Florida to play big role in battle for Congress, even if races are drama-free

Congressional majorities were once won or lost in Florida.

That might again be the case this year — but with much less drama than usual.

In a departure from previous elections, Florida features only a handful of competitive federal races in next month’s midterm election, with most seats solidly within either party’s control. Gone are expectations of down-to-the-wire finishes, surges in national interest and deep-pocketed spending from super PACs that once marked the state every two years.

Even the state’s U.S. Senate race, between Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic challenger Val Demings, has failed to generate the usual involvement from the country’s biggest political groups.

The result is the state has transformed — for at least one election — from a noisy battleground to a quiet Republican stronghold, where the GOP is likely to expand its already large majority in the state’s House delegation and protect its place in the Senate. Their potential success would come in no small part because of a congressional redistricting plan pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year, which aggressively (and, critics allege, illegally) redrew congressional lines in a way that favored Republicans.

Even Democrats, while not ready to surrender less than two weeks before Election Day and in-person voting set to begin Monday, acknowledge the picture looks grim.

“This might not be the right answer for me politically,” said Nancy Texeira, senior adviser to a super PAC aiding Democratic candidates in Florida. “But the state of the Democratic Party in Florida is probably the lowest I’ve seen it in 20 years.”

Republicans in the U.S. Senate need to gain just one seat to break a tie in the legislative chamber and regain control just two years after losing it to Democrats.

U.S. House Republicans, meanwhile, must win a net of five seats for their first majority since losing the 2018 midterm election — and national GOP strategists say Florida’s redrawn congressional map could go a long way toward achieving that on its own.

SENATE MONEY

Democrats still maintain that the party has a chance to pull out the state’s few competitive races, starting with the Senate battle between Demings and Rubio. Demings, Orlando’s former police chief who won a House seat in 2016, has impressed Democrats with her political background, fundraising and talent on the campaign trail.

But even as the Democratic challenger outraises the incumbent Rubio, her race has yet to attract one essential element of most modern campaigns: outside spending from influential allies.

None of the top political groups aligned with the Democratic Party — including Senate Majority PAC or the super PAC associated with the deep-pocketed group EMILY’s List — have run TV ads to help Demings. Neither has the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the party apparatus charged with electing Senate Democrats.

According to a political strategist monitoring spending in Florida, Democratic groups have not spent a single dollar on TV or radio ads since May in support of Demings, despite the difficulty first-time statewide candidates face in introducing themselves to a state as large as Florida.

Groups like Senate Majority PAC, which is connected to Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, have instead spent tens of millions of dollars in states perceived to be more favorable to the party, including Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina.

Those places, in-state Democrats concede, are simply better opportunities for the party than Florida, which has trended right in recent elections. And in a difficult political environment, in which polls show President Joe Biden’s approval rating well under 50% and many voters indicating a preference for a Republican Congress, the state becomes even a further reach, they say.

“This is going to be a tough cycle,” said Steve Schale, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state. “I don’t want to say you’re in a retrenchment, but in some ways, you’re just trying to keep what you got. And this is an expensive pickup.”

BILLIONAIRE BUST

What super PACs would need to spend to fund 10 days of ads in the state, Schale added, could fund 50 days of ads in other places. For groups already spread thin across a Senate map that might include a half-dozen states or more, he said, they could determine their money goes further elsewhere.

Demings has, in fact, raised more than Rubio this election cycle through September, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, and aired significantly more ads than the incumbent during the summer.

But as a first-time statewide candidate, with little name recognition outside of her home in Orlando, she had far more work to do introducing herself to the state’s voters, especially compared with a two-term senator with near universal name identification after his 2016 presidential campaign. And the extra resources offered by well-funded outside groups could have helped her close that gap, strategists say.

Outside groups did closely track the Florida Senate race, according to three sources familiar with their thinking, with interest piquing in August amid what was at the time an improving political climate for Democrats. They were intrigued by Demings’ ability to make the race competitive despite Florida’s rightward tilt and drawn by the possibility of putting Republicans on the defensive in a state they had already taken for granted.

But even as fundraising for candidates like Demings continued to surge this election cycle, some of the party’s largest financial contributors have been more lukewarm about spending big — leaving the party’s super PACs, which traditionally rely on big-dollar donors, with less cash at their disposal.

“If the Democratic billionaires were playing this cycle, we’d have Florida booked for all of October,” said one Democratic strategist familiar with the outside groups’ thinking, granted anonymity to speak about party strategy.

It’s a stark difference from the state’s last Senate race, in 2018, when then-incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson took on Republican Rick Scott. Outside groups spent more than $20 million supporting Nelson’s candidacy, according to Open Secrets, and more than $35 million opposing Scott.

Nelson narrowly lost that race, despite being an incumbent and running in a year where Democrats made big gains in most states while retaking the House majority.

Demings, of course, has received at least some help: Schumer transferred $1 million to her campaign in September, and a handful of Democratic organizations have recently bought relatively inexpensive digital ads backing her candidacy.

But those investments haven’t been enough for Demings to stay neck-and-neck with Rubio in the polls. In every public survey since September, the incumbent Republican has led by a small but significant margin. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political handicapping service, last week moved the race from “lean Republican” to “likely Republican,” a reflection of the growing body of evidence that Rubio is a favorite to win reelection next month.

GOP EDGE IN HOUSE

National polling in recent weeks has become more pessimistic for Democrats, amid fears in the party that voter concerns about the loss of abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision are being supplanted by persistent worries over inflation and the cost of living.

A Monmouth University poll released last week found 49% of voters preferred Republicans control Congress while 45% of them said they preferred Democrats. In August, the survey found 43% of voters preferred Republicans, compared to 50% who wanted Democrats to control Congress.

U.S. House races in Florida, however, have been trending in the GOP’s favor most of this year.

Thanks to Democratic retirements, demographic political realignments, and a national political environment favoring the GOP, Republicans hold a distinct advantage as Election Day approaches, likely to add to their majority in the delegation.

The GOP currently holds a 16 to 9 edge within the delegation, with two seats vacant and one seat still unfilled after being added to the state following the 2020 Census.

But arguably the biggest factor for November was a new set of Congressional maps embraced by DeSantis earlier this year, after he rejected a less aggressive redistricting plan put forward by Republican state lawmakers in favor of one that further pressed the party’s advantage.

The consequence was, per rankings kept by the Cook Political Report, that only three of the state’s 28 districts are ranked as competitive — and all three of those are considered likely to be won by a Republican, according to Cook.

If the election plays out that way, the GOP could hold 20 of the state’s 28 House seats.

The ability to count on victories in Florida has helped the GOP invest in other districts, Republican strategists say.

“Resources are finite,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist. “And so, having those locked away, or having those in a safer place for us helps them to do battle in bluer districts.”

A group of organizations, including the League of Women Voters, and Florida voters are suing the state over the redistricting plan, alleging it violates a provision in the state constitution that forbids partisan gerrymanders and maps that unfairly reduce the political influence of minorities.