Florida escaped a nationwide electoral wave that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) described as a once-in-a-century political event, even as Republicans lost statewide control in Texas, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio, the governor said during a second press conference Wednesday following the midterms.
DeSantis said Florida was the only major state to hold every statewide office — governor, Cabinet and U.S. Senate seat — through what he called a “100-year type political earthquake.”
“Florida was able to you know do something that no other state, really significant state, was able to do, and that’s be able to win all the statewide offices, Senate, as well as governor and Cabinet, in the face of what was really 100-year type political earthquake,” DeSantis said.
He contrasted Florida’s results with Texas, which he called Florida’s “sister state.” Texas Republicans lost the U.S. Senate race to James Talarico by double digits, lost the governorship held by longtime incumbent Greg Abbott, and lost every statewide office, including four Supreme Court seats and control of the state House.
“Not only did they lose the U.S. Senate race, which they haven’t lost one of those in I think like 30 years, but lost it by double digits. Then they lose the governor’s race overwhelmingly against a longtime incumbent who had done a lot. They lost every statewide office, including four Supreme Court justices and the House of Representatives in the state of Texas, that is not just the normal kind of bad, off election. That is a massive, massive sweep,” DeSantis said, adding that he saw similar losses in Kansas, Michigan, and Ohio.
“I’ve never seen in a year that was worse for Republicans across the board in a midterm since I’ve been on God’s green earth, and that’s just the reality of it,” he said.
Warning Candidates Not to Expect Immunity
DeSantis said he had warned Florida candidates against assuming the state was somehow insulated from national political trends, pointing to his own 2022 reelection as a case that people sometimes misread.
“I think sometimes people look back to my reelection four years ago, and it was like, ‘Oh well, you know, we had a massive wave, and the rest of the country did, and Florida did all this. We were kind of our own entity.’ Yes and no… it’s not like when things are negative in the atmosphere that we’re just somehow hermetically sealed from that,” DeSantis said.
He said he told congressional candidates to take President Trump’s 2024 margin in their district and “subtract at least 10 because that’s where the line of scrimmage is in the 2026 election.”
He said that calculation held up: Trump had carried Florida by 13 points in 2024, while Senator Ashley Moody won her race by three points this cycle and the governor’s race was decided by roughly 1 percent — a swing of at least 10 to 13 points, which DeSantis said may understate the shift given Republican voter registration gains since 2024.
By comparison, he said, Ohio and Texas saw roughly 20-point shifts from red to blue relative to 2024 results, which he called “monumental.” Florida, he said, lost only one state Senate seat and otherwise held its lines.
Homestead Exemption Vote Cited as a Factor
DeSantis credited Florida voters’ approval of Amendment Three, which increases the homestead exemption, as a contributing factor to the state’s statewide sweep.
“We effectively swept because if you have a once in 100 year negative wave, to only lose one state Senate seat, that’s a win in that situation. It just is,” DeSantis said. “I’m proud of everyone that was in the fight on all this. I know it’s not easy, but there was a lot that could have been squandered.”
DeSantis said wave elections often pull down-ballot voters to the polls simply to register frustration with whichever party holds power in Washington, affecting county commission races, state legislatures, and, in Texas’s case, every statewide office.
“That ends up affecting county commission races. It ends up affecting legislative races, and in Texas, it affected the governor’s race. It affected the cabinet races and all the statewides and they lost everything, and that could have happened in Florida and it didn’t,” the outgoing governor said.
DeSantis said Florida is now “the only state amongst the top 10 states that’s under Republican control,” and the only state to emerge from the midterms with its statewide offices fully intact.
“That’s something that you’re only going to keep that if you continue to deliver results for people,” he said.
