After early results saw huge gains for Republican candidates in Florida, former President Obama adviser, David Plouffe, admitted the "Obama coalition" has been wiped out in the state.
Plouffe appeared as a guest on MSNBC’s live coverage of the 2022 midterm elections Tuesday, where he commented on Republicans dominating the state.
Early reports showed Republican candidates such as Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis leading in the ordinarily left-leaning Miami-Dade County, much to the surprise of the network’s panel.
The shift was large enough for Plouffe to acknowledge that the Hispanic vote, namely Cuban Americans, has likely shifted to Republicans, causing a "catastrophic" situation for the Democratic Party.
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"In Florida, it’s catastrophic. Obviously, we saw greater urgency in 20 in the presidential race. Let’s remember, Barack Obama won in 2012, basically tied the Cuban vote, got over 77% of Hispanic votes. The Obama coalition in Florida is gone. We have to rebuild it now," Plouffe said.
However, he hesitated to suggest whether this shift will be reflected nationwide outside of Florida and a few other locations.
"The question will be in Arizona, in Nevada, huge Hispanic in North Carolina, Virginia. What will we see there? I would surprised to see anywhere near the erosion we’ve seen in Florida. I think this may be contained in Florida, maybe along some of the border and south Texas, where we saw some problems in west Texas in 2020, but this is a massive problem," he said.
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He added, "A look at the Electoral College chessboard, if you’re looking ahead to 24, if you see those 29 electoral votes from the very beginning, it gives the Republicans a huge advantage. If you look at these numbers tonight, you’re going to be hard-pressed to mat a competitive campaign. Now, the state at the economy, who the Republicans nominate, there’s a lot that goes into that but talk about change over in ten years, it is historically meaningful what’s happening."
Fox News Decision Desk later projected DeSantis to defeat Democratic challenger Charlie Crist.
Polls prior to the election suggested that DeSantis had the possibility to win the heavily-populated and diverse Miami-Dade County which would make him the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the county since 2002. The last Republican candidate to win that county was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
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Despite Miami-Dade County largely supporting left-leaning candidates in the past, MSNBC host Joy Reid, who was featured on the panel, insisted that the county "has been trending Republican for a really long time" and noted that most of the county’s Hispanics are the "very conservative" Cuban Americans. DeSantis lost the county by 20 points in 2018.
