2 weeks Ago By Jeffrey Schweers
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Democrats saw their hopes dashed Tuesday night when their efforts to break the GOP supermajority in the state House fell apart despite thousands of hours and millions of dollars spent trying to flip seats from red to blue. Not only that, they lost a seat they narrowly gained in a special election in January. The only targeted seat they won in 2024 was held by Rep.
Carolina Amesty, who faced felony charges as she sought reelection. In the end, the House maintained the status quo with 85 Republicans and 35 Democrats. Democrats also failed to gain any Senate seats, so the GOP retains a supermajority there, too, with 28 of the chamber’s 40 seats.
The seats Democrats hoped to win were mostly around Orlando and some of the bluer regions of the state. Republicans won them in 2022, but past presidential election results and current voter registration numbers suggested there were opportunities for Democrats to gain ground. They didn’t, nor did they win seats in South Florida held by vulnerable GOP lawmakers.
“In the end, their theory didn’t pan out,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. “It wasn’t for a lack of effort.” Daniel Smith, head of the political science department at the University of Florida, blamed an enthusiasm gap, noting far more GOP voters cast ballots and turned out at a higher rate.
“There was a sizeable turnout gap going into Election Day, and it didn’t close on Election Day,” Smith said. “There was a lack of enthusiasm for what Democrats are offering.” That appears to be the case across the nation, with voters sending former President Donald Trump back to the White House in a huge victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, who failed to post the kind of numbers that President Biden had in 2020 both nationally and in Florida.
Related Articles Florida Republicans, who already had 1 million more registered voters than Democrats, gave Trump a 13% margin of victory over Harris. Nearly 11 million of the state’s 13.94 million registered voters, or more than 78%, cast ballots this election, with Republicans leading Democrats by more than 1.
3 million — which means hundreds of thousands of registered Democrats stayed home. A red wave in 2022 helped the GOP win many Central Florida House seats and several South Florida House seats that had been held by Democrats, mostly due to a collapse of Democratic voter turnout, a surge in Republican voter registration numbers and record spending. Those gains gave the GOP a supermajority and the power to control an agenda pushed largely by Republican Gov.
Ron DeSantis. That allowed Republicans to waive rules governing lawmaking, shut down floor debates and push through conservative ballot initiatives and public records exemptions that require a two-thirds vote. Regaining just five seats in 2024 would have given Democrats some more leverage in the legislative process, but votes did not go their way.
“Democrats, they’re in a pretty sad state,” Jewett said. “There is not much lower they can drop.”.
