The NPR Politics Podcast - What Florida's primaries tell us about American voters

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

While it may not be the swing state it once was, the candidates and outcomes in Florida's primary elections provide some clues as to where U.S. politics are going in the future. We look at some of the key races and their impacts.This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, and voting correspondents Miles Parks & Ashley Lopez.This podcast was produced and edited by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It is once again election day in America, or at least part of America. Today on the pod, how the primaries in Florida are bringing up themes that we are seeing nationally. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting and am from Florida. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And I am also from Florida. We have a Florida man and a Florida woman. Good luck, everyone. Never been more excited. I can say that a lot of podcasts, but this one, this one might take the cake. So let's start, though, with these themes that we mentioned. Miles, how are you thinking

about these races? Man, this primary election day has everything. Everything we've been talking about all year is somewhere in the Florida map today. I mean, the top one is something we've talked about a lot, which is the sort of far left Democratic socialist wing of the Democratic Party versus the sort of mainstream electability argument of the Democratic Party. We're seeing that in a number of races in Florida, notably in the Senate race for the seat that was vacated by Marco Rubio when he joined the Trump administration. But we're also seeing in a couple house races in South Florida as well. Another theme we've talked a lot about voters in scandal. How do voters like voting for a candidate who's embroiled in scandal?

We have multiple house races where an incumbent or a semi-incumbent, I should say, are running who are currently embroiled in scandal. We've also got redistricting. Florida is one of the states that ripped up their map. redistricted to try to give Republicans an advantage at the behest of Donald Trump. We're going to see how some of these new maps are playing out. It's also causing a lot of chaos, a lot of people running in a lot of these primaries because there's a lot of open seats. And then lastly, is minority representation in government. This is something we talked about connected to the redistricting effort. But there's the potential due to some of these results that black representation in Congress in Florida could be lower than has been in decades. I mean, it's also worth remembering that another big part of the demographic that is to watch in Florida is always going to be Hispanic voters. Like, you know, when you're talking about South Florida, this is more Republican-leaning voters. Of course, there's your Puerto Rican, more left-leaning voters out in central Florida. So they're always sort of the wildcard in elections and primaries. They're not as interesting because it's primaries. This is the parties fighting it out. But what I'm

like interested in is I think it's worth remembering that Ron DeSantis, the current governor, is term limited. So it is the end of an era of the governor. of DeSantis. And this is going to be a gut check of where the Democratic and the Republican Party stand after all that because that was a pretty big shift in the politics there. This was, you know, DeSantis, you know, became a national figure in this like post anti-woke era. And I, you know, it is going to be interesting to see where especially progressives are now and how, how able they are to win to win elections right now. And that debate about the sort of socialism label that's been ongoing in Democratic primary. this whole year is no more interesting than in Florida, where a lot of the people in Florida, a lot of the Democrats in Florida have history with socialist regimes in South America. You know what I mean? And so how they perceive the concept of a Democratic socialist is going to be different than how somebody in, say, Michigan perceives that. All right. Well, let's start with the governor's race. As you say, Ron DeSantis can't run again. It's fascinating to me just who these

candidates are and what they say about the state of their parties in Florida. So let's start with Byron Donald's. He is the Trump endorsed candidate. He's a congressman. He's African American. And he is very much in the MAGA wing. He is. I mean, this is somebody who got into politics through the Tea Party movement and is now running for governor. It seems like it's pretty much a shoe in there are a couple other Republican candidates, notably James Fishback, who's a pretty controversial far-right figure. And so I think. to me watching whether Donald's wins, but by how much and whether it seems like he is able to coalesce these different factions of the Republican Party. Because also he's had a little bit of a rocky relationship with Governor DeSantis. He actually endorsed President Trump in that Republican primary back in 2024.

And that seems to have maybe ruffled some feathers around there. And the current lieutenant governor is also running in that primary, too. So that's going to be kind of an interesting dynamic to watch. Yeah. And I just want to say, I think it is interesting. This is now several examples of members of Congress running for governorships. Like that is also an indicator of how much people hate being in Congress right now. Because usually, you know, you'll wait years to sort of vie for a Senate seat and kind of stay in Congress that way. But a lot of, you know, we had Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey. I mean, this is becoming a job that people are sort of running to the hills from besides the fact that we have a bunch of people just retiring outright. Right, right. This is like a cycle where a lot of people are leaving.

Ashley, let's talk about the Democratic side because I had to do a double take there. The likely Democratic nominee is a man named David Jolly, who was a Republican congressman from Florida. Right. This is now another Florida trend. For those paying attention who are keeping score about what's happening in Florida, Charlie Christ, a former Republican who during the Obama era switched parties to become a Democrat and ran for governor just for. years ago and lost. David Jolly is trying the same thing. Let's see if now independence and more centrist Republicans are open to voting for a Democrat. We'll see. I think Byron Donald's is obviously positioned well in a state like Florida that has become increasingly Republican over the years. But it is interesting that this has now happened twice in the row. And it's interesting to see Jolly kind of in this current moment run unapologetically as a moderate. You know, I mean, he is somebody. I think

he is seeing the writing on the wall in Florida, which is. just in the last few years, if you just look at registration rate alone, has moved more to the right. I think more than 40 percent of registered voters in Florida are Republican right now. There is this also growing group, right, Ashley, of unaffiliated voters and people who seem getable that aren't associated with either party. And so I think Jolly is basically doing a calculation that maybe I can win a few of these Republicans over. Hopefully I can keep the Democratic faction in line as well. And then maybe I can win some of these unaffiliated voters as well. I don't know that people love party switchers that much. We're about to find out. It seems like to a lot of voters sometimes that that reads as like just trying to meet the moment and you're not really like rooted at any sort of ideology. So anyways, we'll see how that worked out. All we know is that it didn't work out four years ago for Charlie Christ. Let's turn out to the Senate seat. This is a race to replace now Secretary of State National Security Advisor Marco Rubio. Who's running there?

So the Democratic primary is really interesting, right? I mean, it's basically a two-candidate race where you've got another one of these far-left candidates, a woman named Angie Nixon, longtime state representative, running against Alexander Vindman, who might be familiar to a lot of people. He was a whistleblower in the first Trump impeachment trial. And he is kind of running the sort of mainstream establishment lane. He's definitely outraised Nixon and fundraising. But Nixon's kind of trying to push the sort of more progressive Medicare for all rent freeze platform. Yeah, eventman is, I don't know what you'd say, like internet famous. Like he is famous in Democratic donor circles as someone who was this key figure in the impeachment. He even made a guest appearance on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He's able to raise money just because he can put out a good video. But it is sort of this interesting question of what Democratic voters want. Yeah. And also it's a test of where.

whether having a big national profile and a lot of money beat sort of the years of work that someone like Angie Nixon did, mobilizing voters, particularly black and Latino voters in Florida, which are, you know, core parts of the Democratic Party. I mean, I covered her 10 years ago in Florida plus at this point. She has been working on voting rights stuff that is very in the news right now. There's a big question about whether these states that redistricted mid-decade, particularly Republican states, whether there's going to be. be a backlash coming from the voters that lost some power in all this. And so, I mean, if Angie Nixon,

if she eeks out a win, that will be very, very surprising. But if she kind of holds her own, I think it will be a sign that there is still a lot of value in primaries to just having done the work of mobilizing voters, like being an actual activist. Yeah, I mean, if Nixon does win, though, it does set up this pretty interesting sort of political science experiment where you could have Jolly running as as an explicitly moderate candidate in the governor's race and then Nixon running as an explicitly sort of progressive candidate in the Senate race. And you could see, we could see potentially in real time who underperforms who, right, which has been this debate in the abstract. But seeing it in real time in a general election would be really interesting.

Let's move on to the Republican side just quickly. Ashley Moody is in that seat now. She was appointed on an interim basis and now is running for the seat. President Trump has endorsed her and I feel like I got a truth social post in my phone last night saying, vote for Ashley Moody. I don't know. What do you make of that? Well, I mean, just looking at the numbers, the batting average here, the early endorsements from Trump clear out of field. Like this is Moody's race to lose, just like it's Byron Donald's race to lose. You know, there are instances like there's this one little seat, very crowded congressional district in Southwest Florida where I live for a couple of people. years. You know, Trump did a very late endorsement there. It's, it'll be, like, he'll just have hard, it'll be harder to have any pool there just because, like, it's a little more muddy there. But for someone like Ashley Moody, she had the president's support early on. She's been fundraising. She has a seat right now. I mean, the only thing working against her is if there is really in the

primaries and anti-incumbent effect, which we have been seeing. And we could talk more about that in other races. I was talking to a political expert there, Susan McManus at the University of South Florida yesterday. And what she noted, which I thought was really interesting, is that there was all this population growth during the COVID time of people coming in from other states, right? And in other instances with huge population growth, you're going to see kind of mixed political ideology. But the people coming to Florida at that time were coming explicitly because of the politics, specifically because of the COVID policies. And so that's part of why the growth has meant such a huge gain for Republicans. Partisan sorting on steroids. Mm-hmm.

All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we will have more on some of these congressional races in Florida. Welcome back. And a quick note before we get back to Florida, we want to hear your questions about the upcoming midterms. So record a voice memo with your first name, where you're calling from, and what your question is, and send it to NPR Politics at NPR.org. That's NPR Politics at NPR.org. And we may just use it in an upcoming episode. No question too weird also. I feel like I don't want everyone to just be like who's going to win Maine? You know, I feel like whatever you have been thinking about all year, please send it in. We want to look into things for you. The weird or the better. Yeah, the crystal ball questions are the hardest. They also make us look the dumbest because we don't actually have one. We are not forecasters. We are an important thing. There are people who are in the

forecasting business. We are not. All right. Let's talk. Let's talk. We are not. Let's talk. though, about some of these house races. And Ashley, you mentioned one with a very, very crowded field. I saw a quote somewhere of someone describing it as a clown car. Yeah. There are a lot of people running in this one seat. Yeah. So this is a race for Florida's 19th congressional district. It's in the Fort Myers, Naples area in southwest Florida. And I don't think a single one of them are actually from Florida. At least the bulk of them aren't, which is a very Florida thing too, like the area that. we're talking about is where a lot of people retire. And there's a lot of snowbirds in that area, too. So, I mean, that's not totally atypical. But it is weird to have a congressional seat potentially represented by someone who is just a lot from there, which I don't know, that feels very Florida. And by the way, whoever wins the Republican primary is more than likely going to win because this is a very, very Republican district. It's where Naples, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, that whole area is. So, you know, and there's a there's a bunch of of people there, like names from the way, way back machine. It's a greatest hits. It's a greatest hits of what names you've heard in the last few years. The one that jumped out to me was Madison Cothorn because he left Congress in scandal, which seems to be a theme in these primaries.

Again, we're just going to see how inoculated to scandal Florida voters are at this point. Madison Cothorn, who represented North Carolina. And he is not the only lawmaker who left in scandal running in this specific district. district, Chris Collins, who is another candidate in this district. He was a representative from New York, who also left, pled guilty as part of an insider trading scandal. Later pardoned by President Trump. That's right. And neither of them actually got President Trump's endorsement in this raise. Actually, as you said, the endorsement came in late. Yeah, which does not help to like weed out a crowded primary. So, you know, and I think Trump does that usually when one, it's not that important of a race to him.

The Republican is going to win that race no matter what. I mean, it would take like earth-shattering kind of blue wave for the Fort Myers-Naples area to turn blue. Like, that would shock everyone. And two, if no one is really raising a lot of money, poised to win, he likes to choose the people that are well-positioned to win because I think he doesn't like to have a lot of losses on his roster. So, you know, we'll see what happens. And the person that he ended up endorsing was Catalina Lauf, who worked for the Commerce Department. So definitely one of the safer choices. Previously ran for office in Illinois.

Also another person who had she lost a couple of races there, I believe. Yeah. If you like carpetbaggers, you've got a lot of options. That one is just wild. But let's talk about a couple of races that are the race they are because of redistricting. Let's turn to Florida 20. This is in Broward County. And this is a district that has traditionally been represented by African Americans.

It's a district that has a large black population. This is a district that had been represented by Representative Sheila Sherfillis McCormick, who, again, going back to the scandal theme here, left Congress after she was indicted for a number of charges related to stealing COVID disaster relief money. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges, but she is on the ballot again. So she left Congress, resigned. but is running for re-election in this district, running against, it's another one of these primaries that's attracted a number of candidates. But to your point, Tam, about the black representation for a district that has been held by black lawmakers for decades. Also, a huge name jumped into that primary, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, because as part of this redistricting, the district that she currently holds was drawn to be much more of a toss-up, district 20, much more of a safe Democratic district.

She made the decision to run there. And everyone she's running against is black. An important context for this is that you can easily make the case that Wasserman Schultz was districted out of that position. Like this happened in Texas with Jasmine Crockett. It's a tough situation for a politician to have lost a seat mostly because your political enemies got to draw the map and got to draw you out of your seat. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was not liked by Republicans. She's been in Congress for a long time. So, you know, this was the result of a political move to change the districts in Florida.

And there's not a lot of options for her to not run. And so she's in the tough position of figuring out where she has the most ability to win. And this is one of the few blue seats now in Florida by design. But it's tough because Florida already lost a majority black district a few years ago. It is a really weird situation. And, you know, we saw like with Al Green, Congressman Al Green in Texas that sometimes this gets sorted in a primary. The anti-incumbent effect takes a hold and, you know, it's harder for them to stick around. But we'll see.

Money and name recognition goes a long way in a crowded primary. So this could be a situation where, yes, Democrats win a seat, but they lose black representation. Let's move to the coast. And this is one of these newly drawn districts that is designed to lean Republican. and there was sort of a scramble. And Jared Moskowitz, who is a Democrat and is kind of flashy, he decided to run in that district. And he is facing a DSA challenger. This race is getting really interesting because it touches on the sort of progressive DSA versus mainstream.

But more specifically, it gets at the Israel question because Moskowitz has been very pro-Israel in Congress. He has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in money from APAC, and Larkin has been attacking him on that, among other things. Moskowitz has accused Larkin of attacking him solely based on his religion. Larkin has denied that allegation, though has said that he would end military support to Israel. And so that issue in a district, I will also note that is roughly 25% Jewish. And so I think the sort of Israel question hangs larger there than maybe it does. in other parts of the country. Yeah.

I mean, this is a district where it could cut either way, right? Because there is not 100% consensus among Jewish voters themselves on this issue. We saw in New York a city with a big Jewish population that candidates like Zora Mamdani and Claire Valdez and, you know, a lot of these candidates that include criticisms of Israel on their platform are winning. So I don't think this part of Florida is similar to New Orleans. New York City, I want to say the politics are somewhat different. But, you know, there are also other issues here. Larkin is running to abolish ICE, which, you know, ice touches Florida differently than it does other parts of the country. There's a big immigrant population who knows. We're about to find out whether that is a that is a message that is helpful there. So yeah, I mean, the sort of national theme of like on these specific issues where DSA has like very clear, very sort of flashy positions, whether. that plays in like a red state. I think it's fair to say that if Larkin were to beat Moskowitz in this primary Republicans nationally would celebrate because this is a true, one of the few true toss-up districts in the United States this year. It's a district that, like you said, it was

redrawn to be more Republican, but it's also a district that Joe Biden won in 2020. And so this is a winnable district for a Democrat in a midterm year with the president in power being very unpopular. But if you put that sort of DSA further left candidate up against a Republican, and we don't really know who the Republican is going to be that comes out of that primary, also a very crowded field. The former Boca Raton mayor is running. There's a retired finance executive running, a Navy veteran running. There's a bunch of different people running in that primary. We don't know who it's going to be. But I think it's fair to say that a DSA candidate with those positions in a toss-up district Republicans would be pretty happy about. Yeah, I know we've said

a couple times, like for a ton of reasons, Florida has gotten more Republican. But it is also worth noting special elections broke for Democrats in a pretty big way last year. Democrats actually overperformed at a lot of expectations. So who knows? A lot of this just depends. Who turns out? We say this every time. Which voters are paying attention. Care. Turn out a vote. And there is one other race that we're watching where I think you could argue both Democrats and Republicans are watching what happens, with current Congressman Corey Mills and whether he survives his primary. And that may change the calculus for the parties, but whether they think this is really a winnable seat. Mills is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for, among other things, a domestic violence

incident. There are also potential campaign finance violations. He does deny all of the allegations. He is still running for re-election. Yes, this district. is likely red. But again, for all the reasons we just talked about, I think if Mills were to win, then Democrats would probably look at this as a place that is a possible pickup opportunity. The main competition in the Republican primary seems to be a guy named Ryan Elijah, who's a former news anchor. He's even gotten endorsements from other members of the Florida delegation in Congress, which I thought was kind of interesting. And Ron DeSantis has actively said he does not support Corey Mills. And so that is going to be another interesting race to watch because

President Trump did endorse Mills. It was a few months ago. He's been kind of quiet on Mills candidacy recently, but I don't know if that endorsement could potentially put Mills over the edge still. Yeah, I think this is one of those races where there are not a small number of Republicans who are quietly hoping that the voters solve a problem for them so they don't have to solve it for themselves. All right. We are actually going to leave it there for today. But we are are also watching a Senate primary in Alaska as well as a Senate primary in Wyoming. And we'll be back tomorrow with results in all of these races. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.

I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. And I'm Ashley Lopez. I also cover politics. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.