Do Republicans need to ditch Trump before the midterms?

Sarah Smith (0:00)

If Republicans are in trouble in Florida, surely that must mean they're in trouble everywhere. Of all the tight races we are following across the country, the one to replace Ron DeSantis as the governor of Florida is turning into a bit of a nail-biter, and the Republican candidate's been trying to distance himself from Donald Trump as a result. Anthony has been down in the Sunshine State to find out more about what's going on and how voters' concerns in Florida tell us about the key issues facing the party right across the country. What is Republican strategy to try and take on Democrats, and has Donald Trump's name become a millstone around his candidates' necks?

Welcome to Americast.

SPEAKER_3 (0:42)

Americast from BBC News.

SPEAKER_4 (0:44)

Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league.

SPEAKER_5 (0:50)

The tide is coming, and this time we intend to win it all.

SPEAKER_6 (0:56)

See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.

Mark Short (1:08)

When I'm not around, you're going to be broke. There's not going to be anybody to report on.

SPEAKER_5 (1:12)

Nobody gives a damn about anybody else.

Sarah Smith (1:18)

Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC studio in Washington.

Anthony Zurcher (1:22)

And it's Anthony right here next to Sarah in Washington, DC.

Sarah Smith (1:25)

And we haven't seen each other for a while, Anthony, and partly because you've been off in Florida, which confused me when I first heard, that's where you'd gone, because it's not exactly what you would call a swing state these days, not since 2000 when the race came down so close between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Has it been considered in play at all? Has it, Florida?

Anthony Zurcher (1:45)

Yeah, not exactly a swing state. Republican dominated. If you remember back in 2018 in this midterm elections, when Democrats did really well, it was a blue wave that year too, an incumbent Senator Nelson, a Democrat got ousted by Rick Scott, a Republican.

If anything, Florida has been in the face of some Democratic victories, trending the other way, becoming more conservative. It wasn't really in play in the 2024 presidential election. Yeah, I didn't go there because it's a battleground state. I went there because polls do show that this governor's race there between Byron Donalds, the Republican, and David Jolly, the Democrat, is within the margin of errors. I also wanted to get a feel for how Republican candidates, even in supposedly safe areas, are pitching themselves to a voting block that is not happy with the way things are going, are worried about high prices, worried about affordability, worried about gasoline prices, all of that. So how were they able to sell themselves in this hostile environment essentially?

Sarah Smith (2:50)

What a fascinating place to go and find that the environment is hostile towards Republicans, because as you say, it is pretty solidly rare. But it's also, I associate, anytime I've been in Florida in the last few years with it being a real MAGA heartland. These aren't just people who are interested in lower taxes, for instance. There's a lot of real dedication to Donald Trump, who of course does have his Southern White House in Mar-a-Lago, right there in Florida in Palm Beach, doesn't he? So of all the places to feel like they're turning on MAGA candidates, it's really saying something about this election that it's Florida.

Anthony Zurcher (3:22)

Yeah, Florida is a blend of different things, right? You've got the more deep Southern traditional cultural conservatives in the Northern part of the state along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts heading down to South Florida, which is awash in various different types of Latin culture, big Cuban population, Cuban-American population, big Venezuelan, Colombian, ex-pat population, which have also trended, we saw in 2024, towards Donald Trump. He actually carried Miami, Dade County, where the city of Miami is, for the first time in decades, a Republican winning that area. Representative of the inroads that Trump made with Hispanic voters.

One thing I found, not just affordability, not just the high price of gas and diesel, the high price of housing. They're really big on insurance on homes, which has been going up a lot. Homeowners Association fees, which apparently are really big in Florida, because of insurance, because of all these other influences, pressures on housing prices. But they also care among the Hispanic community a lot about immigration and immigration enforcement. You saw Maria Salazar, which I think we talked about in the past. She's a congresswoman from the Miami area, a Republican, actually go on air and directly to the camera criticized Donald Trump for his immigration enforcement, saying that he was going too far.