Issue #73: My Florida State Senate Ratings
A 40-seat chamber, only 6 seats have real contests
The Florida midterms are just 3 weeks away, and while the battle for Governor and US Senate dominates the airwaves, there are many down-ballot races to follow. For this substack, I am sharing my ratings for the Florida Senate. I’ve written 5,000 words breaking down any district not considered SAFE for either party.
Full State Senate Ratings Article.
A quick breakdown of the article goes as follows. However, I encourage you all to give the full article a detailed read.
The State Senate districts approved this year have a modest GOP edge. However, they are not nearly as aggressive as the Congressional gerrymander that Ron DeSantis rammed through. The data shows that the map gave Trump 24 Senate Districts to Biden’s 16. In the 2018 Governor race, DeSantis won 22 vs Gillum’s 18.
The top-line partisan data gives us a first window into how likely a district is to go GOP or DEM. However, on-the-ground circumstances effect these ratings as well. The Florida GOP has far more resources than Democratic groups, resulting in many districts where the Republican has a massive financial advantage. Democrats are focused on retaining or flipping on a few districts, wary of divided their limited resources too far. I’ll offer some quick notes in this substack but every non-SAFE rating is explained in detail in my article.
First things first, here are my State Senate Ratings.
Right now, I have two hyper-competitive races; SD14 and SD38, leaning towards Democrats. SD10, a suburb of Orlando, is a pure tossup. Meanwhile, SD3, a marginal Biden district is more-likely-than-not to see Incumbent Loranne Ausley fall to GOP recruit Corey Simon. I’ll touch on a couple highlights here, but again I say go to the article for more.
Senate 3
First lets talk about Senate District 3, who’s rating is probably getting the most attention since I’m saying a Democratic incumbent is in danger. Senator Ausley, elected in 2020, is facing a bad mix of circumstances. First, she is in a district that only backed Biden by 3%. Her 2020 seat gave Biden a 9% margin, but the district had to expand to even out its population; forcing into more rural counties.
Running in a narrow Biden seat in a midterm will always be a problem for a democrat. What is made worse for Ausley is that Republicans recruited Corey Simon, an African-American Republican who led Volunteer Florida and had a legendary career playing football at FSU. Ausley risks losing a significant minority of the black vote to Simon, and for Democrats in SD3, they cannot afford to bleed support with such a critical base. The Ausley campaign is also now embroiled in controversy over a mailer sent out from Florida Democrats that attacked Simon on not backing gun control, but has this imagery.
Needless to say, this idiotic design has put Ausley on the defense. Meanwhile, the GOP is dumping resources into the district. Considering the district is 6 points redder than in 2020, and Ausley only won her seat by 7 points last time, this is a bad position to be in.
Ausley is likely to do worse in the African-American communities, which make up 24% of registered voters, than she did in 2020. While she has raised a good deal of cash, the GOP is spending big here. All the data points to a Simon edge in this race.
Senate 14
One Democratic incumbent in better shape is Senator Janet Cruz. She is running for re-election in Tampa Bay’s SD14, which largely mirror’s the SD18 she flipped in 2020. Her district backed Biden by 4%.
Biden lost ground to Clinton in the district due to shedding votes in the Hispanic communities in the central part of the seat.
However, these communities are the same area that Cruz represented in the state house. She is much stronger with Hispanics than Biden was. On top of this, Cruz has raised 7 figures for her re-election, far outpacing her opponent, who is a first-time candidate.
With the election 3 weeks out, Cruz is clearly in the drivers seat.
Senate 10
Across the I-4 corridor lies SD10, where Incumbent Republican Jason Brodeur is by far the most vulnerable GOP Senator. Brodeur initially won a district in 2020 that Biden won by just a couple hundred votes. Now he is running for re-election in a seat Biden won by 4.5% and that Democrats are surging in.
Brodeur is also being haunted by continued investigations into a 2020 scheme to run a NPA candidate who then had dark-money groups propping them up as a liberal alternative. You can read more about that in my substack piece from several months ago.
This scandal, which has led to indictments and is ongoing, is weighing Brodeur down. He benefits, however, from his opponent, State Representative Joy Goff-Marcil, being a weak fundraiser. Republicans are heavily outspending in the district, which could save Brodeur. Another question will be how the suburbs vote in this midterm, and what the margins for Governor and Senate look like here. There are many moving and conflicting parts, which means I must say this is a tossup.
Senate 38
Finally (for this substack), a look at SD38, which is technically an open seat that I believe gives Democrats a narrow advantage. This district is one of four Hispanic-majority senate seats in Miami-Dade. This district, however, is the least Hispanic and the least Republican-leaning. The main culprit is it has the smallest Cuban share of the vote.
Even with the massive GOP gains in 2020 with Hispanic voters, this district still voted for Joe Biden by 7%. The best Biden showing in the four Hispanic Dade districts.
Democrats have a very strong recruit in Janelle Perez, an LGBT Cuban who has raised a solid $900,000. She faces first-time candidate Alexis Calatayud, who has been involved in GOP circles for many years. GOP spending is topping Democrats here, largely from party and outside groups. This is the most expensive market in the state. The district is not a Democratic lock, but to me the partisan edge, even after the Biden drop, coupled with a strong Democratic candidate tell me this is at least a tinge bluer than tossup.
Final Notes
I discuss some redistricting notes in the article, as well as talk about SD18 and SD36. I also delve much more into each of the above races. Give it a read. Feel free to yell at me if you disagree with any rating - but ONLY after you read it.