OPINION:
The 2022 midterm election is over. The results, as of this writing, are mostly in.
While the Republicans took the House of Representatives and candidates endorsed by former Republican President Donald Trump in deep red states handily won their elections, the Republican candidates in purple states did not do as well as projected. In fact, many of the candidates that Mr. Trump endorsed lost. They were deemed too extreme. But there is one Republican who won big: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He not only won a second term as governor of the Sunshine State, but he also won parts of Florida that no other Republican candidate has won in decades.
Florida is a cross section of the United States. While its climate may alternate between hot and hotter, the state attracts everyone from around the world, and the people who live in a state that takes more than six hours to traverse from the tip of the peninsula to the top are a microcosm of the polyglot mixture of people who populate the United States. The two main paths for people to migrate in and out of Florida are Interstate 95 along the East Coast and I-75 coming down from the Midwest.
The Gulf Coast of Florida is, therefore, heavily populated by people transplanted from the Midwest, whereas traditionally Florida’s Atlantic Coast is home to large numbers of people from the Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states. Generally, Florida’s west coast tends to be more conservative, whereas Florida’s east coast is overwhelmingly liberal. Counties like Miami-Dade are on the southeast side of Florida. Miami, in particular, as well as its surrounding environs, has been a solidly blue region. In fact, Miami-Dade was one of the four counties responsible for the 2000 recount debacle between former Vice President Al Gore and George W. Bush.
No Republican gubernatorial candidate in Florida has won Miami-Dade since 2002. Until 2022, that is. Mr. DeSantis achieved a decisive reelection victory for a second (and final) term as Florida’s governor by winning this usually Democratic, very diverse region of Florida. The reason Mr. DeSantis won this normally Democratic bastion is because of his popularity. And from what does his popularity derive? His policies. For a politician to be successful in governing a state such as Florida, like Mr. DeSantis has been, one must appeal to a wide variety of voters.
Whereas multiple Trump-backed candidates in similarly diverse states lost their election bids, Mr. DeSantis won by a massive margin over his Democratic Party rival, Charlie Crist. He won the hearts and minds of Florida voters in both red and blue counties because Mr. DeSantis proved that he was the best leader that Florida has had in decades. He did not spend his every waking hour firing fusillades at his rivals on Twitter; he left that to his capable press team.
Mr. DeSantis did not vacillate on defending our first principles as Americans. He consistently defended them — even when it meant running afoul of the Disney Corp., a key component of Florida’s vibrant and important tourism industry. Or challenging the last Republican president over highly unpopular COVID-19 lockdowns and, later, resisting President Biden’s vaccine mandates.
Mr. DeSantis’ message came down to one word: freedom. Freedom from fear of the virus. Freedom from the destructive economic and social policies of the crazed Democratic Party. Freedom to live your life how you want to. These policies and his disciplined enactment of them won him support from just about every voter in Florida. They will win him support again should choose to run for president in 2024.
Plus, Mr. DeSantis won over Hispanics in record numbers. And it wasn’t just the reliably conservative Cuban vote. He won Puerto Ricans, a notoriously Democratic Party-voting bloc of people. He won other Hispanic communities as well, all of which catapulted him to his incredible victory over the Democrats. He succeeded where Trump-backed candidates elsewhere failed.
2024 is going to be a totally different election than either 2016 or 2020. We need an entirely new candidate — one who is young, strong and dynamic. A candidate whose policies rather than his Twitter account talks to the largest share of American voters. That is why Mr. DeSantis must run for president in 2024. He must scale up the victory that he just enjoyed in Florida for the whole country.
The Republican Party must begin directing its vast resources into filling his campaign war chest with the funds needed to push ahead and defeat the Democrats in 2024. Mr. Trump changed the party for the better. Now, Mr. DeSantis will take the party — and, more importantly, the country — to the next level; he will ensure that this turbulent 21st century is yet another “American Century.”
• Brandon J. Weichert is the author of “Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower” (Republic Book Publishers). He is a geotechnology analyst and former congressional staffer who travels the country speaking on a wide range of geopolitical and technology issues. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
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