Florida Republicans have spent years treating the Sunshine State as an unshakeable red firewall. Nearly two dozen GOP operatives, consultants and politicians now tell Politico that confidence is starting to crack.
The same national headwinds hurting Republicans elsewhere, including Trump's war in Iran, resulting high gas prices, Hispanic voters souring on aggressive immigration enforcement, and persistent affordability concerns, are hitting Florida too. Polling now shows several statewide races within the margin of error, including for governor and U.S. Senate.
Former Florida GOP congressman Carlos Curbelo, who lost his own seat during the 2018 blue wave, said the mood among former colleagues feels eerily familiar.
"It's definitely 2018 vibes out there," Curbelo said. "A lot of former colleagues are bracing for the worst."
One anonymous Florida GOP county chair put the party's condition in stark terms: "We are not on life support. But we are hemorrhaging."
Republicans still hold structural advantages: gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds has outraised Democratic opponent David Jolly roughly tenfold, and the party maintains a 1.55 million voter registration edge statewide. But that registration advantage may be softer than it looks.
One GOP consultant's internal analysis found the vast majority of that voter base actually dates back to before DeSantis's 2022 reelection, with the newer additions mostly consisting of former Democrats or previously unaffiliated voters, not longtime committed conservatives, according to pollster Brad Coker, who described many of these newer registrants as potentially "squishy."
Immigration enforcement is proving especially thorny. Miami Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, herself the daughter of Cuban exiles, launched an ad last week arguing deportation efforts had "gone too far," while Trump has drawn attention for cozying up publicly with Democratic socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Venezuela's interim leader Delcy Rodríguez, complicating his standing with South Florida's Cuban and Venezuelan diaspora.
The Senate race carries its own complications. Democratic nominee Angie Nixon, a state representative who joined the Democratic Socialists of America in June, risks alienating conservative Cuban and Venezuelan voters, but Republicans worry her energetic grassroots style could mobilize Black, young and progressive voters who stayed home in past cycles.
Meanwhile, Republican nominee Ashley Moody has drawn internal party comparisons to another cautious, low-energy campaigner, former President Biden, with her television ad spending so far concentrated in the Tampa-to-Daytona swing region rather than the heavily Cuban and Venezuelan communities of South Florida.
Independent strategist Alex Patton, who left the GOP after Trump's takeover of the party, said Florida's electorate feels angrier than he's seen in a long time.
"The perfect storm exists for Democratic surprises," Patton said.