The final pieces of the midterm puzzle are coming together as Tuesday’s primaries in New York, Florida and Oklahoma lock in key pieces of November’s voter slate.
Florida Democrats picked Rep. Charlie Crist on Tuesday to face Gov. Ron DeSantis in the fall, CNN reported. Crist’s challenge comes as DeSantis seeks both a second term and a boost ahead of a rumored 2024 presidential bid. CNN also predicted Democratic Representative Val Demings to face Republican Senator Marco Rubio in November.
Here are some of the main takeaways so far:
Crist looks to derail DeSantis in the fall
For the second time in eight years, Democratic voters elected Crist as their gubernatorial candidate, choosing the seasoned veteran over Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who was vying to become the state’s first female governor. Crist has just 11 weeks left to unite his party, energize the Democratic base and convince independent voters that the state needs a new leadership.
The stakes for Democrats are high, and not just in Florida, where DeSantis has already pushed through an aggressive conservative agenda, vowing a second term will bring new measures to further restrict abortion and make it easier to carry a gun in audience. But National Democrats are also now looking for Crist to slow DeSantis’ rise ahead of a planned campaign for the White House in 2024.
Florida’s latest controversial Senate race officially takes shape
The Senate race between Rubio and Demings is on.
Demings won his primary on Tuesday and Rubio was unopposed, staging a race that Republicans think they should easily win, but which gives Democrats another chance to show they can win statewide in a place that has slipped away for years.
The two have been focused on each other for months – their primaries were not competitive – but on Tuesday night the contours of the race were clear: Rubio plans to make Demings a “Pelosi puppet” who is inextricably tied to President Joe Biden, while Demings plans to attack Rubio as ineffectual, selfish and married to a Trump-dominated Republican Party.
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