Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: Florida Just Shocked Everyone

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Tim Miller was on with Katy Tur to take on a surprising shift in Florida politics after Democrats flip a seat in Trump’s own backyard. Is this a one-off—or the start of something bigger? Plus: the corruption questions that still aren’t being investigated—and what it all could mean for 2026.Visit https://upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

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which detects an accident the moment it happens and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Hey, everybody, Tim Moore from the Boatwork. I just got off with Katie Turr, Ashley Parker, Carol Lennox,

some of my faves on MS now. I wanted to kind of extend my remarks because I have a little bit of unusual optimism about the political landscape right now. And so I didn't want to deny you guys that. I talked about it a little bit on the on the program. Then you'll notice him in a different shirt. I went downstairs,

started playing with my daughter outside. Beautiful day in Louisiana. Put on a short sleeve shirt. I was like, you know what? No, I got one more thing to say. I got one more thing to say. So anyway,

we talk at the beginning of the show, you know, about a bunch of the parade of terrible. You know, the corruption in the Trump administration, how there's no white collar crime being invested. investigated now. Actually, I reference this chart. We can just put this chart up on the screen right now, as you can kind of see just the downward trajectory of investigating white-collar crime. It's been going on for a while now, but then just falls off a cliff during Trump 2.0. And we discuss

a lot of the other terrible things happening in the Trump administration. Then we come back on to discuss the Florida state legislative race, where the Mar-a-Lago district goes to a Democrat. I do some political analysis on the show, but I want to put a finer point on it. I want to do a little bit of sunshine pumping. I don't want you guys to hold me to this. I still cringe looking back at the post and Seltzer poll video I did in 2024, all excited. So I'm not, you know, take everything with a grain of salt, politics is contingent. Things can change.

But when there's good news, I like to pass it on. And I had a little birdie in my ear, who is. is really, really well sourced in Florida politics, a lot of experience of Florida politics, he's a lot of internal polling data, has a sense for the political environment on the ground. And that person was telling me that if the election was held today, the Democrats could win the governorship or the Senate seat.

Friend of the show, David Jolly, running for governor, friend of the show Alexander Vindman running for Senate. So, you know, at some level we would say that, you know, these are the never-trumper, these are people. I don't take this lightly. It comes from somebody that is in a position to know, like, what the political landscape looks like now, and they think the Democrats go wind floor? That is just a earthquake for our politics for Florida to come back under the map.

Even if that's wrong, even if that person is off by a couple points, even if there's something in the polling, they're ashamed MAGA people that are pissed about Iran and pissed about gas prices, pissed about Epstein and they're not answering pollsters right now. And, you know, there's something wrong with the methodology of the internal data in Florida, even if that's all true and the Democrats lose by five in Florida, let's say. That's still a huge, huge victory. And that's still an eight-point move from 2024 in the Democrats direction. That will have implications. That will lead to just a total blue wave in the House. And the Senate being right on the edge of being in play, they might need to improve a little bit more than that to get the Senate up play.

So to me, you look at Florida and all of a sudden, you start to think blue Florida, a lot of discussion of Texas, a lot of discussion of some of these other states. Florida's not been in people's minds. The Democrats have kind of given up on Florida. But it wasn't that long ago they won in Florida. There are people in Florida that remember voting for Democrats that have changed their mind. Some of those people are going to be upset. Some of them are going to be Hispanic voters who didn't expect the mass deportations to look like they have. Some of them are going to be working class voters who thought that the economy was going to get better.

Some of that is going to be people who are pissed about the war. Some of that is just going to be mega voters who like just are going back to be in Florida man and fighting alligators and watching NASCAR, whatever, you know, going out to Ybor City and having a few pops and meeting a young lady, like getting a tramp stamp. Whatever, whatever it is the Florida people do. Some people are just like, you know what, I'm out. There are not going to be Democrats now. They might be checking out. That's something that's happening. It's something to monitor.

We saw evidence of that in the state legislative race last night. We've seen evidence of this in other congressional special elections in Florida. So evidence of this, even kind of a dour, negative Nancy, Democratic consultant from Florida. And he will love that I would say this. Steve, shout out to my man, Steve. He wrote for the bulwark about potential. and opportunities that Democrats have, looking forward. And he shouted out a bail Dalton kind of in running in,

unlike the Daytona Beach area of Florida, saying that could be a district that comes into play. I mean, if Democrats are competing in Daytona, they're in business. So a lot of work left to do. Nobody should get over excited. But I was interested. There are few data points that were positive and interesting.

and when I can bring a little bit of sunshine to your life, I'm going to do it. So there you go. Up next, Ashley Parker, Carol Enig, Katie Turr, myself, talking about this and much, much more. Stick around. Subscribe to the feed right here. Scaling a business takes the right expertise at the right time. Upwork helps growing teams quickly bring in specialized freelancers so you can move faster and take the business to the next level.

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You see those numbers. It's the majority of the American public who says this. Tim, is that, is Donald Trump going to face consequences for this? Will he suffer because of these numbers? Well, I mean, I guess I can't speak about eternal suffering or whatever. He's already won't again. So I don't know if he's going to be, God willing, won't be trying to run again. So I don't think he can suffer personally at the ballot box.

The party can. And I think the party is we're already seeing the degree to which the Republicans are suffering in these special elections, which I know we get to. So I do think the Republicans will suffer. That corrupt number just to what we all have been talking about here, it feels a little low to me, and only 54%. And what is happening? I think he mentioned the historian said that it's unprecedented in modern history. It's unprecedented in American history. And we've seen this kind of grift and corruption elsewhere in the world.

And, you know, the things we've disparagingly called the third world or banana republics or whatever. But the Trump family is acting indistinguishable from any of that right now. I mean, we don't exactly know what's happening with these trades. Is it possible that Trump's just so predictable that there's some gamblers out there? there that are like, I bet he's going to taco on Monday morning before the market opens. That's possible. But even if that is the case, right, even if this isn't an insider trade, Trump is getting insider deals. The Trump family is. You know, Jared Kushner and Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are in business with three of the main players in the Iran war right now. Kushner is getting money

from MBS. The Trump family is getting money from UAE as part of their crypto deal. And Cutter gave Trump a plane. And there is unimaginable. amounts of money, a wash right now in the Trump family, some based on corrupt deals, some, who knows, potentially based on inside knowledge, like, we can't be sure because nobody's investigating this stuff. And I think that's like what this comes down to. There is, we cannot know as long as these guys are in charge because nobody's investigating them. I mean, hopefully the Attorney General, New York and other states can start doing these investigations, but we have an, the other thing that is unprecedented is the small number of

white-collar criminal investigations that have happened in the last year. Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of this has to do with national security, both what Carol's been reporting, but also, you know, the market manipulation, the well-timed stock trades and sell-offs and the prediction market stuff, national security based. National security based. You can add in, if you'd like, Higgsath, making a signal chat that included a journalist. It seems like this administration from outward appearances is pretty willy-nilly with national security, where is the Republican Party? Where's Lindsay Graham on this? Well, Lindsay's getting what he wants in Iran, so he's not going to quibble. But maybe some of the other ones you might think would.

I don't know. I think potentially the craziest story of the whole second term so far, competitive category, ties in, you know, this classified doc story to what we're seeing with the war on Iran, was, I believe a week, Carol can correct me, if I'm wrong, I think a week before, we launched the war with Iran, the FBI, Kash Patel, fired FBI agents who specialized in Iranian counterintelligence because they were wrapped up in this classified docs case. Now, why were they involved in the classified docs case? Because among the documents that were in his bathroom in Mar-a-Lago was Iran war plans. And so obviously, the FBI, just doing their due diligence, would bring in Iranian experts to be part of that investigation. It's not like they spearheaded it or they were

part of some deep state targeting Trump. They were called in because of their expertise. Because of that expertise, they were fired. A week later, we go to war with Iran. And the threats on the homeland from potentially, you know, payback or whatever, lone wolf attacks, any of that, skyrocket. And they didn't care. So they hadn't communicated to cash about the war. They don't care about the threats on the homeland. And you see like many examples of this. But to me, that one is the most stark. has flipped blue. Yes, Mar-a-Lago is now blue.

Democrat Emily Gregory defeated a Trump- endorsed Republican for a Florida statehouse seat in the district that includes the president's estate, but Irwin wasn't the only shocker of the night. Republican Josie Tom Cow conceded to Democrat Brian Nathan,

a Navy veteran and union leader in a razor-thin-state Senate special election race in Tampa. Ashley Parker, Tim Miller, still with us. Tim, in his... own backyard. Ouch.

He voted by mail, which is he's also trying to ban in that election. So he did think to vote by mail. I don't know why he didn't trust, why he trusted, rather, that that would go through. But look, I want to get dorky with you on some math here in this district. So Trump wins the Mar-a-Lago legislative district by 11 points in 2024. Last night, the Democrat won by two points. It's about a 13 point swing. Florida, as a whole state, Trump won by 13.

And so, you know, you can only project out so much here. There are plenty of caveats here. It's an off-year special election. Is that going to have the same turnout profile as a midterm? Probably not. But you can start to see the Democrats get their first glimmer of hope in Florida since the Obama era, you know, since Trump took it from them in 2016. And I think there's a lot of reasons for that.

Some of that's economic. Some of that is the South Florida demographics. They thought they were signing up for something that they didn't on immigration. There's a variety of different issues. But I think that Florida all of a sudden, you know, becomes a place that Democrats can get serious about in that governors and Senate race. And that hasn't been the case for a while now. Well, you know Florida pretty well with Jeb.

Have the Democrats really been making, putting a lot of money into Florida? Because last I understood it, in the places that Democrats, you know, lost and places that had turned red. It seemed like they were walking away to focus on emerging purple states, like potentially Georgia, Arizona, et cetera. So have they been making real investment in Florida? Certainly not the last couple cycles. I did notice Ashley smirked when you said that I knew Florida because the job. Ashley was covering that job campaign and gave us the business a lot of times. I just want to bring voice to that smirk. But no, I do think the Democrats have abandoned it at the last couple cycles. I think they did put effort in the right after Trump. Like in 2018,

I believe that's right. When DeSantis beat Andrew Gillum, very close race, like he wins very narrowly. And then the tide starts to turn kind of during the end of Trump won and then through the Biden era. And I think that a lot of Democrats have thrown up their hands. And people now look at Florida and say, this is ridiculous. I don't even a swing state anymore. It's a red state. Republicans say that. DeSantis and his team brags about that. But wasn't that long ago, you know, that they almost beat DeSantis in 18. You know, it's only eight years ago now. And so I do think that you're starting to see signs that maybe it's, you know, I wouldn't call it a swing state again, but it's starting to get back onto the map. Ana Cabrera reports this morning, Emily Gregory, who won the Mar-a-Lago district.

How much did people talk to you about the president? I would say roughly zero. I mean, it really was not a factor for any of my voters, any of my now constituents. They're focused on their lives. They're focused on the absolute crushing cost of goods, the squeeze they are feeling. Why their property insurance has skyrocketed. Why they're losing their health care? Why are our public schools being gutted?

That's what I heard every single day at the door, not the most famous constituent down the road. That's interesting, Tim. Does that tell the Democrats and not talk about Donald Trump so much? I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, that's a good sentiment. I think that Donald Trump is in everybody's faces and everybody's lives, and there's no way to not talk about it. I do think that focusing on other issues besides just complaining about the latest Trump outrage, DeJure is smart.

And to me, one of my takeaways from that is I don't know that, you know, Emily Gregory does not seem to me like the kind of candidate that was recruited in school to the Democratic establishment that they went out and got and they targeted that district. And, you know, to me, at the midterms, there is an element for the Democrats of just running people from communities that represent their communities in places where Republicans have won before. And they might end up finding themselves with a lot of accidental Congress people and state legislators and growing their bench that way because people who knew their communities ran. And they ran in places that hadn't been competitive before that are this time because a lot of voters are upset about costs and Iran and the other issues laid out. Florida, exclamation point. All right, Tim. Ashley, I appreciate it. Thanks for sticking around for the show for us.

We really enjoy having you. The Bell Air Direct app includes crash assist, which detects an accident the moment it happens, and even offers you emergency assistance at the tap of a button. Okay, but what if I don't have an accident? Well, just keep on, keeping on. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply.

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