Posted BY: Thomas Lifson
As vote counts continue to be posted, it is clear that Republican hopes and dreams of a huge wave election have been dashed. Instead of a large House majority and solid control of the Senate, Republicans will be lucky to have small majorities in each chamber, and even that outcome is not secure at this moment.
But in one state, Florida, Republicans have triumphed in tsunami-like proportions. With 98% of the vote counted, Marco Rubio has a 16.4% landslide lead over Senate challenger Val Demings, and Governor Ron DeSantis has a 19.4% lead, a gigantic increase over his fraction of one percent squeaker victory 4 years ago.
It’s going to take some time to figure out why the rest of the country isn’t behaving like the Sunshine State, but 3 factors suggest themselves.
Ron DeSantis displayed gutsy leadership in confronting Covid, enduring taunts as “DeathSantis” and far worse, as he refused to cower before the might of Dr. Fauci, the medical establishment, Big Pharma, the media, and Democrat politicians. As a result, Florida prospered as other states closed down their businesses and schools. (The other governor who resisted the panic, South Dakota’s Kristi Noem won with an even bigger margin: 26.8 points with 97% of the vote counted.) Note the sign on his podium as he addressed supporters at his campaign headquarters in the wake of his victory, with his cancer-survivor wife at his side:
