What about Florida?
Commenter “grandpagrumble” asks a question:
I have a simple(ton) question. The red tsunami occurred in Florida, but nowhere else. Why?
My answer isn’t all that complicated, although it isn’t simple either. The first element is DeSantis’ leadership. That’s one of those words we used to hear a lot but don’t hear too much anymore, but he provided it. DeSantis came very very close to losing in 2018 to a leftist Democrat candidate who turned out to be corrupt as well. But this year he cruised to victory – although I wouldn’t call what DeSantis does “cruising.” He works hard. He makes strong and courageous decisions, he is very smart, he’s young, and he fights the press but in a very intelligent and articulate way.
Perhaps just as important is that people in Florida can see that the results of his decisions have been good.
In addition, he has helped make Florida’s elections more efficient and secure, so that if there had been a cheating factor before, it is far less likely to happen now. Also, trust in the validity of Florida’s elections has increased as a result.
None of this was easy to accomplish, although DeSantis may have made it look easy. He has a combination of traits that aren’t all that common, and I wish he could be cloned but he can’t.
I will also add that, although I’m not sure how big a factor it was, Florida’s new residents who have fled blue states are probably eager to vote Republican now.
That may not be an inclusive list. My guess is that DeSantis’ leadership has also helped organize the GOP in the state and make it more effective at generating winning candidates down the line.
[ADDENDUM: In this post I wrote that DeSantis “has helped make Florida’s elections more efficient and secure.” I want to add that I was specifically referring to things such as this, from last April:
Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill (SB) 524, Election Administration, to ensure that Florida continues to have secure and accurate elections. This legislation will strengthen election security measures by requiring voter rolls to be annually reviewed and updated, strengthening ID requirements, establishing the Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate election law violations, and increasing penalties for violations of election laws. To read more about the bill, click here.
“Twenty years ago, nobody thought Florida was a prime example of how to conduct elections, but we have become a national leader by running the most secure elections in the country,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We need to do more to ensure our elections remain secure. We have ended ballot harvesting, stopped drop boxes and the mass mailing of ballots, and banned Zuckerbucks, and this bill will give us more resources to make sure bad actors are held accountable.”
“Governor DeSantis has made elections integrity a top priority from the very beginning of his administration, taking steps to ensure we invested in our elections systems, strengthened our cyber defenses, modernized equipment, updated voter rolls, and improved transparency, and we’ve seen results,” said Florida Secretary of State, Laurel M. Lee. “As Florida’s Chief Elections Official, I share Governor DeSantis’ strong commitment to elections integrity. We want to ensure that every Floridian can have confidence that in Florida, we do elections right.”
“Florida leads the nation in free and fair elections because Governor DeSantis and the Legislature have taken a proactive approach to address any issues,” said Senate President Wilton Simpson.
It can’t be done in blue states, of course, and even in many purple states. But even in a state like Florida, which has Republican government right now, it takes leadership to do it. DeSantis has provided such leadership, without demagoguery or special antics.
Perhaps many people are unaware of this bill in Florida, and so I’m trying to call it to their attention.]
You have to have an ID to vote in Florida. You can only vote by mail upon request. And they have secured ballot boxes to drop off your ballot. Things the Democrats fight against, and some Republican states don’t do.
Also, voting machines that miraculously stopped working (except for those in close proximity to colleges) after two weeks of flawless early voting, and mail in ballots etc. Don’t know what else to say. People quite honestly don’t care about leadership, only parties, in deep blue places. Freedom loving people have flocked to Florida, that one was a no brainer. That AOC got reelected – that is a sign.
So we know that demostrably effective Conservatism can get people reelected (which some people have always known I guess).
However in the modern political environment, I’m not as convinced that candidates who espouse Conservative principals can get elected in the first place without other factors going heavily in their favor. Perhaps I’m just stating the obvious here. Incumbancy is a powerful thing, and the ability of the Democrat-Media complex to demonize Republican challengers in the eyes of low information swing voters, as well as suppress stories that reflect poorly on incumbant Democrats can not be overstated.
What specifically was so wrong with Dr. Oz that a lot of people who may even actually agree that things are bad and that the country is heading in the wrong direction would still choose to vote for someone like Fetterman with all his obvious flaws? I have some ideas perhaps, but it’s certainly more than a little surprising.
wendybar:
Please the name the Republican states that don’t do some version of those things you list.
The only one I can think of is Utah, which still votes reliably Republican.
I believe most of the states you’re thinking of are not red but are either blue or purple.
Leadership and demonstrated competence in office are what people see in DeSantis.
There is no rational, unemotional argument for Trump over DeSantis at this point.
I’m not saying DeSantis would definitely win in 24 but there is absolutely no way Trump will win.
Just to support what wendybar said, the voting process was very secure; more than I ever experienced in 62 years of voting. As I said in the earlier thread:
In person voting required a photo ID that also had a signature. I was then required to sign an electronic signature pad and the result was recorded and compared to the signature on my ID. The poll worker even looked at the ID and then at my face.
And further on the mail-in, as wendybar said by request only, and no later than 10 days prior to the election date.
Yes, DeSantis’ leadership is very important, but the lack of voting machine “breakdowns”, mass mail ballots, etc insured, what I think, is an election with minimal D corruption.
DeSantis 2024.
physicsguy:
Regarding your last paragraph: “Yes, DeSantis’ leadership is very important, but the lack of voting machine “breakdowns”, mass mail ballots, etc insured, what I think, is an election with minimal D corruption.”
Those things don’t happen by magic. Did you notice that in my post I wrote that DeSantis “has helped make Florida’s elections more efficient and secure.” I was specifically referring to things such as this, from last April:
It can’t be done in blue states, of course, and even in many purple states. But even in a state like Florida, which has Republican government right now, it takes leadership to do it. DeSantis has provided such leadership, without demagoguery or special antics.
Perhaps many people are unaware of this bill in Florida, and so I’m trying to call it to their attention.
BTW, if Trump goes ahead with his idiotic plan to announce for 24 next week he will doom any chance for Walker in the GA runoff.
My wife and I voted in person but three days early. This is in Tucson AZ where Phoenix and suburbs saw what I expect was the usual fraud. The ballot counting machine in Republican districts failed immediately. The was described as “20%” and I expect the Soros chosen Secretary of State, who supervises elections (which is why he chose her), will be elected Governor. Kari Lake was 11% up in the polls.
I was astounded that Florida’s results were in virtually immediately, well before those of most other states in the Eastern time zone (and Florida is partially Central). I guess after the chad business some years ago, Florida pulled itself together. A procedural feature to be proud of.
Griffin avers “ There is no rational, unemotional argument for Trump over DeSantis at this point.”
I’ll give you one: nobody owns Trump and it’s been proven that he can’t be bought or intimidated.Trump is his own man and he cares deeply about the majesty of what once was a great nation and it’s people.
Considering the enemy, the Haters, and the weasels, that’s a great deal.
Watt:
Please read the ADDENDUM to my post.
“Florida’s new residents who have fled blue states are probably eager to vote Republican now.”
I was less confident that would happen. But it seems to be more true than not. And I seem to remember the legislation to ban zuckbucks, tho that has been a while and is bit fuzzy in the memory bank.
“I guess after the chad business some years ago, Florida pulled itself together.”
After fits and starts, yes. I hope all 67 counties have adopted paper, scantron ballots. They can be counted by machine or by hand if necessary, and you can’t hack a paper ballot.
}}} (and Florida is partially Central)
Nahh, not really. It’s 95% eastern, only the tip of the panhandle is in the CTZ. It does delay the closure of the polls, and the announcement of the results, but that’s just efficiency of poll workers. By the time the polls were closing in the panhandle, the rest of the state’s precincts should have already reported in their tallies.
The way it works in FL (at least where I am, I assume a measure of uniformity) is you go up, you give them an ID, they pull it up, you ack you are who you say you are, sign it, and then they hand you a bubble-sheet for the election in a manila folder. You take it to a voting station, use a black marker to bubble in your vote, then take it to a counting station, where it gets fed into the counter, and a bell “dings” once it’s been tallied. The counting station is the only place where any cheating might occur, and I presume there are cross-checks designed into that (I dunno). But by the time the polls close, they should have a complete vote tally available to them with the application of a key or entry of a code, which can then be sent to the central voting collection site (presumably in Tallahassee). So it should be available within minutes of the polls fully closing.
They can check the results against the hand-filled-ballots in any given precinct for veracity, should anyone see a reason to challenge… and probably give a pretty quick re-count (using the machines) almost on demand.
TJ wrote, “I’ll give you one: nobody owns Trump and it’s been proven that he can’t be bought or intimidated. Trump is his own man and he cares deeply about the majesty of what once was a great nation and it’s people.”
I agree with most of that, but I also think it’s wrong in important ways. Consider immigration as “an issue” (it’s really waaaay bigger than a mere “issue”). Trump apparently read Ann Coulter’s 2015 book Adios America in galleys. Then he came down the escalator and gave his speech, including substantial focus on illegal immigration. During the 2016 campaign he went back and forth on the subject. Finally, after all the dithering, he gave a terrific (Stephen Miller written) speech in Arizona in August 2016, addressing both illegal and legal immigration. It had enumerated principles and action items.
But when elected, he never focused on the subject, so items like Obama’s DACA de facto amnesty didn’t get addressed right away (finally Attorney General Jeff Sessions took the initiative), as Trump had said it would be. Instead he burbled about “those wonderful kids” (DACA-ites are a very heterogeneous cohort, almost none of whom are of any benefit to the existing citizenry). As a result, DACA staggered along until the Supremes ruled stupidly about it, and there was no time left in Trump’s term to jump through all their hoops and get it right. So we’re permanently stuck with the DACA legions of mediocrities and welfare cases.
Beyond that, Trump in office made noises about the anchor-baby problem but launched nothing. He never followed up his endorsement of Tom Cotton’s and David Perdue’s RAISE Act, which would have cut legal immigration about in half, ending much of chain migration. (After awhile, it became clear that Trump hadn’t really grasped that the RAISE Act was about legal immigration!) During 2017 – 2019, the Repubs could have made E-Verify universally mandatory, but there weren’t even noises about that.
So that’s a glaring example of a point: Yes, Trump truly loves the country. He’s shown that by standing up to seven years of horrendous abuse when he could have avoided the limelight and just lived his great life. But he’s also such a narcissist that he won’t focus on the things that really matter for his beloved country — so much so that he actively contributed to the loss of those two Georgia Senate seats in the late 2020 run-offs.
If the U.S. is still a going concern in 2024 and DeSantis runs, is elected, and then performs effectively in office in ways that Trump didn’t, then we could view Trump as John the Baptist to DeSantis’s Jesus. (I’m actually an atheist!)
Why can’t Sununu, who is almost as popular, do something similar in NH?
sununu is nothing like his old man, who was a bull in a china shop, when he would pipe up, he had to go ‘white toga’ on desantis, he’s better than the gope governor next door in massachussetts but that’s near beer,
ryan and mcconnell were not interested in the maga agenda, and the mueller investigation and the steele dossier put everything under a cloud, of course the results just encourage the default action that is amnesty to further bury this country
DeSantis helped himself quite a bit. He stood his ground when it was appropriate. He didn’t jump to ad hominem attacks when he was either behind or way ahead. And he actually worked to protect the vote.
However, the hurricane response was a deal sealer. If all DeSantis did was help restore his state, rather than toss up his hands like Nagin and Blanco and blame the President; DeSantis would have won. DeSantis went further. The left was ready to let Floridians suffer in other to knock DeSantis down a peg. The hurricane did kill more people for a Florida storm. But Florida has a budget surplus, and DeSantis used it wisely to restore critical infrastructure in a very visible and helpful way. He did this against a highly indebt federal government touting infrastructure improvement that had no funds or process to act as fast as the state government did under DeSantis.
When people say much is the country is dumb for keeping Democrats that gave us this economy, Florida is not dumb. They faced a disaster, and their local economy and government saved them. They voted accordingly. I don’t know how much that will translate into a successful federal run, cheating or not.
TJ’s “nobody owns Trump” comment seems to imply that someone does own DeSantis. As the old saying goes “put up or shut up”. Not that I suggest that TJ should shut up, just that the apparent implication cries for some corroboration.
Aside from the question of DeSantis’ leadership, a factor in Florida is the large “senior population”. That makes a difference on several levels. The obvious being that seniors have seen more; and have a keener understanding of the stakes.
I read an analysis that the Democrats probably won many races because they dominated the 18-29 year old vote. That age group has been well indoctrinated by our so-called education system; and at the younger end of that spectrum, they just have not seen much of the adult world.
Apparently, killing the unborn, castrating little boys, reneging on debts, and welcoming “God knows who” across our borders are winning ideas with them. They also believe that pixie dust is viable fuel; and that a few warm days in succession equals climate change. They will learn perhaps; but it may be too late. (I should not have said that, but everyone needs to vent their feelings at some point.)
Personal example of the naivete in even the best of the age group.
A few years back, when my truly intelligent granddaughter was an undergraduate near Portland, Or, I learned that she was participating in some protests. When I cautioned her about getting too close to ANTIFA, she responded; “but Cap (nickname) aren’t you opposed to Fascism?”
Seriously, seniors also have more time to research issues and personalities. I know that the generations that follow in my family are very busy, so I try to feed them news and opinion that I think is relevant. Now, if they would just read my emails.
The red tsunami also happened, to a lesser but still major degree, in Texas.
The Gov, Lt Gov (more powerful than the Gov here), and AG all won, I think all by double digits.
Beto burned a metric crapton of D money losing to Greg Abbot by 11%.
Texas is not a R monolith- all the big cities are D, but Harris COunty (Houston) came very close to upsetting the D County Judge. In my county, the D county judge, who served one term, was clobbered by her R opponent.
The very important Rio Grande Valley, until 20 minutes ago solid democrat, is now in play, and one of the 3 house seats there is now solidly R.
Y’all come on down- watch the Bee’s hilarious intor to Texas short pieces.
It’s interesting the lack of interest by most gop run states on addressing voter fraud issues in a meaningful way. Not to mention the gop party and gop congress also ignore the issue. Florida is an exception, and has done an amazing transformation from the Hanging Chad election.
Trump has elevated this issue, and moved the Overton window on it.
Welp, it’s too early to ruminate about 2024. But reading you and Colonel Schlichter certainly gives a hearty endorsement for DeSantis in my book.
Kari Lake, if she makes it through the Hobbs fraud machine, has promised to do something like Florida. I expect her enthusiasm has been stimulated by the activities in Maricopa County. There, all the tabulating machines quit in Republican suburbs of Phoenix . What a coincidence !
DeSantis was an effective governor. He also doesn’t have to put up with the distractions other Republicans faced. In the Northeast, Republicans have to be half-Democrat to get elected, and if they aren’t they’re in trouble (and they aren’t necessarily out of trouble if they aren’t half-Democrat). Republicans were also plagued by having to be either anti-Trump or pro-Trump. As Trump’s likely rival for the nomination, DeSantis didn’t have to choose (Is he the Anti-Trump or the New Trump? Neither. He’s Ron DeSantis, baby) I hope DeSantis would be as effective in Washington, but DC politics have a way of chewing up and spitting out promising politicians.
My vote for POTUS in 2024, if I last that long, will be for DeSantis.
Trump needs to get in his corner and be publicly quiet, but his massive ego will not allow that.