Bleacher Bums Forum

Used to be, but due to immigration from Red states, its solidly red now.   Sumter county has added something like 90% red voters in the villages, that goes a long ways in state wide elections.

Same with Tampa, LOTS of red tech workers that could work remote after covid, and not pay state taxes and enjoy Tampa weather.... all moved here en masse... Thats why property values in Tampa have exploded and are not slowing down even with current interest rates.

It still only voted for Drumpf by a couple of points in 2020.  It�s not Tennessee or West Virginia, is my point, and theoretically not a place where a fascist can go completely unchecked as in states like that.  RD is going to come out of �24 looking like a loser, and I think it�s a valid question whether that will matter at home.

Desantis won Miami/Dade county.

Not purple for the foreseeable future.

Beyond that, things can change but not anytime soon it appears.

Desantis is going to be term limited as governor, so unless he goes after Scott�s senate seat he�s going to be frozen out of politics.  My BIL who had fallen off the ledge with politics is finally starting to see the light with Trump and Desantis.

I think a lot of Desantis�s appeal was he went hard against COVID restrictions, even though it killed a ton people, people bought into his vision.  The fact that he kept falling off the deep end is going to hurt the Republican Party in the suburbs.  The culture wars don�t play as well, it might not matter in Florida, but it will hurt them in other states that haven�t had the influx of nutballs.

Texas just passed a law for school prayers�. This will go to SCOTUS and they will now overturn Engel v Vitale. God help us all. This country is going backwards in a hurry.

Tucker Carlson has been fired by Fox News. Love to see it, finally some actual consequences for his constant lying, fearmongering, and bigotry.

He might sit out �26 with an eye on running for Gov again in 4 years.  That�s the drawback for politicians in a state where one party controls everything - unless you want to start a civil war and primary an incumbent, there are no openings unless someone retires.

If his goal is the presidency he almost has to run this year.  He's term limited so the earliest he could run for governor again is 2030.  If we are looking at Biden vs Trump again (yuck) that means 2228 will be an open presidential election.  DeSantis is going to have a tough time being the Republican front runner if he hasn't done anything for 2 years.  If he run for governor again in 2030 and wins, he would have to resign to as governor to run in 2032 (assuming a Democrat wins in 2028).  If a Republican wins in 2028, then he can't run until 2036.  That is a long time to keep presidential momentum going, especially when your base voters are boomers.

Funny how important turnout can be.  A Democrat wins the mayor�s office in Jacksonville for only the 2nd time ever.  And it wasn�t all that close.  Obviously not a good sign for DeSantis, but I think it puts the notion that Florida is now a deep red state to the lie.  Turnout was terrible for the Ds in 2022 in FL, and they got massacred.  This time, in a light red city, they won comfortably.

Trump will still win Florida in any election that�s really close nationally, but the Ds would be dumb to write it off altogether.  Keeping it close will help a lot of candidates down ballot, and FL is one of the only states where they have even a remote chance to pick up a Republican Senate seat in �24.

Republicans going down there current course are going to have a huge suburb problem.  Even in red states there is going to be a large city vs rural division and the rural population is the one that is decreasing.