(RoyalPatriot.com )- During a press conference Thursday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) stated that Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections because they did not focus on delivering for constituents.
He said we expected we’d finish up with 245 House members, and it seems we’re at 222, which is a big underperformance.
“So the question is, why did this happen?” DeSantis asked.
He explained that because of the way these midterm elections work, someone is elected to the White House, and then there is a reaction the other way, which happens almost every two years, especially when people are pessimistic about the direction of the country, have a negative view of Biden. Usually, those voters will want to vote for people who offer an alternative.
“And yet, even though they disapproved of Biden, even though they disapproved of the direction of the country, some of those voters around the country, not just in Florida,” DeSantis added. “They were still unwilling to vote for some of our candidates.”
The governor explained that Republicans did not underperform because the party was divided; he said that Republicans nationwide did not follow the same model that Republicans in Florida did, which was focusing on exercising leadership, not bending the knee in politically awkward fights, taking big challenges, and focusing on “producing results,” which “ends up attracting more people to want to be on your team and so that was not something that happened.”
DeSantis said, “I don’t think it’s a question of necessarily being divided as a party, I think it’s like, okay, how do you run and win majorities, and I think what we’ve done in Florida is we’ve shown that we’ve exercised leadership, we’ve not kowtowed, we’ve been willing to take on big interests … producing results, and that ends up attracting more people to want to be on your team — and so that was not something that was happening throughout the rest of the country. But I think that we really showed, I think, how it’s done in the state of Florida, and if you look about how we performed, no governor, Republican, has ever gotten a higher percentage of the vote in Florida history than we got in 2022.”