“Crimson hellscape.” That’s how the left-leaning Sun Sentinel described the results of Florida’s 2022 midterm elections. A tactful editor quickly changed “hellscape” to “landscape,” but the point was clear: the Sun Sentinel lamented Florida’s apparent switch from a “deep purple battleground” into a rock-ribbed red state. Florida’s incumbent governor, Ron DeSantis, had won reelection by 19 points. Down-ballot Republicans swept every other state-level executive office; triumphed by mostly double-digit margins in 20 of the state’s 28 House of Representatives seats; retained supermajorities in both houses of Florida’s state legislature; and returned Marco Rubio to his Senate seat by 16 points. In early 2023, DeSantis, then at the peak of his popularity and presidential ambitions, labeled Florida’s state Democratic Party “a dead, rotten carcass on the side of the road.”
As the 2026 midterms approach, however, some wonder whether cracks are forming in the battlements of “Fortress Florida.” Consistent with a national trend in which Democrats have flipped 30 Republican-held state legislative seats since 2024, off-year election results have been surprisingly favorable to Florida Democrats. They’re leaning into the same message used by successful Democrats in other states: moderation and affordability. Republicans would be foolish to ignore the warnings.
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The trend is significant. Last November, Eileen Higgins, a Miami-Dade county commissioner, gave Democrats control of Miami’s mayoralty for the first time in almost three decades after defeating former city manager Emilio González by 18 points. Alongside decisive Democratic victories in the Virginia and New Jersey off-year gubernatorial elections, Higgins’s triumph was cited as evidence of an emerging pattern.
Then, in March, Democrat Andy Thomson, a Boca Raton city councilman, turned that city’s mayoralty blue for the first time in 45 years. Just over a week later, Democrat Emily Gregory, a 40-year-old political novice, made international headlines by winning a vacant Palm Beach County statehouse seat in a district that includes Mar-a-Lago. Her Republican predecessor won the seat by 19 points in 2024, and her Trump-endorsed opponent campaigned alongside the president at a Palm Beach GOP event. In the Tampa metropolitan area, Democrat Brian Nathan captured a state senate seat vacated by Republican Jay Collins, whom DeSantis appointed lieutenant governor last year.
Even Republican victories have grown less impressive. Florida House Republicans Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz, who resigned from their seats after Trump tapped them for major posts, had commanded victory margins of over 30 points. These were cut in half for their respective replacements, Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine.
Part of Democrats’ momentum owes to their embrace of the same message used by party colleagues in other states. All four recent victors made affordability and consumer prices the bedrock of their campaigns. For example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently targeted four Republican-held Florida House districts with an ad showing a spiraling gasoline pump meter suggesting that gas in Florida now costs about $5.90 per gallon. On the day the ad campaign launched, it was only $3.90. According to AAA, the Democratic ad’s figure is, ironically, almost exactly the per-gallon price in Democratic-run California—but the “Congressional Republicans Did This” message could still connect with cost-conscious Floridians.
Notably, the frontrunner to win the Democratic nomination in Florida’s 2026 gubernatorial election is former Republican Congressman David Jolly, an anti-Trump moderate who became a Democrat less than a year ago. Alexander Vindman, the leading Democratic candidate to challenge Senator Ashley Moody next year, has built a public persona around military service, patriotism, and—no surprise—a newfound commitment to affordability. Brian Nathan, his wife, and Emily Gregory’s husband also have military backgrounds.
Voter complacency may also be at work here. With so many recent victories, Florida Republicans seem to feel little need to turn out for off-year elections or, potentially, the midterms. Higgins flipped Miami’s mayoralty on a final turnout of just 21 percent, while only 29 percent and 27 percent of voters, respectively, came out for the legislative races won by Gregory and Nathan. In Boca Raton, 30 percent showed up.
Democrats, on the other hand, are framing every open race in the country as an opportunity to build momentum and regain power. Democratic leaders and their legacy media allies lavished attention and resources on the recent Florida races and celebrated their results as achievements of national importance. As early as last year’s two snap congressional contests in Florida, the Democrats had already helped their ultimately unsuccessful candidates outraise Patronis by five to one and Fine by nearly 16 to one.
Fracturing of the Florida GOP could also play a role. In Miami, Higgins emerged from a first-round field of 11 major-party candidates, eight of whom were Republicans duking it out to compete in the final round, while Higgins contended against just two other Democrats. In Boca’s mayoral election, Thomson faced two rival Republicans whose combined votes exceeded 60 percent of the total. Under Florida’s first-past-the-post election rule, their competition split that margin enough to deliver the mayoralty to Thomson, who faced no other Democrats and bested his closer GOP rival by just five votes.
In polling for higher-profile races, Moody and likely Republican gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds trounce their probable Democratic rivals in hypothetical matchups but could also face intraparty challengers.
As is the case nationally, November’s results in Florida may come down to who best addresses affordability. Republicans remain extremely strong in the Sunshine State, but they should not take anything for granted.
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