DeSantis boosts 2024 chances with Florida reelection

While the 44-year-old has not declared his candidacy for president, he is clearly keeping his options open.

Ron DeSantis with wife Casey and children Madison, Mason and Mamie leave the stage in Tampa, Florida, on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has won a landslide victory over his Democrat rival, boosting his chances of successfully challenging Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

As polls closed in the midterm elections on Tuesday night (Wednesday AEDT), the House of Representatives – while leaning Republican – was still up for grabs and the Senate was a toss-up.

The clearest early results were in the governors’ races.

Florida’s unofficial election night results put the 44-year-old Mr DeSantis more than 20 percentage points ahead of Democrat Charlie Crist – a margin of nearly 1.5 million votes, with ballots still being counted.

“Thanks to the overwhelming support of the people of Florida, we not only won re-election, we have rewritten the political map,” Mr DeSantis said in Tampa in a victory speech cheered on by ­supporters.

Hailing his “landslide victory”, Mr DeSantis launched into a searing critique of the “woke agenda” of liberal politicians.

“We have embraced freedom,” he said. “We have maintained law and order, we have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers and we reject woke ideology. We fight the woke in the legislature, we fight the woke in the schools, we fight the woke in the corporations.

“We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

While Mr DeSantis has not declared his candidacy for president, he is clearly keeping his options open, refusing to commit to serving out a full second term as governor.

Mr Trump took aim at his potential presidential rival’s prospects, telling Fox News the day before the vote that if Mr DeSantis ran for the White House, “he could hurt himself very badly. I really believe he could hurt himself badly.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent and the first woman to serve in the post, fended off a stiff challenge from Republican congressman Lee Zeldin to win election, US networks projected.

Ms Hochul, who took office after scandal-hit Andrew Cuomo resigned in August 2021, bested Mr Zeldin, an ally of Mr Trump who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.

Counting showed the Senate – currently 50-50 with the casting vote held by Vice-President Kamala Harris – was still a toss-up.

Republican candidate J.D. Vance – the author of bestseller Hillbilly Elegy who is backed by Mr Trump – bested Democrat Tim Ryan in the race for Ohio’s open Senate seat, media projections said. The win for the Republicans does not represent a gain of a seat in the 100-member Senate, as the contenders were vying to replace retiring Republican senator Rob Portman.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat lieutenant governor John Fetterman, still suffering the effects of a stroke this year, was on track to defeat Trump Senate candidate and TV doctor Mehmet Oz.

Georgians face a second run-off in as many elections after former footballer and Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker, an anti-abortion candidate accused of paying for abortions for former lovers, failed to secure more than 50 per cent of the vote against Democrat incumbent Raphael Walker.

In Arizona, expected to be one of the closest states, incumbent senator Mark Kelly was ahead of Republican Blaker Masters.

In Arizona’s gubernatorial race, Trump-endorsed former TV anchor Kari Lake was behind Democrat Katie Hobbs.

Ms Lake, who has refused to say if she’ll accept the result if she loses, alleged irregularities after problems with voting machines.

“I hope it’s not malice,” she said. “When we win, there’s going to be a come-to-Jesus for elections in Arizona.”

Officials in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, said about 20 per cent of the 223 polling stations experienced difficulties related to printers but no one was denied the right to vote.

A judge denied a Republican bid to keep the polls open later.

President Joe Biden has warned that Republicans pose a dire threat to democracy, with more than half their candidates repeating Mr Trump’s debunked claims of cheating in the 2020 election.

Among other gubernatorial races, two solidly Democratic states, Massachusetts and Maryland, elected Democrats to succeed popular moderate Republican incumbents, and the in­coming leader of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, will be the first openly lesbian governor.

Mr DeSantis gained national attention for his opposition to strict measures aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19, and has made himself a standard-bearer of the conservative backlash to growing tolerance for LGBTQ rights.

He signed a 15-week abortion ban into law this year, joining a ­nationwide push by conservatives to restrict reproductive rights.

In another appeal to hardline conservative politics, he sent dozens of undocumented migrants by plane to wealthy Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts – a move that sparked a class-action lawsuit against him in the Democrat-led state.

Mr Crist, 66, served as Florida’s governor from 2007 to 2011 as a Republican but later switched parties, winning election to the US House of Representatives as a Democrat before resigning and pursuing his gubernatorial bid.

AFP