Will DeSantis’s Terrible Governing Give Florida to Biden?

Will DeSantis’s Terrible Governing Give Florida to Biden?

Today in the Washington Monthly, I take a close look at the Biden campaign’s strategy memo arguing that Florida is “winnable.”

While the memo’s case is weak in spots, I do think it’s correct in the main: Florida is showing signs of backlash to living under MAGA rule.

And a big test of that thesis will come after May 1, when Governor Ron DeSantis’s six-week abortion ban goes into effect.

DeSantis’s attempt to outflank Donald Trump by turning Florida into a laboratory of far-right policy schemes got him nowhere in the presidential primary. In the general election, will it also hand the Sunshine State to Joe Biden?

Let’s review DeSantis’s horrendous record, after checking out what’s leading the Washington Monthly website:

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Dump Kamala Harris? She’s Joe Biden’s Secret Weapon: Writer Jason Kyle Howard finds the Vice President is defying her critics and hitting her stride at just the right time. Click here for the full story.

Which States Help Their College Grads Land Good Jobs?: Missouri State University President Emeritus Michael T. Nietzel spotlights the State Opportunity Index report published by the Strada Education Foundation. Click here for the full story.

Biden’s Smart Case Against the Sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel: Garphil Julien, fellow at the Open Markets Institute, defends the president’s position against charges of protectionism. Click here for the full story.

The Art of the “Get”: Sara Bhatia, an independent museum consultant, reviews the book Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters by Susan Page. Click here for the full story.

Florida Is (Hypothetically) Winnable for Biden and the Democrats: My look at Biden’s chances in the puzzling peninsula. Click here for the full story.

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As I explain in today’s column, the strongest evidence that Floridians are done with their lurch to the right and are swinging back to the center is found in DeSantis’s declining job approval ratings.

He had been clocking in as high as 60 percent last year, but in more recent polling he’s ranging between 45 and 51 percent–more in line with a politically divided purple state than a firmly conservative red state.

Yet it was less than two years ago when DeSantis was re-elected in a nearly 20-point landslide. What happened?

DeSantis’s policies happened.

Regular Monthly readers will not be surprised.

Last year, I wrote about how DeSantis puffed up claims of population growth and implemented policies that fueled inflation.

James Fallows, Aalia Thomas, Paul Finkelman, Amna Khalid, and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder uncovered DeSantis’s unseemly exploitation of Florida’s education system to wage divisive culture wars.

While DeSantis once seemed like an unstoppable force, fiscal and legal realities have begun to constrain his agenda.

Joshua A. Douglas examined last year how DeSantis’s election law threw up obstacles to voter registration drives and attracted lawsuits. Last month, a federal judge issued partial summary judgment in favor of the voting rights advocates; the trial on the rest of the contested law began this week.

In September, Will Norris looked at how DeSantis spitefully rejected $346 million in federal funds for residential energy rebates, lest he be seen by primary voters taking money from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Now DeSantis has turned tail. The state budget approved last month includes money to administer the rebate grant program, though how much federal aid Florida can now claim is unclear.

It didn’t have to be this way for DeSantis and his constituents.

Last June, Joseph Contreras reminded Monthly readers that DeSantis began his governorship on a more pragmatic note, and only swerved to the far right when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and he saw how much opposition to mitigation measures, as well as support for other culture war hot buttons, appealed to MAGA voters.

DeSantis decided that impressing national Republican primary voters was more important than governing on behalf of Florida voters. Then he failed to impress national Republican primary voters, and lost support among Florida voters.

The moral of the story: Don’t put short-term politics ahead of long-term policy.

DeSantis’s failure to follow that advice may end Republican dominance in Florida.

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Best,

Bill

The post Will DeSantis’s Terrible Governing Give Florida to Biden? appeared first on Washington Monthly.