Recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gave a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), during which he boasted about his state’s “red wave” victories, including the election of four Republicans to Congress and the establishment of Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the Florida legislature.
After the enormous gains the Republican Party made in Florida’s midterm elections, DeSantis has been touting the state as a “blueprint” for the rest of the country.
DeSantis mentioned the four new Florida Republicans elected to the House of Representatives in his remarks.
In Florida, the Republican Party has won control of both houses of the legislature for the first time. We helped elect 26 conservative school board members across Florida, and we won the State House seat that represents Miami Beach, which is not often considered a Republican bastion,” he remarked to rousing applause.
As he wrapped up, he said, “Thanks to the support of so many of you, we were able to win the most significant gubernatorial victory in Florida’s history.
Over 1.5 million votes separated DeSantis and his Democratic opponent, Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL). Comparatively, in 2014, DeSantis won by a margin of barely 0.5 percentage points, or fewer than 32,500 votes, against Democrat Andrew Gillum. Breitbart News reported on November 9 that some of the most unexpected victories were in liberal areas.
DeSantis received most of the vote in Miami-Dade County and other Democratic strongholds. In 2018, Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum won the county with 478,958 votes against Republican candidate Ron DeSantis’s 311,581. With almost 95% of the ballots counted statewide in the 2014 general election, DeSantis won Miami-Dade County with 393,405 votes to Crist’s 312,762 (55% to 44%, respectively). Preliminary numbers showed that Rubio had won the county with 9 percent of the vote, drawing attention from major news outlets.
After his address, DeSantis tweeted, “It was fantastic to be back with the Republican Jewish Coalition (@RJC) last night to offer an update on our historic victory,” in which he praised Florida as a “blueprint.”
He thanked RJC for its help and said that Florida’s strategy is about taking the initiative and seeing positive outcomes.