Florida’s Dems, DeSantis Flatlining & Suboptimal Decision Making - Top 3 Takeaways – June 22nd, 2023
- Free fallin’. Tom Petty’s classic wasn’t written with a deeper meaning about a long-lost love as many long suspected and interpreted as the meaning. In fact, the song was written on the fly with a buddy by chance when they were riffing and having a good time. That back story along with the lyrics came to mind yesterday when I was parsing through the latest voter registration information from the Florida Division of Elections. That’s because in Florida one political party is having a good time while the other is well...free fallin’. Following last November’s record setting Republican wins in Florida, which left the state with the most elected Republicans top to bottom in our state’s history – including having no statewide elected Democrats for the first time since Reconstruction – many thought the stars aligned for Republicans in our state. Well, they may have as DeSantis’ master stroke of pandemic policy created prosperity and economic opportunity which didn’t exist anywhere else in the country. But if the stars aligned for Republicans last November – they’ve remained aligned ever since. Month after month the trend by way of Florida’s voter registrations has been the same. Despite Florida’s rapid population growth, we’ve had far fewer registered Democrats and an ever-growing record Republican advantage. May brought more of the same with Republicans gaining a partisan advantage of close to 24,000 voters net of Democrats during the month, while they’re closing in on having a half million voter advantage. But that wasn’t all. Last year’s record wins were only possible because many Democrat majority counties, like Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, broke for Republicans as well. All told only five of Florida’s 67 counties voted for Democrats. That happened despite thirteen counties still having Democrat voter registration majorities. The biggest development that happened over the past month was that you can now make that...twelve counties. For the first time in Liberty County’s history – there’s now a Republican voter registration majority. The past month has been another brutal one for Florida’s Democrats. It’s safe to say, at least by way of voter registration trends, they’re free fallin’ in Florida.
- Moving the needle. It was May 24th that Governor DeSantis announced he was running for president. On May 24th DeSantis was averaging 21% of the Republican primary vote. It’s June 22nd. Ron DeSantis is averaging 21% of the vote. The more things change, the more states he visits, the more hands he shakes and babies he kisses the more his level of support stays the same. This is a top takeaway for me today in part due to way the Republican Primary race was being covered across this state yesterday. Many citied a CNN Republican primary poll which was billed as showing DeSantis catching up to Trump over the previous poll. This was true in the most literal sense as DeSantis, while still trailing Trump in the said poll by 21-points, was six points closer than the previous months’ CNN poll. But the why matters. It wasn’t because DeSantis saw an increase in his support. He polled at the exact same 26% in both polls – it's due to Trump dropping six points as others who’ve entered the race have gained in support. Here are all of the GOP candidates which have gained support over the past month (according to that poll)... Mike Pence, Tim Scott and Chris Christie. The one who has not, in any of the polls, has been DeSantis. And while he’s made the rounds and kissed the babies this the first month of his presidential campaign hasn’t done is to move the needle in his direction. His support is consistent with just over a fifth of Republican primary voters being polled – but it’s also static. The peak of DeSantis’ campaign based on the surveying done so far was actually months ago. The peak polling for DeSantis was January 21st when he was averaging 31% support. I don’t know why a third of his support from back then isn’t with him today, but that’s the case. And at this point the only obvious catalyst on the horizon that may help him move the needle is the first Republican debate August 23rd – which Trump at this point appears unlikely to participate in. That could prove to be a boon for Ron if he were the leading candidate on that stage and happens to nail it. Increasingly, it looks like he’ll need to.
- Inspiration over experience. The sub story is sad. And at this point I think we all realize the ending is bad. And while we have no idea what went wrong and perhaps never will, there are words of wisdom which were seemingly ignored by the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions. The wisdom behind the proverb “there’s no substitute for experience” wasn’t just lost on Stockton Rush, it was outright rejected. One might think that if you were going to take a tiny sub over two miles deep into the ocean, you’d favor experience in a submariner. But not Stockton Rush. In a 2020 Zoom interview that hasn’t aged well, he not only didn’t believe that there isn’t a substitute for it, but he also outright rejected it. As he stated: When I started the business, one of the things you'll find, there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military submariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old White guys. I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, a 25-year-old, you know, who's a subpilot or a platform operator or one of our techs can be inspirational, So we've really tried to get very intelligent, motivated, younger individuals involved because we're doing things that are completely new. So, there you have it. I don’t know if the story would be different had an experienced “50-year-old White guy” been prioritized, but it’s pretty clear his play for inspirational twenty-somethings has proven to be something less than inspirational and perhaps not so wise.