Former Miami Mayor Francis Suarez discusses election outcomes (Part 2)

This past week was a rough one for Republicans as a number of purple and red leaning states went blue, but Florida stayed red. Still, it was an uphill climb. Byron Donalds won the governor's race by just about a point. And a Democratic socialist came within three points of beating Republican Senator Ashley Moody. Still, Republicans are looking at Florida not just as a bright spot, but looking to its leaders for leadership. This week my colleague Evan Brown talked to a former Florida leader about his midterm take. Well, I think in politics you have to analyze all of the factors. It's the day after now, so the day after usually provides a little bit of clarity. Former Republican Mayor of Miami Francis Suarez. And what you saw nationally was obviously a swing to the Democratic Party. Right? Right. I mean, you saw, like you said previously, solidly red states like Texas going Democrat, Georgia continuing to go Democrat even in the governor's race. Michigan, double digit win for essentially an avowed socialist. And Florida, you know, I think the governor won by 100,000 votes. So when you talk against a million and a half Republican registration advantage, which had been built up over time. Yeah. So that turned out to be a firewall for Florida, but just barely. Right. I mean, again, the governor won by a hundred thousand. Now, there's two ways to look at it. One way is to say, well, in 2018, first time candidate Ron DeSantis, who was also a congressman, just like Byron Donald, only won in 2018 by 30,000 votes. So there's a corollary there. Right. First time candidate, former congressman, didn't have a statewide profile and so couldn't motivate people to. In the same way that incumbent, who is well known and has done a good job. If you analyze Desantis's, you know, first run versus second run, two completely different places night and day. If you look at Trump's victories in Florida, you know, completely different as an incumbent. So, you know, I think that's part of it. I think the other part of it is there has to be a recognition on the part of Republicans that elections are decided nationally by working class people, period, full stop. And when a party doesn't seem to be connecting with working class people as well, because their policies, for example, let's say.