Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Last Tuesday was a historic defeat for Republicans, with Democrats racking up stunning victories even in states that seemed out of reach heading into Election Day. The lone bright spot for the GOP was Florida—and no one came away looking better than outgoing Governor Ron DeSantis.
Republicans certainly didn’t see the same margins of victory in the Sunshine State this year that they saw in 2022 and 2024. But the Blue Wave that devastated the GOP elsewhere failed to breach Florida’s red wall. Every statewide office will remain in Republican hands. The size of the state’s GOP congressional delegation will remain the same, and the GOP will still run both houses of the state legislature. Most importantly, Republican gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds and Senate candidate Ashley Moody both emerged victorious.
Donalds and Moody ran admirable campaigns. But there’s no denying that they benefitted in a massive way from Governor DeSantis, who, along with being an effective governor, used his two terms in office to significantly strengthen the GOP in Florida. As Republicans try to pick up the pieces and look for a path forward, DeSantis’s record is perhaps the best model worth emulating.
Building a GOP Juggernaut
When DeSantis first won the governorship in 2018, Florida was the “purple-est” of swing states. Thanks in large part to a big final push from President Trump, he won by less than 0.5 percent—just over 32,000 votes. Four years later, however, he won re-election by nearly 20 points.
So, what changed? An inflow of people fleeing blue states helped, but DeSantis’s political operation also resurrected the state’s GOP apparatus. When DeSantis was inaugurated in 2019, there were more than 200,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida. Now, there are more than 1.5 million more registered Republicans.
Voter registrations aren’t everything, but such a dramatic turnaround reflects strong leadership that does the little things right.
Common-Sense Conservative Governance
On the governing side, DeSantis built his national reputation by rejecting COVID-19 orthodoxy, pushing to reopen classrooms and businesses, and opposing mask and vaccine mandates. Though vilified by the Biden administration and much of the media, he championed Florida as a “citadel of freedom.”
His broader policy record has been equally consequential. DeSantis signed billions of dollars in tax relief, paid down state debt, maintained budget surpluses, and invested in transportation and other infrastructure—while maintaining Florida’s status as a state with no personal income tax.
In education, he expanded universal school choice, committed more than $7 billion to teacher pay, and restricted DEI and Critical Race Theory instruction. On public safety, he funded police recruitment bonuses, increased penalties for organized retail theft, prohibited camping on public property, strengthened protections against human trafficking and child grooming, and signed permitless concealed carry into law.
DeSantis also enacted the Parental Rights in Education Act, restricted pronoun policies in schools, and signed a six-week abortion ban with exceptions. Meanwhile, he advanced Everglades restoration and major water storage projects, including the EAA reservoir and Picayune Strand restoration.
Many of these policies didn’t garner national headlines, but they are the sort of common-sense “good governance” moves that build goodwill with voters. He has, quite simply, been enormously effective at wielding legislative and executive power to improve the lives of Florida residents. That showed up in last week’s election results.
This list by no means exhausts Governor DeSantis’ accomplishments, but it demonstrates why so many Americans fled to the Sunshine State from the blue states where rising crime and crushing taxes were steadily destroying their quality of life.
A 2028 Runway?
Unsurprisingly, DeSantis’s betting odds to be the 2028 Republican presidential nominee have spiked from 4.1 percent before the midterms to 17 percent as of Monday evening. Meanwhile, it appears that Vice President JD Vance’s decision to pin blame for the loss squarely on the Iran war has backfired, with his odds cratering from nearly 45 percent before the election to 33 percent, although he remains the frontrunner over Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 20 percent.
BREAKING: Ron DeSantis’ odds to win the 2028 Republican nomination rise to 19% — up 14% over the last 24 hours
Ballots cast during the midterms are still being counted, of course. But make no mistake about it, the 2028 presidential race has already begun. The most overt confirmation of that fact came within 24 hours of Election Day when Vance and DeSantis offered sharply conflicting public conclusions concerning the cause of the Republican debacle. The Vice President’s simplistic take on the loss, which he posted on social media, was, “The reason we lost was the war.”
DeSantis offered a much more nuanced—and some would say presidential—analysis. He agreed that the war was a factor but argued that the president’s decision to render Iran incapable of producing nuclear weapons was hardly the only issue. He made the case that the loss was a “rejection of Republicans in Washington.” DeSantis elaborated on that theme by pointing out that the voters had become “frustrated with the lack of productivity from Republicans in the House and Senate.”
It has generally been assumed that Trump would anoint Vance or Rubio as his successor. But Vance’s decision to distance himself from the war and publicly rebuke Trump may not sit well with the president. As for Rubio, it is by no means clear that he has any plans to run for president. If he does, he will have to reckon with his association with an unpopular war as well.
That leaves a clear lane for DeSantis. A lot can happen in two years, and it will be difficult for DeSantis to remain in the spotlight while being out of office. But no other high-profile Republican has his legislative and executive experience combined with an unbroken record of success.
“Make America Florida” could well be the rallying cry that leads the GOP back to victory in 2028.
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