Florida Dems Scrape Together A Few Wins But Miss The Big, Blue Wave

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Democrats hoped a “blue wave” would crash over Republicans in the Sunshine State Tuesday night.

They were left with a trickle.

Republicans won the governor’s mansion, swept the state Cabinet, kept their U.S. Senate seat and maintained power in the Legislature. Yet Democrats displayed their strongest showing in years, winning multiple congressional districts redrawn earlier this year in an effort led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, which GOP officials hoped would net Republicans four congressional seats — and breaking the Republican supermajority that has ruled over the Florida House in Tallahassee for the last four years.

While Republicans pulled off victories, headlined by Rep. Byron Donalds securing the governor’s race over Democrat David Jolly, they won by significantly tighter margins compared to 2024.

“We've earned trust from a number of our voters, and even in the worst situation that you can imagine politically, we were able to hold the line and prevent the worst from happening here,” DeSantis told reporters Wednesday in Tallahassee. “But just be clear, we're in a deep hole nationally as a result of this election.”

A historic blue wave swept across the nation on Tuesday, with Democrats taking control of Congress and winning gubernatorial races as well as House and Senate seats in deep red states and counties, including in Kansas, where Democrat Adam Hamilton ousted incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall; South Carolina, where Republican Darline Graham lost to Annie Andrews; and shocking defeats in Texas, where three-term Gov. Greg Abbott fell to Democrat Gina Hinojosa and Democrat James Talarico beat Republican Ken Paxton.

As Republicans here pounded their chests after pulling off close wins in the face of losses in other states, Democrats were left lamenting how close they came to upsets on several fronts.

Donalds, who was backed by President Donald Trump and boasted a sizable fundraising advantage — $173 million to about $27 million over Jolly — won by just more than 100,000 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night. Ashley Moody’s race against Democratic nominee Angie Nixon wasn’t as close, yet the Republican appointed by DeSantis to replace Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the Senate still won by only about 250,000 votes, or 3 percentage points.

But Trump was quick to note to POLITICO Tuesday night that Donalds’ win was a bright spot for Republicans. “He's just a good guy and a good candidate,” Trump said. “And he ran a good race and I endorsed him, which was very important. He called me an hour ago and he just thanked me. And we had the senator actually also elected. And with my endorsement, you know, my endorsement elected a lot of people.”

The tight outcomes came as Democratic candidates in Florida urged national party officials to send more cash their way this cycle to help even the score. Comparing how much Donalds spent versus Jolly, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said “of course” more aid from the party would have helped change the tide.

“Florida is winnable, and tonight’s results prove that writing us off is a mistake no one should make again,” Fried said in a statement.

Chris Korge, finance chair of the Democratic National Committee, agreed that a big part of the loss came down to fundraising and a lack of interest from out-of-state donors. But Tuesday’s race results showed Democratic donors outside Florida that the Sunshine State is winnable under certain conditions.

“Had we just had the resources, we would have won this election,” Korge said. “What it tells us is Florida is in play for the next presidential election.”

But to Republicans, what’s important is they took home major wins in Florida. And Moody keeping a critically important Senate seat is as big as it could get.

"A win's a win, and I'm glad she won," Rep. Randy Fine, who won his own reelection Tuesday, said of Moody from Donalds’ watch party. "There's a lot of people around the country right now who are wishing for three-point wins. She will be back in the Senate and Angie Nixon will not, and that is what matters."

Despite getting shut out in the statewide Cabinet races, Democrats managed to win several notable congressional races, upending the GOP’s redistricting push to gain more seats.

In one of Florida’s newly redrawn districts, Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor held on to her Tampa-area seat against former state Rep. Mike Beltran, who was backed by DeSantis. Similarly, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz defeated Scott Singer, the former mayor of Boca Raton, to represent Florida’s redrawn 25th District seat. And Democrats also captured the redrawn and open 22nd District seat, where Democratic candidate Pia Dandiya, a former Department of Education official and Apple executive, won over Republican Casey Askar, a businessperson and Marine Corps veteran.

Republicans were frustrated by this outcome, which was supposed to be a boon for the party that contributed to keeping the GOP in power.

“The fact that like people came here for freedom, they came here for common sense leadership during Covid, and now we're like right back at Jump Street,” said Travis Horn, a Tampa communications executive and longtime Republican organizer. “Are you f–ing kidding me? Like purple state, that is competitive. How can it be competitive?”

On the statehouse front, the loss of a GOP supermajority represents a notable turning point for the Legislature, where the GOP has dominated the ranks and rammed through their conservative priorities over powerless Democrats. In total, Democrats are touting 15 new seats in the state House, their biggest win in recent history.

Democrats notably flipped House seats in South Florida, where Elizabeth Holmes, a public school teacher, defeated Trump-endorsed Rep. Meg Weinberger, who is known as “MAGA Meg.” At the same time, Democrat Michael Ferguson, a veteran and attorney, took a Broward County seat that Republicans controlled for almost 50 years on the heels of state Rep. Chip LaMarca facing term limits.

“South Florida voters sent a clear message tonight: They want representatives who will put their communities ahead of politics and fight for the issues that matter most to Florida families,” House Democratic Leader-Designate Christine Hunschofsky said in a statement.

To Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, Democrats ending the state House supermajority is an answer to how “Republicans have abused their power for years to push an unpopular and dangerous agenda, including attacking voting rights and rigging their congressional maps.”

“Now that we have broken the supermajority in the House, Democrats are better positioned to fight back against rampant extremism and protect against attacks on our democracy,” Williams said in a statement.

Yet to DeSantis, the losses in the state House reflect on Republican leadership in the chamber, with whom he frequently butted heads over the last two years. DeSantis went as far as to say the House was hindered by a “rotten speaker” in former GOP leader Daniel Perez, and that “some of the losses probably could have been mitigated with better government.”

“I can't bail them out of their behavior,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “They had people suffer as a result of Republicans not being willing to vote for them because they didn't like what they saw. And I wish they would have done better, but, you know, ultimately, I think that was performance driven.”

Even with the GOP still holding state legislative majorities and pulling off the Senate and Cabinet wins, some Republicans were scratching their heads Tuesday night amid results that seem impossible amid their recent stretch of dominance and 1.5 million-voter edge.

“I haven't seen an election in the 30 years I've been involved in this where I felt like it came down to what was going on at the ballot box on election day in these statewide races,” said Tom Lee, a Republican former state Senate president. “I don't think anyone's going to be taking Florida for granted. There's still a massive registration advantage here in this state.”

Arek Sarkissian, Kylie Williams, Gary Fineout, Kimberly Leonard and Dasha Burns contributed to this report.