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The case that Florida is ready to turn blue again

David Jolly, a former Republican member of Congress, is Democrats’ likely nominee. Here’s his case that he can win.

For decades, Florida was the archetypal presidential swing state — and as recently as 2016 and 2018, Democrats came close to winning statewide elections there.

Then things took a turn. After Ron DeSantis was elected governor in 2018, the Sunshine State moved solidly right of the country in 2020, and 2022 and 2024 brought double-digit drubbings for Democratic candidates — convincing many that Florida was just purely a red state now.

Could the blue wave building in 2026 change all that?

David Jolly thinks so. A former Republican congressman who quit the party back during Trump’s first term, Jolly officially became a Democrat last year — and is now the party’s likely gubernatorial nominee in the contest to succeed the term-limited DeSantis. (The Republican primary is still contested, but the Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds has a large lead in polls.)

Like other Democrats across the country, Jolly’s message is laser-focused on affordability. But as a former Republican trying to win a reddened state, his pitch is a bit different from what we’ve seen in blue territory. He’s also coming off years as a frequent MSNBC commentator, and has many thoughts on what ails our politics.

David Jolly previously appeared on Vox’s The Gray Area podcast in 2021

I sat down with Jolly on Monday for a conversation about the race, to ask him about the key issues ailing the state — and whether Democrats actually have a chance at winning Floridians back to their side. The interview has been condensed and edited.

Can a focus on affordability undo Florida’s rightward shift?

Let’s start with the political evolution of Florida. After being a swing state presidentially, it moved to the right of the country in 2020, and then there were these blowout, double-digit Republican wins in the past two cycles. Why did Florida tip so far right?

So, [journalist John] Heilemann always tells me to be a candidate, not an analyst. But I’ve been an analyst for a decade and I won’t shake it.

Voters always tell us what they want. In 2022, Florida Democrats — I became a Democrat because I believe in the values of the party, but — Democrats weren’t where voters were. Voters were embracing the Free State of Florida. They wanted the economy to keep sizzling a little bit. And coming out of Covid, freedom and less government meant one thing.

That feels different today. Today you have marginalized communities who are afraid that maybe their fundamental rights, voting rights, reproductive freedom, civil liberties are under attack, or they just feel marginalized as a community based on who they love, who they worship, the color of their skin, where they were born.

But the economy is also not working for everybody. And so, half the state doesn’t have enough savings to last two weeks. Homeowners are losing their homes because homeowners’ insurance has collapsed. Rents are out of control. People can’t live in the community in which they work. More people are going without healthcare than ever before, and we’ve created an education crisis where Florida’s families don’t know where to educate their kids.

A lot of Democrats realize that affordability is the best message. But when it comes to actually........

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