It will be extremely difficult, but Democrat Charlie Crist can defeat Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in November, political experts said Wednesday.
But he needs everything to come together for him, from whipping up Democratic enthusiasm that was lacking in Tuesday’s primary to raising millions of dollars quickly. Most of all, Crist has to keep up the heat on DeSantis, they said.
“He needs to make the case against Ron DeSantis,” said Gregory Koger, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. “Highlighting just how DeSantis, his rhetoric and the policies he’s enacted have played to the Fox News base at the expense of average Floridians. That’s the campaign he needs to wage.”
U.S. Rep. Crist, D-St. Petersburg, is seeking victory in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the governor’s mansion in more than two decades and has grown more Republican over the past few years.
The governor is sitting on top of more than $130 million in campaign contributions and is expected to launch an onslaught of ads attacking Crist over his support of President Joe Biden and other issues.
Crist did not back down from his support of the president during an appearance on CNN Wednesday, calling Biden “a great man. He is a great president. I can’t wait for him to get down here. … Thank God Joe Biden is the President of the United States today.”
Crist was criticized immediately by the Republican Governors Association over the quote, calling him a “Biden fanboy.”
At an event in Hialeah on Tuesday night, DeSantis said he was “calling on all Floridians to put on the full armor of God as we fight tooth and nail to protect Florida from the destructive agenda of Joe Biden and his number one ally in Florida, Charlie Crist.”
Crist has come out swinging when it came to criticizing DeSantis, saying, “he’s tried to tear apart my state, attacking LGBTQ children, attacking women and the right to choose, disrespecting women, attacking African American voters and making it more difficult for them to vote … It’s shocking. It’s like he wakes up every morning about the new group he wants to attack.”
Crist launched a new ad on Twitter, writing: “Defeat fascism. Defeat DeSantis.”
He also bluntly said he doesn’t want the support of DeSantis backers.
“Those who support the governor should stay with him,” Crist told reporters Wednesday. “I don’t want your vote. If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there.”
Matt Isbell, a Democratic analyst who runs the MCIMaps website, said Crist’s comment is supported by a trend. Elections are becoming less about persuading middle-of-the-road voters and more about generating enthusiasm among avid followers.
“You’ve just got to focus on getting your base out,” Isbell said. “Both sides have plenty more people to turn out.”
Statewide Republican turnout on Tuesday bested Democrats, with the low-key GOP primary for agriculture commissioner drawing 1.6 million voters compared with the 1.5 million votes for the more prominent Democratic governor race between Crist and Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.
But Isbell said the GOP’s slight advantage isn’t predictive of the general election on Nov. 8.
“At the end of the day, for both sides, the turnout was still [low],” Isbell said. “You can’t say one party has an edge in a 30% turnout primary.”
Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida, said Democrats do have to overcome the gains made among Hispanic voters by Republicans.
“It’s both Cuban Americans, but also non-Cuban American Hispanics in Florida,” McDonald said. “Just pulling those numbers back to the 2016 number, if everything else stayed the same, DeSantis would lose, and Crist would win.”
At the same time, McDonald said, “wealthier, more educated whites, and suburbs are starting to trend against the Republican Party. And those particular voters are really important in a midterm election, because they’re high propensity voters.”
But, he said, it’s going to be difficult because of the huge money gap between Crist and DeSantis.
“Crist’s biggest challenge is going to be the money that’s flowing to DeSantis as a very strong candidate for the Republican presidential nomination,” McDonald said. “He has to overcome that. … [otherwise] it’s going to be hard to break through and make these arguments.”
Crist and his associated political committee have raised about $15 million but spent almost all of it on the primary.
To raise funds for the general election, Crist could potentially reach out to national Democratic and advocacy groups but also liberal billionaires such as George Soros.
DeSantis’ stockpile of cash has grown after fundraising trips around the country. But his assumed maneuvering for the Republican nomination for president in 2024 is a double-edged sword, experts said.
DeSantis has remained steadfastly focused on his highly conservative, Trump-like base.
He campaigned for 2020 election-deniers in Pennsylvania and Arizona and continued to insert himself into the abortion debate by removing Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren and telling reporters Tuesday he would welcome “future endeavors” on abortion restrictions.
“This is a tightrope that he’s got to walk,” McDonald said. “If he has presidential ambitions, he’s got to go out and campaign and support people that are out of the mainstream … He’s going to places where there are Republican candidates who are in trouble because they’re out of step with moderates and more on the fringe of their own party.”
His latest ad, “Top Gov,” in which he portrays himself as a jet pilot fighting the “corporate media,” is the kind of pitch that plays more to a national conservative audience than the Florida electorate, Koger said.
“That is not the ad you put out if you are going to spend your general election campaign appealing to average Floridians through the mass media,” Koger said. “It was a statement that he intends to continue on the path of the closed, conservative media bubble that he is in.”
But DeSantis’ strategy, in the end, is much the same as Crist’s, Isbell said. He wants to boost his party’s turnout at the expense of appealing to the middle.
“He is making a calculation that he can sacrifice a couple of percentage points and start playing up to that national right-wing base,” Isbell said. “For him, as long as he wins, as long as he’s reelected? That’s fine. That’s what he’s aiming for right now.”
Complete election coverage can be found at OrlandoSentinel.com/election.
