DeSantis Explains Why Republicans Failed To Deliver Red Wave During Midterms

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said during a press conference Thursday that Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterms because they did not focus on delivering for voters.

“You know, we assumed we were going to end up with like, 245 House members, we’re at 222 it looks like, which is a huge underperformance,” DeSantis said. “And so the question is, why did that happen? Because the way these midterms work, someone gets elected to the White House, and then there’s a reaction the other way, that’s what happens almost every two years and especially when people are pessimistic about the direction of the country, have a negative view on Biden, usually those voters are going to want to vote for people that are offering an alternative.”

“And yet some of those voters throughout the country, not in Florida, but throughout the country, even though they disapproved of Biden, even though they disapproved of the direction of the country,” DeSantis said. “They still didn’t want 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 use the same model that Republicans in the state of Florida used, which was focusing on exercising leadership, not bending the knee in politically uncomfortable fights, and 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 was happening throughout the rest of the country.”

WATCH:

WATCH: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) explains why Republicans underperformed in the midtermspic.twitter.com/Shd3itkppP

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 2, 2022

TRANSCRIPT:

RON DESANTIS, FLORIDA GOVERNOR (R): Some of my folks were like, ‘Governor, this is not a red wave.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about? This is not a red wave. This is a 20 point. When have we ever seen that?’ They’re like, ‘No, no, no. Florida is a big win. But the rest of the country, we are not seeing really good performance from a lot of these Republicans.’ They’re like, ‘It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to win the Senate, the House is going to be very close.’

You know, we assumed we were going to end up with like, 245 House members, we’re at 222 it looks like, which is a huge underperformance. And so, you know, the question is, is, you know, why did that happen? Because the way these midterms work, someone gets elected to the White House, and then there’s a reaction the other way, that’s what happens almost every two years and especially when people are pessimistic about the direction of the country, have a negative view on Biden, usually those voters are going to want to vote for people that are offering an alternative. And yet some of those voters throughout the country, not in Florida, but throughout the country, even though they disapproved of Biden, even though they disapproved of the direction of the country. They still didn’t want to vote, you know, for some of our candidates.

So, 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.

Related: Top Conservative Polling Firm: DeSantis Now More Popular With Trump Voters Than Trump