DeSantis Says GOP Midterm Losses Could Reverberate for a Decade

Florida’s governor says that losing Texas would leave Republicans unable to win nationally.

Speaking at a Wednesday morning press conference in Tallahassee, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Republican losses in Tuesday’s midterms came close to an extinction-level event for the party nationally, and that the fallout would outlast the next two years. “We knew it could be worse,” he said. “I don’t think most of us thought it would be this bad.”

DeSantis singled out Texas, where Democrats picked up seats as the party also flipped districts in Iowa and Kansas to win control of Congress. He called the state the anchor of Republican politics and said that without it “we won’t be viable nationally going forward.”

He held up Florida as the one red state that held firm, noting that Republicans won both statewide races there, with Byron Donalds taking the governorship and Ashley Moody keeping her Senate seat, though by narrower margins than the party had expected. “I don’t think there is any other state that can say that,” he said.