lorida Governor Ron DeSantis solidified his status as one of the leaders of the Republican Party after a blowout victory in the midterm elections, where he won by a 20-point margin in the purple state.
Meanwhile, the results for the rest of the Republican Party in the midterms were far more underwhelming, with Republicans retaking the House by a slim margin and failing to retake the Senate.
In a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition national conference, DeSantis explained why he believed that Republicans underperformed in the midterms.
DeSantis explains what GOP missed in 'huge underperformance' for election https://t.co/lpZNUoI2YD
— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 2, 2022
“We assumed we were going to end up with like 245 House members; we’re at 222, it looks like, which is a huge underperformance,” DeSantis said. “The question is, you know, why did that happen?”
DeSantis answered the question by saying that the Republican Party failed to offer a compelling alternative to what Democrats were proposing. Senator Rick Scott, R-Fl. offered a similar explanation when he gave his election postmortem.
.@SenRickScott on Fox calls 2022 “a complete disappointment.”
“What didn’t happen? I think we didn’t have enough of a positive message. We said everything about how bad the Biden agenda was — it’s bad, the Democrats are radical. But we have to have a plan of what we stand for.” pic.twitter.com/r1clJXaOtJ
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 12, 2022
“Usually those voters are going to want to vote for people that are offering an alternative, and yet some of those voters throughout the country, not in Florida, but throughout the country, even though they disapproved of Biden, even though they disapproved of the direction of the country, they still didn’t want to vote, you know, for some of our candidates,” DeSantis said.
“I don’t think it’s a question of necessarily being divided as a party; I think it’s like, OK, how do you run and win majorities?” he continued.
Florida was integral to Republicans winning a four-seat majority in the House, flipping three seats from Democrat to Republican and winning a newly drawn seat.
If it wasn’t for Florida, New York, and California, the Republicans would not have a House majority. Florida contributed 4 new seats.#freespeech #America #politics #thebarryfarahshow #freedom #barryfarah #American #godblessamerica
— Barry Farah (@barryfarah) November 25, 2022
Bucking conventional wisdom, DeSantis said that Florida’s red wave proves that Republicans do not need to move to the center to win. Instead, DeSantis and Florida Republicans have moved the state in a more conservative direction and won an overwhelming victory.
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Gov. DeSantis: "I think what we’ve done in Florida is we’ve shown that we’ve exercised leadership, we’ve not kowtowed, we’ve been willing to take on big interests…"https://t.co/pMd9q6SvYc
— Free Telegraph (@freetelegraph) December 2, 2022
“I think what we’ve done in Florida is we’ve shown that we’ve exercised leadership, we’ve not kowtowed, we’ve been willing to take on big interests… but producing results, and then that ends up attracting more people to want to be on your team,” DeSantis said. “That was not something that was happening throughout the rest of the country.”
DeSantis remains one of the most popular governors in the United States despite what some consider his controversial stances on social issues. According to a Morning Consult tracker, he is the seventh most popular Governor, with a net approval rating of +36%.
Other stories you may want to read:
DeSantis Teases New Book ‘The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival’
DeSantis Warns Apple About Removing Twitter from App Store, Attacks China’s ‘Zero Covid’ policy
