One of the nation's biggest swing states, Florida has been a disaster for Democrats in recent years. From a state that elected Barack Obama twice to a state that hasn’t voted blue for a major office since, Florida has been at the vanguard of the modern MAGA GOP. Which is what makes Florida election odds this year so perplexing.
In theory, Florida should return to its swing state roots, but yet Democrats - and 2026 midterm odds more broadly - aren’t exactly as optimistic. With both a Senate and Governor’s race, Florida election odds are extremely interesting.
Florida election odds
In theory, Florida makes a ton of sense as a state where Democrats should do better this year than they have in a long while. The state, which voted for Donald Trump by 13.1% in 2024, was one of the biggest swing states that year, having voted for Trump by only 3.3% and 1.2% in his previous two runs. The reasons are simple: Florida is a very non-white state in an election cycle where Republicans cleaned up with non-white voters, as well as attracting many Republican-leaning retirees from blue states to move down there in their sunset years.
Every bit of polling says that Democrats are gaining the most this year with voters who swung against them heavily in 2024. In other words, younger, poorer, and non-white voters who were pissed at Joe Biden for inflation are now mad at Donald Trump for higher prices. And in a political environment where Democrats are favored to flip a statewide race in Texas - which last happened in 1994 - you’d think Democrats would be favored to do something they did in 2012 and win statewide in Florida.
And yet…
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Florida Senate odds
The Senate race could be described as a massive missed opportunity for Democrats, or as a gift. They nominated Angie Nixon, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive who took down a more establishment-friendly Democrat in the August primary. This has put the race on the back burner for Democratic attention and the polling world. Democrats have been competitive and even ahead in some polls, but they’re low-quality and mostly useless.
Nixon’s problem is that she’s running against a mostly non-controversial Republican in Ashley Moody, who is finishing Marco Rubio’s term after Marco was appointed Secretary of State. Throw in South Florida’s significant Latin American population, most of whom fled socialism and communism, and you have the recipe for a Senate candidate who will underperform with Hispanics and therefore not have much of a chance to win. But, fortunately for Democrats, she’s not the only major race on the ballot.
Florida Governor odds
Florida Democrats have been much smarter in the Governor’s race. Instead of nominating a progressive who almost assuredly can’t win, they’ve nominated a former Republican congressman with decent conservative credentials, except that David Jolly finds Donald Trump reprehensible. This is the first time Democrats have tried running a former Republican officeholder, after rejecting this strategy in Georgia earlier this year.
Jolly has the advantage that Byron Donalds has not proven to be an exceptional candidate. Donalds, trying to be the state’s first black governor, was a firebrand conservative in the House of Representatives, including refusing to vote for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker in 2023 for multiple ballots while looking for a more stridently conservative challenger. Donalds, while endorsed by Trump, has drawn criticism from many Republicans, including a former primary opponent who has endorsed Jolly over Donalds.
Jolly is probably the best candidate that Democrats could have found. The hollowing out of the Florida Democratic Party after 2018, when Democrats failed to flip the Governor’s Mansion and lost a Senate seat, has left them without many good options. Florida’s rightward trend has had the elements of a self-fulfilling prophecy to it - Democrats lost the state, so they invest in other options; their lack of investment makes them lose by more; and then the increasingly grim margins see them abandon the state for allegedly “better” options - namely, Texas.
The Florida GOP is miles more competent than the Texas GOP. While Texas Republicans are dealing with the anchor of their toxic candidate, Florida Republicans seem more unified behind their suboptimal candidate. While Democrats have done their best to flip the Governor’s mansion, there’s a reason they’re only at 25% to flip this seat: Florida hasn’t done the work to make it viable for Democrats.
Now, there is some reason for optimism - Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar had to cut an ad where she directly confronted Donald Trump on immigration issues and deportations. If that’s truly a massive issue, it could be enough to drag Jolly over the line, along with the Iran War and the Trump-era price hikes. But nobody believes Florida can flip for a reason.
Democrats should have won Florida in 2018, but they lost two major statewide races by less than 0.5%. That failure makes everyone extremely skittish about trusting the Sunshine State again. David Jolly’s probably the best the Florida Democrats can do, but that says far more about how unwinnable Florida is than anything good about his chances, or Democrats’ chances in Florida more broadly.
