.
2024 just crashed everywhere. The electorate there is changing very fast, that you can track from the registration updates from FLSOS. Newly added, party changes, cancellations, etc.
Yeah I don't get the "either or" debate here; to me it's clear Florida has gotten redder for a multitude of reasons; WWC Demosaur areas reddening, RW in-migration, reddening Hispanic cohort etc.
I do think Obama's close wins there masked how generally red Florida has been for the past 40+ years. Clinton didn't even win it in 1992.
I also see a problem in the Palm Beach/Broward county area. We used to get a lot of retirees from the Northeast who tended to vote heavily Democratic while the current group of retirees are not as heavily from the Northeast and are much more conservative. I am also curious at how the ongoing insurance issues with insurance prices rising by huge amounts due to rising flood risks from climate change. I suspect that more educated and more liberal voters will be very wary to move to an area with such a problem while less educated voters and climate change deniers (think low education/high income retirees) will not be deterred by such a problem.
Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of non-MAGA people I know are now avoiding Florida, when it was a popular vacation/retirement destination for people of all political stripes as recently as just before the pandemic.
I also think there's a growing awareness that Florida (especially South Florida) weather is...not for everyone.
Florida getting more Conservative Silent Generation retirees from the Midwest compared to the more liberal Greatest Generation Northeast retirees who preceded them didn't start during Covid.
I see. But then you also had the reverse great migration, young job seekers from other states and foreign immigrants coming in countering those trends right?
The immigration has been a lot of Latinos coming from authoritarian "leftist" regimes (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua) who lean conservative. I also don't think Miami or Tampa attracted the sort of young educated liberal demos like Atlanta, Research Triangle, or NOVA did, but that's based more on vibes-I don't know the actual data there.
Thanks for posting such an interesting analysis! One question: when you say that "urban centers and suburbs have gone bluer", how true is that in Florida? Hasn't the largest urban center - Miami - deteriorated a lot?
Hillary Clinton did so well with the Cuban vote that a lot of folks (myself included) thought that they were realigning toward Democrats. Heck, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was scared into retirement, and Donna Shalalalalalalalala (who in hindsight was a terrible candidate) defeated a well-known, Spanish-speaking opponent to succeed her!
Just goes to show how quickly fortunes can change.
It's a red seat and Maine republicans like him, so he'll have a real chance.
At the same time, swingy Maine voters seem to have soured on him if we take the size of his 2022 defeat into account. Mills' 2022 margin was bigger than her 2018 margin. Against Golden I think he's a modest underdog. If Golden opts to run for something else, I think any republican will be favored to pick up that seat. Unfortunately the seat is so red that we cannot really hope for better than that in either scenario.
It really isn’t that red that LePage, who’s not well liked in Maine, would be favored in a D-friendly year. Austin Theriault would have decent odds at winning an open seat but LePage would be a clear underdog.
Certainly a relief. I'm still trying to make sense of how much voter registration is predictive or just a lagging indicator, but either way, it's something that I'd rather we be making gains in than the reverse!
Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so party of registration is more impactful here than in most states.
Some of it is definitely a lagging indicator (my own county, Mercer, maintained a Democratic registration advantage well after it became MAGAstan and Republicans started sweeping local offices by comfortable margins), but it's still not a trend I've enjoyed watching.
Trump: I was supposed to be a movie maker… Nobody ever escaped. One person almost got there but they found his clothing rather badly ripped up, a lot of shark bites…
Trump in previous interviews before he became POTUS in 2017 had looked into working in the film industry decades ago, well before he even met Roy Cohn. One wonders if this would have ever truly happened had he not gone into real estate.
I'm sure Trump would say, "This system is rigged!" if he started being a director and then had to direct films that the studio wanted him to as opposed to his own.
MTG is going to bomb SPECTACULARLY if she gets the 2026 Senate GOP nomination. I expect the GOP apparatus are going to try handicapping her like they're doing with Ken Paxton in TX.
Honestly, this is a dream scenario for us. Kemp out and MTG in definitely makes the Senate seat Lean Dem and may help us in the Gubernatorial race too. Kemp is clearly keeping his powder dry for 2028, where he will be a very real Presidential threat, but that's a problem for later...
Kemp would be a very formidable Prez candidate. Many of the upsides of DeSantis AND Youngkin without any of their very obvious downsides. We’d underestimate him at our peril.
That being said the more rabid corners of the base may not want him so
Kemp's path would involve a huge field splitting the crazy vote (which is basically how Romney got through in 2012—I still can't get over the fact that the second-place finisher was Rick Santorum, a politician so awful he managed to lose a swing-state Senate seat by >17 points to a bowl of unflavored oatmeal!).
It could happen, but I still think the 2028 GOP nominee will be a cosplay Trump.
Depends on how Trump holds up for the rest of his term. If we go into 2028 with a weak, unpopular, old man Trump who has been leading the party for over a decade, there is going to be a wide opening for a candidate like Kemp who is genuinely conservative, but also genuinely not a Trump toady.
I could see Kemp being a credible GOP Presidential Candidate for Republicans who either want to move on from Trump or need another choice. It also works to Kemp’s advantage that he’s a veteran at holding elected office well before Trump emerged as a presidential candidate.
Then again, we also don’t as of yet know about Kemp’s appeal beyond just GA.
I'm actually surprised and yet, not really. Kemp has his eye on the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Ex-governor from Georgia sounds much better than ex-governor/failed 2026 Senate race against Jon Ossoff.
Exactly, he's betting on a 2026 bloodbath for Republicans which will open a pathway for him to win the 2028 primary against Vance and Rubio. He will sell himself as a successful conservative governor.
I know a few quite a few have made the jump, but especially in a party led by Trump, I see zero upside for any former Governor transitiong to Congress. It's already a downgrade of relative authority/prestige, but then you have to deal with the POTUS browbeating you publicly over everything and steering your base against you if you show a modium of independence . . . .who would choose that?
And by not being distracted running for Senate, Kemp can quietly serve out his last two years, getting some things done, building his record, etc. while starting to build out his 2028 infrastructure now.
This is the problem with The Emerging Democratic Majority, which was gospel for a while. Part of the underlying argument is that racial/ethnic identities are static over time and that the people of those racial/ethnic identities will vote the same way into perpetuity. Both of which are faulty assumptions.
I find myself in the odd position of strongly agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene on this one. She's the sane one here, this bill is that fucking ridiculous. How can you even control whether people boycott?
Josh Gottheimer needs to be held accountable for this. Why is any Democrat cosponsoring any legislation that in any way targets any form of free speech in this current climate?
I am not one who thinks a boycott of Israel is the right approach to resolve the conflict between the country and Palestine. However, if any U.S. citizen wants to boycott Israel that's a right they have.
Completely outside of the real world, has anyone watched the show The Resident? It's about a murder during a state dinner at the white house. I wouldn't exactly call it a great show but AL Franken (not someone I am admittedly a fan of) shows up as a senator sparring against a lunatic conservative senator name "Marjorie".
I worked in the Covid Compliance Department for the first block of the season (Covid regulations ended in May 2023). I really enjoyed my time on the show and the WH sets were incredible. The wrap party was even held at the "White House". Definitely one of the cooler experience of my Hollywood career.
I started in November 2022! It was pretty wild. Between the strikes and Andre Braugher's tragic passing it took until May 2024 to finish production. It was definitely very cool!
Was Braugher originally supposed to play the role of the chief usher that Giancarlo Esposito had? I think Esposito was wonderful in that role but it would have been right up Braugher’s alley. RIP
Griffin is almost certainly going to appeal this. But having a Trump appointee ruling against him makes it a LOT harder to get a favorable SCOTUS ruling.
Here is the court's brief summary of the key issue: "[T]case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals. This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible. To this court, the answer to each of those questions is "no." For that reason, and those that follow, the court finds that effectuation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court's orders would violate the equal protection and substantive due process rights of overseas military and civilian voters. "
Judge is a Trump appointee, which should hopefully give this a bit more resilience. Less likely that a conservative judge will reverse it on ideological grounds.
Why, oh why, do Democrats who know they’re unelectable choose to run and siphon off votes from good Democrats like Gina Ortiz Jones who can win? I find that sort of behavior truly flabbergasting – and it hurts our party.
In this particular case, with a few less Democratic opponents, Ortiz Jones would likely have won an outright majority, eliminating the risk of a time-consuming and costly runoff.
And a 10 percent turnout?? Except perhaps to JD Vance, when has the couch seemed that much more attractive?
I suspect the huge number of people running might have turned some voters off.
I don't know anything about the local dynamic in San Antonio, but it is a general phenomena that when presented with a plethora of options people make worse decisions than when given a smaller number. This may have translated into people just skipping the primary.
The election occurred in the midst of the annual Fiesta, citywide merriment that distracted many voters. It was officially nonpartisan, and in fact the campaigns focused on local issues not easily reduced to red vs. blue.
Because ego and vanity.
and plain old stupidity
Not entirely true. Many of the other candidates were members of the city council who had legitimate shots at the mayoralty. Also, because of a recent change in the city charter, this was the first time that the term would be four years rather than two; that especially attracted candidates. The race was not conceived of as Democrats vs. Republicans.
Why is that so bad? Take your shot and then work for the finalist in the runoff.
Assuming the runoff is between only two candidates, thus meaning that no pouty-pants losing Dem can run as a third candidate and potentially hand the race to the GOP.
Correct.
Still, isn't Ortiz Jones favored to win the runoff?
Yes, but, given rational decisions by marginal Democratic candidates not to run in the first place, that runoff – and the risk it entails – would not have been necessary.
You just can't expect candidates not to run for open seats. It's like musical or sports competitions. The only reasonable thing to fault candidates for is if they attack fellow Democrats in injurious ways or act sullen after being knocked out, instead of giving the runoff candidate their wholehearted endorsement.
Not going to beat a dead horse, but as a San Antonian I'll second the other reasons given.
1) Election was during Fiesta.
2) Our city elections are non-partisan. It does happen that political affiliations emerge, but they usually take a back seat. One of the biggest issues this time was over the funding of Project Marvel and whether taxpayer dollars should be used to fund a new Spurs arena downtown. On this issue alone, the unofficial Democratic candidates had differing views on it, but it seemed to be matter of degrees.
3) It was an open seat, and the new mayor will get four years instead of two.
As an aside, I didn't vote for Gina Ortiz Jones. I actually voted for District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda, who happens to be my current council person. I will be voting for Jones in the runoff.
The major paper, San Antonio Express-News, endorsed the District 4 Councilwoman for mayor and then followed it with their 2nd (CD8), 3rd (CD9), and 4th (Jones and Pablos) choices for mayor.
My biggest surprise was Beto Altamirano not doing better considering his supporters read like a who's who of city leaders who usually back the front runners.
How prominent is Tommy Calvert in local politics there? There was an election for freshmen seats on the student senate immediately after we moved in and one of my first memories of college was Tommy canvassing me for my vote.
I first worked with Tommy on a U.S. Senate race in 2007 (the candidate eventually didn't run). He does stay active in local politics and makes sure to get his name out there. He's now the most senior member on our Commissioners Court and seems to have solidified his hold as the incumbent for Precinct 4. I remember when he first won the seat and his name would pop up whenever there were open seats. Depending on how long the new county judge stays on, I could easily see Tommy running to replace him.
Now that I think about it, Tommy might have been the first person I ever voted for, I had just turned 18 the month before and the 1998 midterms were a few months away.
Melissa gang represent!! (Seriously are you me lol, same name and Melissa supporter. Not that there aren’t ten million Jacobs in San Antonio lol)
God forbid a candidate for mayor of a city of over a million people has to actually win more than 50k votes in an open seat, nonpartisan election!
I’ll just add that none of the other major Dem-aligned candidates were “unelectable.” They were very good and qualified, and in a race where only three of them were running, would’ve done better. The field was just spread too thin, even disregarding the 18 or so candidates who had zero chance of getting more than a few hundred votes. It helped GOJ (and Pablos) to have a ton of PAC money behind them — I got so many more mailers from GOJ’s campaign than any other, by far. I’m not saying anything bad about GOJ here — just that it’s not that the other major candidates inherently had no chance. Gina’s resources allowed her to drive up name ID and break apart from the pack in a big way, but that wasn’t a given / it’s not that she was obviously a better candidate from the beginning and the others just decided to run because why not.
Another obituary for another fallen politician: Bob Filner, who served 20 years in the House and several months under house arrest.
For those who'd like to see our writeup, we covered his death last week: https://www.the-downballot.com/p/morning-digest-congresswoman-joins?open=false#%C2%A7bob-filner
Since Florida turning red was being discussed, I feel that the reason why it happened in the first place has simply been gotten wrong by the MSM.
A lot of ink has been spilled over it and the mainstream explanations such as Cuban conservatism (which was always present and rivaled by growth of other liberal voting groups) or other demographic shifts, have always felt somewhat shallow, and even the popular "voter migration" narrative (retirees move there but Florida's median age is still lower than most).
The possibly disproportionate conservative migration was during the entire course of pandemic while the election was in November 2020 and is still built on very limited data (only the voting registration of a small numbers of movers - 300k in the NYT Upshot analysis - are known and and their previous home state registration might not even reflect their votes since decades). Rather than focusing on local narratives, I've based it on broad national trends.
During the oft cited 2000 election, the Democrats' erstwhile Solid South hadn't completely vanished even after 1994 (some areas where the party is completely toxic today still voted for them, college educated voters preferred the GOP and New Deal-era voters were still alive). Democrats were also centre-right compared to the centre-left Democrats of today though that's a different story.
We all know Obama won Florida twice - in 2008 and 2012 - thanks to his unique strength among working-class and rural white voters, as well as some residual loyalty in New Deal-era socially conservative rural counties. These strongholds began to collapse in 2016, shifting states like Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana into the Republican column more permanently. Yet Florida was actually closer in 2016 than in 2020: Hillary Clinton only lost by a single percentage point, while Biden - despite increasing investment in the state and improving on Clinton's performance in places like Texas, Iowa, and Ohio – lost by 3.4 points.
Interestingly, Biden improved across almost all demographics nationally but performed worse among Latinos and rural whites. In fact, no Democrat has ever matched Hillary's 2016 performance with Latino voters. Her relative strength is likely attributable to Trump's not yet normalized anti-Latino inflammatory rhetoric at the time and Hillary's solid promise of immigration reform. Hillary even won an estimated 46% of the Cuban vote — a rare high-water mark for Democrats with a group that barely voted for Gore or Kerry. Hillary also won Latino populated Nevada while losing the remaining swing states.
So here's the core of my theory: Florida was only competitive in 2016 because of a once-in-a-generation showing among Latino voters, including Cubans. That anomaly masked the broader realignment already underway and clearly seen in Ohio or Iowa. Without Obama-era levels of support from rural and working-class whites, Democrats simply could not win the state. If you dig into the precinct-level data, the trend becomes clear: small cities, towns, exurbs, and rural counties have trended increasingly red, while urban centers and suburbs have gone bluer - but not by enough to overcome the former (in 2020). Florida's demographics are also not typically Southern except in North Florida.
https://www.google.com/search?q=2016+presidential+election+county+shift+map&udm=2
https://www.google.com/search?q=2020+presidential+election+county+shift+map&udm=2
This structural Republican dominance isn’t new either. Consider 2010: Democrat Alex Sink lost to Rick Scott , a literal Medicaid fraudster and human ghoul, by just 1 percentage point, yet Republicans won the statewide House vote in Florida by an astonishing 18 points during the Tea Party wave. In 2014, Scott narrowly beat Charlie Crist by just 1 point again, but Republicans carried the House vote by about 12 points. In both cycles, you can see the same story: even when Democrats come close in top-of-ticket races against unpopular nominees, the GOP holds firm control down-ballot.
Now look at 2018, a "blue wave" year nationally. Democrats narrowly lost the governorship when Ron DeSantis beat Andrew Gillum by just 0.4 points. Yet even that close gubernatorial result masked a deeper trend: Florida Republicans still won the U.S. House vote by 6 percentage points statewide. This was a midterm where Democrats were flipping seats across the country - yet Florida stood out as an outlier. Democrats ran a charismatic candidate (atleast at that point) with strong urban turnout and improved among all demographics except Latinos, but it wasn’t enough to counter the entrenched Republican strength in less urban areas, with non college educated white voters. DeSantis was not yet popular and was an average candidate who had seemingly lost the primary until Trump's sudden endorsement.
Maybe, Florida Democrats can get their shit together in 2026-28, the results may be close as 2020 (or 2018 due to midterm electorate differences) with another Latino swing resembling the Biden-Trump spread or maybe a lot of conservatives actually moved there and it will be never reach those margins again. Maybe, they might eke out a victory with a moderate common sense candidate... Also, a lot of COVID era movers have been going back to New England and California since the end of remote work and due to Florida's affordability crisis contributing to the current housing price crash in Florida.
I hope this makes some sense and look forward to hearing what you guys think about this theory.
Edit: Florida is a quarter Latino (in total population not voting population) and is not a majority-minority state like many assume.
Kudos for a fascinating and credible analysis! Very different from others I’ve seen.
In 2016, it was the WWC shift in the exurbs. FL outside of several city centers, is just a giant exurb.
Rural FL is tiny even it showed an overwhelming areas of red shift, since the state was the smallest one in the Old South. If you look at the numbers, all the bright red rural shift caused HRC losing by about 30k more than 2012, less than half of Obama’s winning margin. Had Everything else been equal, wouldn’t flip the state.
2020, Biden got better number in the cities not in SE, matched or improved marginally in the exurbs, fell further behind in the rurals, and crashed in Dade. The later two were where the further deficit of 250k votes came about.
2024 just crashed everywhere. The electorate there is changing very fast, that you can track from the registration updates from FLSOS. Newly added, party changes, cancellations, etc.
Yeah I don't get the "either or" debate here; to me it's clear Florida has gotten redder for a multitude of reasons; WWC Demosaur areas reddening, RW in-migration, reddening Hispanic cohort etc.
I do think Obama's close wins there masked how generally red Florida has been for the past 40+ years. Clinton didn't even win it in 1992.
I also see a problem in the Palm Beach/Broward county area. We used to get a lot of retirees from the Northeast who tended to vote heavily Democratic while the current group of retirees are not as heavily from the Northeast and are much more conservative. I am also curious at how the ongoing insurance issues with insurance prices rising by huge amounts due to rising flood risks from climate change. I suspect that more educated and more liberal voters will be very wary to move to an area with such a problem while less educated voters and climate change deniers (think low education/high income retirees) will not be deterred by such a problem.
Anecdotally, it seems like a lot of non-MAGA people I know are now avoiding Florida, when it was a popular vacation/retirement destination for people of all political stripes as recently as just before the pandemic.
I also think there's a growing awareness that Florida (especially South Florida) weather is...not for everyone.
RW in migration would not be relevant for 2020.
Florida getting more Conservative Silent Generation retirees from the Midwest compared to the more liberal Greatest Generation Northeast retirees who preceded them didn't start during Covid.
I see. But then you also had the reverse great migration, young job seekers from other states and foreign immigrants coming in countering those trends right?
The immigration has been a lot of Latinos coming from authoritarian "leftist" regimes (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua) who lean conservative. I also don't think Miami or Tampa attracted the sort of young educated liberal demos like Atlanta, Research Triangle, or NOVA did, but that's based more on vibes-I don't know the actual data there.
Obama’s close wins and the sense that Gore won or should have won it in 2000.
Yes and crashed in Dade due to the same national phenomenon Latino rightward swing in 2020 compared to 2016.
2024 was a complete bloodbath but I was focusing on how it turned red from purple in the first place.
Isbell of MCI maps, is the authoritative source you can read on Florida.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mcimaps/p/issue-234-looking-at-2024-partisan?r=3t7cxe&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for posting such an interesting analysis! One question: when you say that "urban centers and suburbs have gone bluer", how true is that in Florida? Hasn't the largest urban center - Miami - deteriorated a lot?
As I wrote, Biden performed worse among Latinos who are concentrated in South Florida.
Other cities went bluer in 2016 and 2020.
Thanks for the analysis!
Hillary Clinton did so well with the Cuban vote that a lot of folks (myself included) thought that they were realigning toward Democrats. Heck, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was scared into retirement, and Donna Shalalalalalalalala (who in hindsight was a terrible candidate) defeated a well-known, Spanish-speaking opponent to succeed her!
Just goes to show how quickly fortunes can change.
Maine's 2nd CD:
How is former Gov. Paul LePage's (R) chances rated? He's only 2 years younger than Trump (born 1948), so he's old as well. 💙🇺🇲
It's a red seat and Maine republicans like him, so he'll have a real chance.
At the same time, swingy Maine voters seem to have soured on him if we take the size of his 2022 defeat into account. Mills' 2022 margin was bigger than her 2018 margin. Against Golden I think he's a modest underdog. If Golden opts to run for something else, I think any republican will be favored to pick up that seat. Unfortunately the seat is so red that we cannot really hope for better than that in either scenario.
He won ME-02 in 2022 by just 3 points. Trump carried it by 10.
It really isn’t that red that LePage, who’s not well liked in Maine, would be favored in a D-friendly year. Austin Theriault would have decent odds at winning an open seat but LePage would be a clear underdog.
It’s not a Republican seat. Any more than NE 2 is a Democratic seat.
That asshole wrote "stolen election" on Jared Golden's first certificate of election in 2018 (because Poliquin was ahead before re-allocation).
I hope Golden mops the floor with him.
New - Pennsylvania voter registration update - May
🔵 Democrats: +4,788 (+1200)
🔴 Republicans: +3,568
We finally flipped the trend in Pennsylvania.
Certainly a relief. I'm still trying to make sense of how much voter registration is predictive or just a lagging indicator, but either way, it's something that I'd rather we be making gains in than the reverse!
Fun fact: Louisiana still has a Democratic voter registration majority.
Pennsylvania has closed primaries, so party of registration is more impactful here than in most states.
Some of it is definitely a lagging indicator (my own county, Mercer, maintained a Democratic registration advantage well after it became MAGAstan and Republicans started sweeping local offices by comfortable margins), but it's still not a trend I've enjoyed watching.
Reporter: How did you decide to reopen Alcatraz?
Trump: I was supposed to be a movie maker… Nobody ever escaped. One person almost got there but they found his clothing rather badly ripped up, a lot of shark bites…
He needs help!
Trump in previous interviews before he became POTUS in 2017 had looked into working in the film industry decades ago, well before he even met Roy Cohn. One wonders if this would have ever truly happened had he not gone into real estate.
I'm sure Trump would say, "This system is rigged!" if he started being a director and then had to direct films that the studio wanted him to as opposed to his own.
He’s apparently a huge Broadway buff - in another universe he’s a particularly crass musical critic, not bothering the world as a shit tier POTUS
Really? Broadway seems awfully nuanced for his lowbrow tastes.
You don't have to pay attention to the actual lyrics to enjoy a Boadway musical...
I would like to see either a film or play directed by Trump titled any of the following:
It’s Rigged
This Play Sucks
Low Energy Parade
Pumpkin-Spice Pinochet wants his own Villa Grimaldi.
Don’t give him any ideas - or allow his goons to have too much access to any helicopters
Politico: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will not run for Senate in 2026, according to three people familiar with his decision.
We've won Georgia!
I am not being complacent here. It should be reminded that like AZ, Democrats have since 2021 won both Senate races in GA by a narrow margin.
No, I was responding to your previous comment. More specifically the argument you’re making in your first paragraph is what I am referring to.
HERE IS LINK to Kemp's Statement https://x.com/BrianKempGA/status/1919462223128203357
Sounds like he knows he'd lose next year.
I'm not convinced of that (I like Ossoff, but he's never struck me as a political juggernaut; perhaps I'm missing something?).
More likely Kemp wants to keep his powder dry for 2028.
HALLELUJAH
MTG becomes the favorite for the republican nomination
She said she would seek it if Kemp didn't run a few weeks back. Even if she loses, she knows she can grift a lot from the campaign.
MTG is going to bomb SPECTACULARLY if she gets the 2026 Senate GOP nomination. I expect the GOP apparatus are going to try handicapping her like they're doing with Ken Paxton in TX.
Ossoff vs. Empty G simply MUST be a thing.
Honestly, this is a dream scenario for us. Kemp out and MTG in definitely makes the Senate seat Lean Dem and may help us in the Gubernatorial race too. Kemp is clearly keeping his powder dry for 2028, where he will be a very real Presidential threat, but that's a problem for later...
Kemp would be a very formidable Prez candidate. Many of the upsides of DeSantis AND Youngkin without any of their very obvious downsides. We’d underestimate him at our peril.
That being said the more rabid corners of the base may not want him so
Kemp's path would involve a huge field splitting the crazy vote (which is basically how Romney got through in 2012—I still can't get over the fact that the second-place finisher was Rick Santorum, a politician so awful he managed to lose a swing-state Senate seat by >17 points to a bowl of unflavored oatmeal!).
It could happen, but I still think the 2028 GOP nominee will be a cosplay Trump.
Depends on how Trump holds up for the rest of his term. If we go into 2028 with a weak, unpopular, old man Trump who has been leading the party for over a decade, there is going to be a wide opening for a candidate like Kemp who is genuinely conservative, but also genuinely not a Trump toady.
I could see Kemp being a credible GOP Presidential Candidate for Republicans who either want to move on from Trump or need another choice. It also works to Kemp’s advantage that he’s a veteran at holding elected office well before Trump emerged as a presidential candidate.
Then again, we also don’t as of yet know about Kemp’s appeal beyond just GA.
I'm actually surprised and yet, not really. Kemp has his eye on the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Ex-governor from Georgia sounds much better than ex-governor/failed 2026 Senate race against Jon Ossoff.
Exactly, he's betting on a 2026 bloodbath for Republicans which will open a pathway for him to win the 2028 primary against Vance and Rubio. He will sell himself as a successful conservative governor.
People are going to be exhausted of the Trump insanity by 2028.
Not Republicans, they can't get enough
^This.
Yep. George W Bush was still popular with Republicans in 2008. And nobody else.
I know a few quite a few have made the jump, but especially in a party led by Trump, I see zero upside for any former Governor transitiong to Congress. It's already a downgrade of relative authority/prestige, but then you have to deal with the POTUS browbeating you publicly over everything and steering your base against you if you show a modium of independence . . . .who would choose that?
And by not being distracted running for Senate, Kemp can quietly serve out his last two years, getting some things done, building his record, etc. while starting to build out his 2028 infrastructure now.
If Herschel Walker wants another shot at a Senate run, let him have it!
He did finally complete the bachelor's degree he claimed to have for decades. Go Herschel, Class of 2024! https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/herschel-walker-set-graduate-from-university-georgia
Let me guess - He’s trying to get a bachelor’s degree to boost his chances for political office after bragging about having one for a long time?
I wouldn't go that far, but I think this race is lean D now. With Kemp it would have been a tossup.
Premature conclusion, but it definitely helps.
https://civiqs.com/results/approve_president_trump_2025?uncertainty=true&zoomIn=true&annotations=true&map=true
You can check Trump's approval in each state here. Texas and Nevada are the most interesting ones.
A lot of seemingly-durable political realignments turn out to be…not so durable.
One HUGE wildcard is what will become of the Trump Coalition after Trump.
A decade ago, the conventical wisdom was the House was lost forever and the Senate was our only hope.
And there is currently no shortage of “Dems have lost the Senate FoReVeR” takes.
This is the problem with The Emerging Democratic Majority, which was gospel for a while. Part of the underlying argument is that racial/ethnic identities are static over time and that the people of those racial/ethnic identities will vote the same way into perpetuity. Both of which are faulty assumptions.
Yikes . . that Nevada number!
Big margin of error on these. No way is Trump actually +22 in Kansas but +4 in South Carolina.
What was Kansas? Trump +16? Some of the states are slightly off in both directions but many are believable
Yaay Maryland! We're at the bottom of the pack!....in terms of Trump approval, with him at 26% here. And my own Civiqs responses helped.
Unlike Vanessa Huxtable, Trump will *not* be having big fun in Baltimore. (Though he is, admittedly, pretty wretched.)
I'll show myself out.
Maybe he’ll stop for donuts in Wilmington, Delaware (Biden’s hometown and one with an transgender House rep) and have his car stolen.
“I want Donald to know it was me.”
I find myself in the odd position of strongly agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene on this one. She's the sane one here, this bill is that fucking ridiculous. How can you even control whether people boycott?
Josh Gottheimer needs to be held accountable for this. Why is any Democrat cosponsoring any legislation that in any way targets any form of free speech in this current climate?
https://dailycaller.com/2025/05/05/house-pulls-bill-anti-israel-boycotts-conservative-backlash/
And Hasidic Jews as well, located in Passaic and other parts of NJ.
I know people who are tactically voting for the candidate who's leading in the NJ primary solely to prevent him from winning it.
Yeah, I hope we can agree that this is completely absurd and a total violation of the First Amendment.
I really hope this NJ gubernatorial race will be the last we hear from Gottheimer.
One of the reasons I intensely dislike Gottheimer and would not vote for him if he wins the primary.
I am not one who thinks a boycott of Israel is the right approach to resolve the conflict between the country and Palestine. However, if any U.S. citizen wants to boycott Israel that's a right they have.
That bill is a gross insult to the freedom of speech.
IA-03: Lutheran pastor and Democratic Iowa State Senator Sarah Trone Garriott just announced her candidacy.
She seems like a strong recruit. She flipped a seat from red to blue in 2020, and her current state senate seat did vote for Trump in 2024.
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/05/05/state-sen-sarah-trone-garriott-launches-congressional-campaign-in-iowas-3rd-district/
Zach Nunn is considering running for Governor and has yet to make a 2026 decision.
Completely outside of the real world, has anyone watched the show The Resident? It's about a murder during a state dinner at the white house. I wouldn't exactly call it a great show but AL Franken (not someone I am admittedly a fan of) shows up as a senator sparring against a lunatic conservative senator name "Marjorie".
I worked in the Covid Compliance Department for the first block of the season (Covid regulations ended in May 2023). I really enjoyed my time on the show and the WH sets were incredible. The wrap party was even held at the "White House". Definitely one of the cooler experience of my Hollywood career.
Wow, that was in production a long time ago. The sets were amazing, and it has a huge cast. I can bet that was a cool thing to be involved with!
I started in November 2022! It was pretty wild. Between the strikes and Andre Braugher's tragic passing it took until May 2024 to finish production. It was definitely very cool!
Was Braugher originally supposed to play the role of the chief usher that Giancarlo Esposito had? I think Esposito was wonderful in that role but it would have been right up Braugher’s alley. RIP
Yessir. He was excellent. I got to see some of his footage at the wrap party and it was absolutely tragic but Esposito was great too.
It’s a great show. I really like the whole cast, the guy they found to play Perry Morgan was a great “TV President”
Victory in NC. Fed court orders that Riggs is the winner in NC Sct race https://x.com/bryanranderson/status/1919525497827893583?s=61&t=5copDbz1aPl7ASsRCUclLg
Link for those who prefer Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/bryanranderson.bsky.social/post/3lohhgoifjk23
Griffin is almost certainly going to appeal this. But having a Trump appointee ruling against him makes it a LOT harder to get a favorable SCOTUS ruling.
I think it’s pretty much dead at SCOTUS. I do not see any way Roberts or Barrett will be on Griffin’s side, and doubt Kavanaugh will be either.
If it was a Dem judge we’d have a lot less certainty on how they’d rule.
For those who would like to read (or skim) the opinion: https://ncnewsline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Myers-Riggs-Griffin-ruling.pdf
Here is the court's brief summary of the key issue: "[T]case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals. This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible. To this court, the answer to each of those questions is "no." For that reason, and those that follow, the court finds that effectuation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court's orders would violate the equal protection and substantive due process rights of overseas military and civilian voters. "
The ruling is also on Democracy Docket too.
Bush v. Gore rides again.
Judge is a Trump appointee, which should hopefully give this a bit more resilience. Less likely that a conservative judge will reverse it on ideological grounds.