DeSantis Was Not on the Ballot, Still Won in the Election

Photo by Governor Ron DeSantis, Facebook

As a Republican, Governor Ron DeSantis won in this year’s election because the next president of the United States is a Republican, and the Senate and House majorities are both Republican. More than that though, Florida’s Amendments 3 and 4 both failed, which DeSantis plainly stated in a post on X at 8:03 p.m. on November 5. 

He did not try to brag or rub it in. He simply stated, “With polls now closed in Florida–Amendment 3 has failed. Amendment 4 has failed”. 

While it is true that neither amendment accumulated the 60% of “yes” votes needed to pass, both amendments still had more “yes” votes than “no” votes. Amendments 3 and 4 were approved by 55.9% and 57.16% of Florida voters, respectively. 

Evidently, the voters as a majority sided with the amendments, as they both came close to passing. Nonetheless, this is still a win for DeSantis, who put so much time, energy, and funding into earning enough “no” votes.

University of Central Florida political scientist Aubrey Jewett made a statement about DeSantis’ win and how much DeSantis put into this win during an interview with WUCF TV last week. 

Although he believed that it was possible for them to pass, Jewett “was not surprised” that Amendments 3 and 4 did not pass despite similar amendments passing in other states. However, he also said that most other states only require a 50% majority for an amendment to pass compared to Florida’s 60%.

In part, Jewett attributes the failure of these two amendments to the uptick in Republican voters in Florida and to the efforts DeSantis made. “He spent full time for the past three or four weeks raising money and fighting against them and even going so far as to stretch the law”, said Jewett.

He also discussed the controversy surrounding the time that DeSantis had “the state agencies…run ads that were basically campaign ads against” the two amendments. He clarified that they were not campaign ads “in the legal sense” but that they were still “very effective in leading the opposition”. 

In addition, Jewett claimed that after the 2022 election, when DeSantis won by 20 points, Florida may have still been a swing state, but the 2024 election showed an apparent change. He says that “Florida is clearly a red state for the time being”. 

Article by Ema Tibbetts