Democrats should try to win in Florida

In 2024, Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris 56.03 to 42.37 in Texas. Democrats in the state are currently engaged in a contested Senate primary between James Talarico and Jasmine Crockett — a race that until recently also featured Colin Allred, until he was squeezed out by Crockett’s entry.

In Florida, meanwhile, Trump beat Harris 55.87 to 42.82, a large margin that underscores the challenges any Democrat would face in a statewide contest there.

But the Florida margin is clearly smaller than the Texas margin, so on its face Florida should be a more promising pickup opportunity. And yet in the Florida Senate race, Democrats thus far have absolutely nothing. Not only has no one entered the race, the party has no real prospects. Top people keep assuring me that they’re close to sealing the deal with strong candidates in Alaska and Kansas, but even real optimists don’t claim to have anyone lined up to run in Florida.

This is a big mistake.

I don’t want to peddle some kind of unreasonable level of Sunshine State optimism since, yes, obviously the Republicans will probably win this race.

But the same is true of Alaska and Kansas and Texas and Iowa and Ohio, all of which are uphill, underdog races. And there’s evidence from special elections that suggests the national environment could be evolving in a direction that puts these states, including Florida, within reach.

That’s highly speculative, of course. If you look at the current polling, it does show that Trump is unpopular, and Republicans are down in the national generic ballot. But their generic ballot performance is stronger than Trump’s approval rating, and while the current generic ballot numbers project a House majority, they don’t project Senate wins for Democrats anywhere other than North Carolina and Maine.

So Florida is tough, and I’m not trying to kid anyone about that. I’m just saying that Florida is not appreciably tougher than any of the other states that Democrats need to compete in.

And in certain key respects, I think Florida is unusually promising compared to those other states.

Florida special elections hit different

One piece of evidence for this comes, again, from special elections this year.

The country has held 65 special elections in 2025, and Democrats have, on average, run 13.7 percentage points ahead of Kamala Harris. That does not mean that Democrats are going to do ...