One state stayed on its feet while the political map shifted around it, and Florida’s governor says he knows why.
Gov. Ron DeSantis used a Wednesday press conference in Tallahassee to walk through the midterm elections and the damage Republicans took across the country.
Florida Republicans swept the state Cabinet races. Voters in Iowa, Kansas and Texas, all considered conservative strongholds, delivered the party defeats that Florida avoided.
DeSantis did not soften his description of the national results. He called them “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans.”
He then rejected the idea that a wave had hit.
“To call it a wave, I don’t think would be fully accurate,” DeSantis said. “It’s the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States, blue states, red states, everything in between. And the one state that was able to hold the line and withstand that is right here in the free state of Florida.”
In DeSantis’s account, Democratic victories had less to do with liberal policy and more to do with voters turning on Republicans in Washington.
He started with the Epstein files. Members of Congress voted against releasing them, the governor said, even though Republicans had run on that very issue two years earlier.
DeSantis also pointed to former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who served under President Donald Trump.
Last year, he noted, she said the client list of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was sitting on her desk, a statement he said stoked voter outrage.
“That’s a bad vote,” DeSantis said.
He continued: “You actually have people in Congress voting against release, when the attorney general said she had all this horrific stuff on her desk, and that people would be held accountable,” the governor added.
Congressional stock trading came next. Lawmakers have not banned the practice, and DeSantis said a ban “would be a breath of fresh air for everybody.”
The governor then turned to campaign strategy.
Republican candidates poured resources into transgender issues, he said, while paying less attention to other subjects, including the fast growth of artificial intelligence.
Democrats seized that opening, according to DeSantis.
They took a firmer line on regulating AI and big technology companies, and they won rural voters by pushing to slow data center construction in those areas.
DeSantis has a long record on the transgender issue. Five years ago, he led the effort to pass a law barring transgender athletes from women’s sports.
He said voters this year cared more about the economy, the job market and the war with Iran.
“That was not the issue motivating voters. It was kind of like an attempt to just scare Republicans to vote,” DeSantis said. “Now, the issues are different, and Republicans, it seemed like in some of the ads I was seeing, with how much money they were spending, they really were fighting yesterday’s battle.”
Immigration enforcement received a smaller role in his analysis. DeSantis said he did not consider it the “driving factor” for many voters.
Republicans lost ground in many states, and the party took a hit in Florida too.
Even so, DeSantis noted that Florida voters backed conservative ballot measures, including a major property tax cut. He cited that as evidence Democrats did not run on a “positive agenda.”
“Democrats are unpopular,” DeSantis said. “They were able to win based off the sentiment that exists in the country right now. They did not earn a mandate to indulge all their left-wing fantasies.”
Talk of the 2028 presidential field has already started in political circles.
DeSantis, who is term-limited and leaves office in January, offered no details about his own plans.
Instead, he left the question open. “We’ll talk about anything I’m doing on the other side of this. I still got more work to do.”
