Even in troubled times for Republicans, it seems that they can still count on Florida to come through for them.
Once one of the quintessential swing states, President Trump won it against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election by 1.2 points. Two years later, in 2018, Ron DeSantis won the governorship in the Sunshine State by just 33,000 votes, 0.4 percentage points—and the state has been veering right ever since.
In 2022, DeSantis breezed through his re-election bid with a 19.5-point victory against the party-switching Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist. In 2024, President Trump carried the state by 13.2 points. Mind you, this is the state that, back in 2016, analysts said he had no chance of winning because his harsh rhetoric on immigration was alienating Latino voters…
On this Tuesday, 18 August, the primary elections for the 2026 midterm elections were held in Florida. Despite the Iran war and the consequent high gas prices heavily weighing down the popularity of President Trump and the Republican Party as a whole, the numbers from last night are still very promising for Republicans in the state.
Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds easily bested the gubernatorial primary field on the Republican side.
He had a reasonably tough opposition: Lieutenant Governor Jay Collins, who is serving under the popular Governor DeSantis (although only since August 2025, the resignation of his predecessor Jeanette Nuñez). Donalds got 47.8 per cent, while Collins got 25.2 per cent of the vote. Meanwhile, anti-Israel candidate James Fishback, who had quite an enthusiastic online following, finished in distant third place with 10.5 per cent.
On the Democrat side, Former Congressman David Jolly (another former Republican, just like Crist) also got a comfortable win for himself, getting 61 per cent of the vote. The good news for the Republicans is that turnout was a lot greater in the GOP primary: around 1.7 million voted in that contest, as opposed to the around 1.25 million people who voted in the Democratic primary.
Democratic Socialist Wins Democratic Senate Primary in Florida
The real upset of the night came in the Democratic Senate primary race.
Angie Nixon, despite being outspent 16:1, defeated her opposition, Alex Vindman. And it was not even a particularly close race: Nixon won by 12.2 percentage points.
The new Democratic nominee for Senate in Florida is a member of the Democratic Socialists for America activist group, which has recently made national headlines for the radical changes it proposes in its manifesto, such as abolishing the Senate or the Electoral College.
This may play especially badly for Democrats in Florida. The recent surge to the right in the state is in large part due to its high Cuban–American population, who have a special animosity to socialism because of the communist regime in their country of origin.
Nixon will be facing off against Senator Ashley Moody in the general election in November. She was appointed by Governor DeSantis in January 2025, to replace Senator Marco Rubio who had left his seat to serve as Secretary of State in President Trump’s cabinet. Moody will now have to defend her appointed seat in a special election. She is heavily favoured to win.
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