OPINION:
The 2022 midterm elections are over and the verdict is in: The Sunshine State has gone red.
Landslide victories won by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio Tuesday mark a historic Republican shift in my home state of Florida, leaving little doubt that our days as a purple swing state are well in the past. Good riddance.
While votes continued to be counted, my governor has already broken former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush’s historic record when he won the state’s re-election by 12.8 percentage points in 2002. By Wednesday with more than 95% of the vote tally counted, Mr. DeSantis had a nearly 20-point lead over Rep. Charlie Crist while Mr. Rubio sailed to victory with a 16-point lead over his challenger, Rep. Val Demings.
While the extraordinary results embolden Mr. DeSantis’s mandate for a potential 2024 presidential run—and a possible ticket with his Florida compadre, Mr. Rubio—the locations of the dynamic duo’s victories are telling. By late Tuesday evening, Mr. DeSantis broke another glass ceiling by capturing Florida’s biggest county, Miami-Dade, by 16 percentage points. For background, Miami remained a near impenetrable Democratic stronghold that haunted Republicans as true blue territory for two decades after Mr. Bush’s 2002 victory. Mr. Rubio also won the county by an impressive nine-point lead.
Although that shift can be attributed to several factors, one undeniable link is growing Latino GOP support, particularly from the Cuban American community which has persistently sounded the alarm about the Democrats’ leftist agenda.
As a former Trump-appointed official who served at the Miami-based U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting throughout the duration of the administration, I was witness to constant caravans, events and demonstrations against socialism, courtesy of my friends in the Cuban exile community and heroes from the Brigade 2506 who fearlessly risked their lives to liberate the island in 1961 during the Bay of Pigs.
Groups such as Directorio Democratico Cubano, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, Inspire America and Cuba Decide have organized events drawing tens of thousands throughout Miami-Dade while area Congressional leaders such as Mr. Rubio, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar have worked with Mayor Francis Suarez to engage the community with inspirational speeches.
That powerful anti-Marxist messaging has touched a sensitive nerve with other Hispanic communities such as Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who also fled Marxist dictatorships moving the Latino shift closer and closer to the right with every election.
The Latino shift has consistently moved Miami-Dade toward the right ever since Hillary Clinton won it handily in 2016 by 30 points and Mr. DeSantis lost it in 2018 by nearly 21 points. Democrats saw a 23-point drop in 2020 when President Biden barely won the county by seven percentage points, leading up to this week’s Republican victories, handing Mr. Rubio a nine-point lead and Mr. DeSantis a whopping 16 point lead—the biggest of any Republican gubernatorial candidate in the county during the past 40 years.
In addition to Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Rubio’s sweeping wins, Republicans won 20 seats in the House while Democrats only won eight, the Florida legislature is GOP dominated and all seven state Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republicans, four by Mr. DeSantis.
The Sunshine State became a haven for conservatives during the COVID-19 pandemic who emigrated to Florida from Democratic states such as New York and others with stringent lockdown measures. As a result, Florida’s population surged by 211,000 from 2020 to 2021, according to the U.S. Census Data. The mass exodus from lockdown states gave Florida a population boom that most likely helped Republicans and also impacted the state’s housing market, spiking rents in South Florida by an estimated 40%. Simply put, people are coming to Florida.
For the avoidance of doubt, however, the Sunshine State’s beaches, warm weather and other usual tourist attractions have become a secondary benefit for many out-of-staters. It is really my governor’s leadership and Republican policies that have become the main attraction, and Tuesday night’s sweeping GOP statewide victories are evidence of that.
People from all throughout the country see how Mr. DeSantis has governed and they want him to be their governor, too. On Sept. 20 I penned a column titled, “President DeSantis would be an inspiration to the nation,” making the argument that the governor’s pro-liberty conviction, strength and coolness make him the ideal candidate for 2024.
“The people have delivered their verdict: Freedom is here to stay,” Mr. DeSantis said in his Tuesday night victory speech. “Now, thanks to the overwhelming support of the people of Florida we not only won this election, we have rewritten the political map.”
My governor could not have said it better. Florida is now a torch of liberty for the country, and a guiding light for conservatives everywhere. We are the future—and we invite all Americans to join us in our celebration of freedom as we ready ourselves to declare a nationwide victory in 2024.
• Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is a South Florida resident who served in the Trump administration at the Miami based U.S. Office of Cuba Broadcasting, 2017-2021. He now serves on the editorial board for the Washington Times.
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