Working To Keep You Informed About What They Don't Want You To Know
DeSANTIS BECOMES PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN 2028 AS WILES SENT PACKING BY TRUMP
REPUBLICAN AMERICA FIRST ACTIVISTS WATCH FROM THE OUTSIDE AS THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT CELEBRATE LOCAL VICTORIES
Republican establishment candidates wearing MAGA hats, are still pretending 11/3/2023 didn’t happen. The numbers are right there. If the Senate math holds, Democrats are looking at a 56–44 majority. In the House, they’ve already won at least 252 seats to Republicans’ 162, with 21 races still uncalled. That isn’t a rounding error. It’s a political earthquake—and some folks are still standing in the rubble insisting the building looks fine.
Despite retaining a Republican Governor and a U.S Senator in Florida, Republicans were dealt a major blow in the miterms nationwide, losing numerous seats that President Donald Trump won by double digits in the 2024 election. Democrats were poised to flip at least seven seats in the Senate and more than 25 seats in the House, penetrating deep into conservative territory in a stunning defeat for the GOP.
On X, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the Republican losses “close to an extinction-level event” and warned the party could struggle to win back its congressional majorities. A grim diagnosis from a governor whose own 2022 reelection came by more than 19 points.
Florida’s governor-elect Byron Donalds had no such cushion. He scraped past David Jolly by just 1.29 percentage points—50.01% to 48.72%. Without DeSantis’s endorsement, Donalds no doubt would have joined the rest of the President Trump's Republican Party wreckage. For a campaign dressed up as a triumph, that’s an awfully narrow ledge to call a victory.
In a post on X, Florida Governor DeSantis who saved Florida Governor elect Byron Donalds from inevitable defeat with an endorsement said, “This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans, in many parts of the country, as we have seen probably in the last hundred years.” He warned that Republicans are going to have a difficult time recovering their majorities in Congress.
On X, DeSantis warned the party could struggle to win back its congressional majorities. A grim diagnosis from a governor whose own 2022 reelection came by more than 19 points.
DeSantis, who has been mentioned as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, addressed the losses during a press conference on a Wednesday morning after the election results, as Republicans grappled with the election results. He warned that Republicans are going to have a difficult time recovering their majorities in Congress. “Dems will get 55 Senate seats and 250+ House seats,” he wrote.
“Looking at the Senate map and considering such a massive House margin, it is very unlikely Republicans will recapture the Congress in 2028. Might not have a shot at Senate control until 2032.”
DeSantis pointed to losses in Texas as especially painful for the GOP as Democrats swept statewide offices, including the Senate and governor races, despite the state’s longtime reputation as a conservative stronghold.
“That’s something that can reverberate for the next decade or more, and if the Republican Party doesn’t have Texas as an anchor, then we are not going to be viable nationally going forward,” he said.
DeSantis and Smith
On the eve of the midterms, Florida’s governor told Republicans to stop gaslighting voters about gas prices. Appearing on Stephen A. Smith’s SiriusXM show, Straight Shooter with Stephen A., he said "what drivers already knew at the pump: the war with Iran is pushing costs up, and pretending otherwise is corroding voters’ trust."
“Gas is higher. It hurts people, working class people, and it’s higher because of the Iran conflict,” DeSantis said. “If you can’t admit that to voters, then you’re gaslighting them, and they’re not going to listen to you on other things.”
DeSantis also explained why he thinks the war has hurt Republicans politically. “So here’s the thing with Iran and why I think it’s been a big, big drag,” DeSantis said. “We have some of our voters who’ve checked out because they’re like, I didn’t want any more Middle East wars and now we’re doing it.”
Vance and Netanyahu
DeSantis left out the "eliphant in the room" that J.D. Vance and other America First voices have raised: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lobbied hard for the United States to join Israel in striking Iran’s regime. Funny how the war’s price at the pump made the speech—but the question of who pushed America into it didn’t.
Wiles
One of the few to emerge from the Trump debacle looking like a winner is DeSantis—the man Trump once banished to the political wilderness for daring to challenge him, and whose bitter feud with now Trumps' former Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was hardly a secret.
Wiles was forced out of Tallahassee in 2019 by DeSantis after she tried to take control of the Republican Party of Florida, while working as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners. Wiles was also removed from President Donald Trump’s political team at the request of DeSantis in 2019. Unfortunetly for Trump, Republican America First activists and America -- Trump brought her back.
Tallahasee former lobbyist Wiles named Statesperson of the Year by the RPOF Chairman and fellow Tallahassee lobbyist Evan Power who purged thousands of America First activists on 8/2/25 as Donalds looks on.
Wiles should have been shown the door long ago with her advice helped steer Republicans toward one losing candidate after another.
Wiles' senior political advisors Steven Cheung and Chris LaCivita
Steven Cheung was involved in 2026 campaign communications. As White House communications director, he traveled with President Trump during the 2026 campaign-rally push. Chris LaCivita was involved as a GOP strategist. He co-managed Trump’s 2026 campaign and, in 2026, was a senior adviser at MAGA Inc., working with James Blair on Republican midterm strategy.
Donahue
With Trump’s departure from the White House eventually in view and Wiles out, DeSantis may get another shot at Washington in 2029. Shawn Donahue, professor of political science at the University at Buffalo, gave credence to that possibility when he told Newsweek that an influx of more conservative residents under the DeSantis administration is a reason why Florida may not have moved as much as other states.
“It seemed to have maybe given them enough of a cushion to withstand the blue tsunami,” he said. The results could be an argument in favor of DeSantis if he decides to run for president in 2028, he said.
Even with DeSantis’s endorsement in his vaunted “Free State of Florida”—where Republicans already held the governor’s office and a U.S. Senate seat—the race was "no cakewalk." For a party that likes to advertise Florida as safely in its pocket, the scramble was an awkward reminder: even a locked-in state can start rattling the door.
Donalds’ victory in the 2026 Florida gubernatorial election was not a “cake walk” — it was one of the most competitive races in the state in nearly a decade, decided by just over one percentage point.
Bottom line: Far from a “cake walk,” Donalds’ win was a razor-close, high-stakes battle — a testament to a competitive political climate rather than a foregone conclusion.
Had DeSantis kept his endorsement in his pocket—and kept dismissing Donalds as he had in Tampa, where he said Donalds “just hasn’t been a part” of Florida Republicans’ victories over the Left—Donalds would have have been toast.
Apparently, yesterday’s political dead weight can become today’s indispensable ally with one well-timed endorsement. In politics, even contempt has an expiration date.
Ron and Casey DeSantis
DeSantis also praised his wife Casey DeSantis as someone who could do better than he did and carry his conservative accomplishments “to the next level.”
So, the voters got the full political theater: Donalds was supposedly absent from the victories—right up until his campaign needed the governor’s blessing. In Florida politics, principles may be permanent; endorsements, apparently, have a more flexible schedule.
There is little doubt that if the DNC had invested in Florida as heavily as it did in Texas and Michigan, the state might have ridden the blue wave instead of watching from shore. Donalds raised nearly $175 million to Jolly’s $22 million—a staggering advantage. Apparently, when one side has a financial ocean and the other gets a bucket, the outcome is less a surprise than a receipt.
Nixon
There was never much chance the DNC would pour money into another statewide race featuring an anti-Israel candidate—DSA-backed Angie Nixon—on the ticket alongside Florida Governor candidate Jolly. With AIPAC opposing her, the party’s money managers apparently decided Florida wasn’t worth the risk.
Moody
That left the Republican establishment free to keep its grip. Donalds and establishment Senate candidate Ashley Moody squeaked by—and the gatekeepers got to call it a victory. Nothing says democracy like making sure the challengers never get enough oxygen to threaten the people already in power.
Schumer
DSA-backed Nixon came within roughly three points of a U.S. Senate seat. Nixon lost to Moody after getting little investment from national Democratic funding groups managed by AIPAC's Democrat Senate leader Chuck Schumer, compared to the tens of millions poured into winning Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.
Nixon’s supporters point out she came within striking distance of defeating Moody—a tantalizing glimpse of what real party investment might have accomplished. Give a candidate like Nixon the resources and backing her campaign deserved, they argue, and the result could have been different. Instead, the party watched a winnable race from a safe distance, then had the nerve to act surprised when the opportunity slipped away.
Dempster
“Her loss is 100% on the national and Florida state party. If she’d had even a modicum of support she could have won,” former Miami-Dade County Democratic Party Chairman Robert Dempster said.
“We may have lost this battle, but the war is not over, and I need y’all to stay in this fight,” Nixon told a packed crowd decked out in pink in a Jacksonville warehouse. “2028 is around the corner, so Ashley Moody, you better get it right cause we’re coming for you.”
A Nixon Gainesville supporter, Linda Jackson’s verdict after the results: “There’s a lot of anti-Blackness in the Democratic Party.” The party, she said, “can no longer continue to have our labor and then not accept our leadership.”
A brutal indictment of a familiar arrangement: welcome the work, celebrate the slogans, then shut the door when it’s time to share power.
After the turnout successes of her campaign, some of her closest Nixon's supporters are calling for a reckoning within the party that prioritizes the leadership of progressive Black women like Nixon.
Fried
Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried who has clashed with Nixon at various points and is deep in the pockets of the AIPAC pro-Israeli lobby — said Tuesday that she has no plans of leaving her leadership post anytime soon as she too looks ahead to the next election.
In the local Florida U.S Congressional District 16 race Republican Sydney Gruters reportedly needed more than $4.5 million to win a district Republicans held by 240,781 registered voters to Democrats’ 150,108. So much for an unbeatable red wall.
REPUBLICAN AMERICA FIRST ACTIVISTS WATCH FROM THE OUTSIDE AS THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN ESTABLISHMENT CELEBRATE THEIR VICTORIES
The Pat Neal/Carlos Beruff/Rex Jensen Gang of Six (James Buchanan/Joe Gruters/Jim Boyd/Bill Connerly/Fiona McFarland/ Will Robinson)
In Sarasota and Manatee counties—as across Florida—it was business as usual: the candidates favored by the U.S Congressman Vern Buchanan and pay-to-play developer circle of Pat Neal, Carlos Beruff, and Rex Jensen—the so-called “Gang of Six”—won without even promising to overturn SB 180.
The retiring U.S Congressman Vern Buchanan Gang keep their influence, the winners keep their seats, and Florida keeps sinking deeper into Paradise Lost.
The the Goodman/Pedicini Gang of Five Manatee County Commission (George Kruse/Ballard/MikeRahn/Tal Saddequ/Tara Poulton
Buchanan celebrating on election night alongside RPOF Chairman Evan Power’s handpicked MREC chair Mark Flanigan. Power is the one who purged hundreds of America First activists and deposed elected MREC State Committeeman and woman Trent Wayman and Jackie Heisse. Also in the photo: two members of Manatee County’s notorious Goodman–Pedicini Gang of Five, Tara Paulton and Amanda Ballard. Nothing says “grassroots democracy” quite like a purge.
Flanigan and Mike Rahn—the Goodman–Pedicini Gang of Five’s newly minted KVOs—are applauding Ballard and Buchanan’s Republican establishment victories. The takeover’s cheering section is right on cue: same old power, same old applause, dressed up as a triumph.
The Manatee REC "Royal family" Vern Buchana/Sandy Buchanan/James Buchanan
Flanigan and Buchanan with the Vern Buchanan anointed U.S Congresswoman Sydney Gruters at the MREC celebration.
In Sarasota County, the record tells a curious narrative for Republican Heidi Brandt being elected to the Sarasota County School Board. The Brandt resume reads: 12 years in New York City before moving to Sarasota, with only a documented work as managing director of a sex-texting firm; then, in Sarasota, PTO president of Southside Elementary School—where her major school involvement included managing bake sales. ead them—or keep arguing with the calculator until it gives up.
Although Donalds and Moody won, Florida Republican Buchanan establishment candidates won and SREC Chairman Jack Brill's School Board sextexter Brandt also won, but does anyone realy beleive those candidates will form a mandate to clean up pay-to-play politics, take on the developers, or remove the RPOF' Evan Power, who purged thousands of America First activists? None of those winners promised voters that.
The Republican establishment candidates were too busy congratulating themselves. Fine. Keep the hats, keep the slogans, keep pretending the old arithmetic still guarantees victory.
In the meantime, Florida may not be a safe Republican state anymore. It may be the next state both parties have to fight for in 2028. That’s what yesterday’s numbers suggest. The only question is whether Florida Republicans will read them—or keep arguing with the calculator and purging America First activists.
Jon Susce