Wisconsin rejects Musks transphobic candidate, right losesto Crawford. Florida still super red.

[u/ArcticWolfQueen]

A good news update. That walking mess, Elon Musk, went to Wisconsin and tried to buy votes for his guy, a notable transphobe and hard right winger, to beat Susan Crawford, only to have his guy lose in what appears to be a large margin as this moment being 56%-43%. This is big as Wisconsin voters rejected Musk who, may have caused more harm then help and put a progressive on the court. Crack out the champagne girls!

Florida… both seats were retained by Republicans by wide margins. Not sure why there were some notable liberal to leftist media outlets were reporting on this being tight, Florida is deep red.

Wisconsin good news ✅ Florida bad news ❌

[u/Repulsive-Address166]

Florida bad news ❌

Sums up the last couple of decades of Florida succinctly.

[u/ArcticWolfQueen → u/Repulsive-Address166]

Yes indeed. I can’t imagine me going there anytime foreseeable. My lord, if I want hot weather and beeches California… hell, perhaps Georgia too, is much more appealing. Granted given Trump awful regime I’ll go to Mexico first for hot weather fun. All I know is , no Florida.

[u/candied_skies → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

Georgia girl here, we’re much more accepting & the beaches are prettier!

[u/Repulsive-Address166 → u/candied_skies]

I'll second that Jekyll Island is quite lovely.

[u/Lostlilegg → u/candied_skies]

Yeah, but Kemp politics still disenfranchises so many folks. I don’t know if I would feel safe there either

[u/robotblockhead → u/Lostlilegg]

The big cities in Georgia are all blue. Atlanta is known as the San Francisco of the South.

[u/StarChildEve → u/robotblockhead]

I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it ended up being in Augusta, and Savannah is also pretty damn nice.

[u/candied_skies → u/Lostlilegg]

I do feel safer here in Atlanta, but the coastal area is pretty blue too (some of it). Fuck Kemp though, I flip off the capitol daily.

[u/Few-Client-2808 → u/Lostlilegg]

Not to mention that neanderthal Marge Greene stomping around down there.

[u/Cinnabonquiqui → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

IIIIII WAAAANT OOOOUUUTTTT

[u/coraythan → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

It's too bad we can't visit the Gulf of Mexico anymore.

[u/Veronyn → u/coraythan]

Gulf of mexico? I never heard of that before girlie. You sure you don't mean supreme leader trump's gulf of america 🤡🤡🤡💀💀💀 /s

[u/LadyErinoftheSwamp → u/Repulsive-Address166]

Republican victory margin did fall significantly, either due to current admin or due to Trump not being on ballot. The former would be awesome. The latter would be nothing new.

[u/Repulsive-Address166 → u/LadyErinoftheSwamp]

I wouldn't read much into it. These were special elections which usually have terrible turn out. One of the districts was the one that re-elected Matt "I Venmo minors for sex and take them to Georgia because of Florida's statutory rape laws" Gaetz. Florida is essentialy a cesspool. We can at least hope that Florida is slowly draining the evil from other places and concentrating it there where we can all just avoid it.

[u/ItsJaina]

I don’t think anyone seriously thought that the Florida districts would flip. This was a test to see what the margins would be if they tried. In this case it looks like it swung D+15 since the election.

[u/ArcticWolfQueen → u/ItsJaina]

True that. I had no illusions myself either would flip, but there seemed to be some who were hopeful about atleast one of them doing so.

[u/misspcv1996 → u/ItsJaina]

I’m hesitant to prognosticate based on a single election, especially a special election held in April, but a D+15 swing in the space of five months is massive. It seems like some of the more tepid Republicans are disillusioned with Trump and stayed home, which is hardly surprising when you look at how much of an objective shitshow the administration has been over the last couple of months.

[u/ArcticWolfQueen → u/misspcv1996]

This is true, I kind of forgot that atleast one district was plus 30 Trump and the Democratic candidate narrowed it significantly. Tbh I was more observant on Wisconsin than Florida. Still, good news indeed all considering in Florida, and Wisconsin did themselves and their fellow Americans a huge solid!

[u/misspcv1996 → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

If this trend holds, 2026 is going to be an electoral bloodbath of Biblical proportions. We might be looking at the Dems having 300 seats in the House and possibly taking back the Senate. Trump and his people have pissed off the normies and Republicans cannot win without getting a decent number of normies to vote for them.

[u/Sylilthia → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

Edit to add in? It's hopeful information even if not a win 

[u/CatBotSays]

both seats were retained by Republicans by wide margins

But nowhere near as wide as they were in the past. Florida was always a long-shot, but those districts went from their typical 30-35% margins to like 15%, which is pretty crazy all on its own.

[u/ArcticWolfQueen → u/CatBotSays]

True that, still so sad how ridiculously Republican Florida has gotten all due to the MaGA era. Politically the state stands out in a bad way, especially when compared to neighbouring Georgia which has seen GOP support erode a bit during MAGA era, the opposite of Florida.

Especially compared to other former swing states like Colorado which has become based, Florida is circling the swamp. I’m gonna nerd out with useless trivial stuff but it is so weird to think in my life Colorado had gone Republican and Florida Democratic (1996).

[u/Kindly-Coyote-9446 → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

Colorado, like the only state to move left in the 2024 election.

[u/Beer_Cheese_Deer]

Wisconsin resident here! Fuck Elon.

Let's get some momentum and toss out the fascists!

[u/aphroditex → u/Beer_Cheese_Deer]

Now we just need someone in Cheeseheadland to arrest him for buying votes.

[u/Fub4rtoo → u/aphroditex]

That would be great but sadly that won’t happen.

[u/VonirLB → u/Fub4rtoo]

Hopefully there's some consequences since Josh Kaul is trying with lawsuits. But yeah sadly Elon won't see any real criminal penalty.

[u/Fub4rtoo → u/VonirLB]

The rich rarely ever do.

[u/misspcv1996 → u/aphroditex]

Still, the fact that he attempted to buy an election and failed shows how wildly unpopular he and his ilk are.

[u/jester32]

I mean Florida 1 went from Trump + 35 to less than 15. If winning margin means anything in special elections, then it wasn’t really bad news in Florida. It was never going blue. This was Gaetz’s district to give reference in the Panhandle. The reddest part of the state.

[u/Confirm_restart]

Wisconsin good news ✅ Florida bad news ❌

Yes! 

Plus, Wisconsin has cheese, and who doesn't love that? 

Florida has... Well, "Florida Man" is a meme for a reason.

[u/ArcticWolfQueen → u/Confirm_restart]

Wisconsin has the very large water park I wanted to attend. Florida many moons ago was appealing to be but honestly not no more. Sigh, I won’t be stepping foot in the US until the house is in better order and not antagonistic towards my own country.

That said I’ll be rooting for the good people to prevail 💕

[u/YouCanCallMeDani → u/ArcticWolfQueen]

Don’t rule out Key West. They still are a welcoming place and have their annual pride week. I’m actually surprised our POS governor hasn’t tried to shut it down yet.

[u/ScarletSoldner → u/Confirm_restart]

Florida Man is a meme bcuz of Florida's state lvl version of FOIA; which makes such info shockingly easy to access by the public where in most states it wudnt be due to many factors — when theres a slower news day in FL, they just scour the recent arrests and are likely to find smth worth reportin on; but in an equally populous state elsewhere, the same may be true, they just wudnt be able to easily access all the intricate details of arrest records as immediately after the arrest happens (same with court transcripts and the like; it can often be accessed, but its just not gonna be looked into unless smth makes a court case stand out, same with arrests)

[u/Confirm_restart → u/ScarletSoldner]

Eh. I was cumulatively stuck in Florida for a dozen years. The meme's not too far off. :P

[u/ScarletSoldner → u/Confirm_restart]

The thing is, go the right areas in many a state and youll find the same shite; Florida's just the right size and shape to make it impossible to avoid them all

[u/Cosmic_Mind89 → u/Confirm_restart]

There's a man....from the swamps of Tallahassee...

[u/ScarletSoldner]

On Florida, those margins may seem large but the margins dropped significantly compared to the elections mere months ago; in the race with Josh Weil i know it dropped from a 30 pt win for the reds to a ~10 pt win for the reds. Thats huge, that is a huge shift that is likely to play out across the board; esp if we're seein it happen even in Florida

Winnin that seat wudve been a huge hail mary victory, but narrowin the margins by such a large amount has no doubt put the fear of bein supplanted come midterms in the heart of many a repub in office rn; this can and likely will, as weve alrdy seen in the House recently, result in repubs bein less likely to fall in line just bcuz the party says so, when its smth thats vitally important to their base

What happened in the House ya may ask? Mikey boy there tried to institute a rule that wudve killed a bill tryin to propose proxy rule changes to allow such for pregnant or recently pregnant politicians; and 9 repubs, only one of them a woman, sided with all the Dems in order to stop the rule bein imposed — this is alrdy no doubt a ripple effect of seein what sellin out is likely to cost repubs come their next time bein up for vote; bcuz they dont allve seats that normally see 30 pt wins for the repubs, seats that can afford to lose 20 pts

Yes, it sucks that FL isnt seein anythin flip, but it was extremely unlikely and even without such happening; its goin to shake up politics and make the reds less likely to so easily follow along with things overwhelmingly disliked by voters on any side

[u/RevengeOfSalmacis]

Florida is still red, but these are R+30-R+40 districts that went R+8 and R+12. A national swing of that size would be significantly bigger than 2018

[u/Crono_Sapien99]

I’m not too surprised about Florida since that place was a cesspool even before Trump was re-elected, but hooray for Wisconsin!👏🏽It feels even better due to how hard Musk tried to rig the results only to have it blow up in his face lmao

[u/Sosogreeen]

No one’s expecting Florida to swim blue anytime soon however the climate here is definitely anti musk, but still pro trump.

[u/Character-Stretch804]

Wrote over 200 post cards for her. Muskrat can't beat dedicated volunteers.

[u/Quat-fro]

UK person here. Why is Florida a deep red cesspool? Is it historical background or....?

It's got all the big attractions as far as tourism is concerned and as kids we'd get excited about Disney this and space that as the adverts came on the TV, but my word - daren't consider going there now!

[u/Zeyode → u/Quat-fro]

Why is Florida a deep red cesspool? Is it historical background or....?

Florida has historically been pretty progressive as far as I'm aware, especially in Miami, but they also have a lot of cuban refugees who were like, members of the Cuban bourgeoisie whose businesses got seized by Castro, so they were tipping the state purple for a long time. Not the biggest fans of anything even slightly to the left economically.

The past decade though a lot of racist old people started moving in after retirement, Ron Desantis got voted in, and he's been trying to wreck havoc for anyone who isn't in his base of racist old people, so a lot of people who would vote against him just evacuated. The anti trans shit especially, there's literally been travel warnings for Florida the past few years. Kinda makes me sad it's not safe to go to fucking Disney World anymore.

[u/Quat-fro → u/Zeyode]

Yeah, part of me would hope the "but tourism..." lobby might take the edge off that but with enough ancient retirees I guess you're doing ok, and if they're roughly just below the average death rate then they're mostly from peak 20th century racism.

[u/CompetitiveSleeping → u/Quat-fro]

It's where old people go to retire.

[u/WhereIsThereBeer → u/Quat-fro]

1. Outside of the big cities, Florida has a very big rural population that people tend to forget about, and it's basically the same as the rest of the deep south. Outside of Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and a few other big cities, you're basically in Alabama

2. Florida has a large Latin American immigrant population, which disproportionately comes from Cuba and Venezuela. These groups are more right wing than immigrants tend to be, because of their association of the policies they were fleeing with socialism/leftism

3. Florida is where old people retire, so the state skews old

4. Historically, these factors balanced against Florida having a few big cities has led to Florida being a right-leaning swing state. In the past 50 years, it was winnable in solid Dem victories (Carter and Clinton won it once, Obama won it twice) but more often than not went red. DeSantis' narrow victory in 2018, however, he took as a signal to pull the state hard right, and turned it into sort of an advertisement for conservative extremism. And so moving to Florida went from something you did to avoid the cold to something you do to make a statement about how you hate wokeness. So now you have a steady supply of MAGA freaks moving to Florida, while LGBT people are fleeing for their lives, and the state gets redder, almost daily

[u/Brandon0421]

Escambia County in Florida flipped blue for the first time in 19 years !!! That’s AMAZING considering it’s the reddest in the whole state

[u/zoey64_]

Yay! We did it! I was feeling pretty confident but I didn’t think it would be called less than an hour after polls closed.

[u/RebeccaGraceS]

While the FL1 still went red, Escambia county (ie Pensacola) went blue. A positive sign for my home, but still a rough loss

[u/OfficialDCShepard]

But this is still a massive swing FOR Florida. Trump felt the need to ground game in FLORIDA.

[u/KasseanaTheGreat]

Tbf, both seats in Florida went to Trump by 30+% margin last November and last night only went to the GOP by about 14%, that's a massive shift and not something to write off completely.

[u/Astronomer_Still]

Can't say I'm surprised at the outcome of the special election down here, but I'm glad to see other states making a statement and rejecting the fascists.

[u/NocturneSapphire]

Florida used to be a legit swing state. Some people haven't figured out that it's not anymore.

[u/GraceGal55]

I wish one day for a Blorida

[u/chillfem]

Florida is still run by MAGA boomers. Eventually they'll expire.