A DeSantis loss, which many in the GOP consider impossible, would be a political earthquake. He’s not just a rising star for now but is almost universally thought to be the party’s next step after Trump, and his demise might throw Republicans’ national planning and conception of the party’s future into disarray, just as it might empower Democrats thinking ahead to 2024 and beyond. And even if you think a win in Florida is just too far-fetched for Democrats in 2022, why not spend some time and money trying to make DeSantis’s life difficult and his image a bit muddier before he pivots to Iowa?

One plausible answer to this question concerns Crist’s past, which Fried, his primary opponent and Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat, has used to argue that he hardly represents the future. Elected to the governor’s mansion in 2006 as a Republican, Crist was considered for John McCain’s running mate in 2008 before his political fortunes reversed when, the next year, he welcomed Obama to Florida with a hug as the new president visited to tout his stimulus package. He soon lost a Senate race to upstart tea-party darling Marco Rubio, became an independent and then a Democrat, then lost a bid to return to the governorship, this time to Rick Scott, before finding a seat in Congress that would take him. Fried has been promoting herself as a modern Democrat who offers the party and the state a jolt of energy and, if she wins the primary, donor attention. But her criticisms of Crist as an ex-Republican who was not only backed by the NRA and friendly with Trump but also called himself pro-life have not been enough to dislodge her from underdog territory.