“Did you vote in the recent election?” I write in my notebook, then pass it to her.
She nods. When I ask who she voted for, a grin appears. “DUH-SAN-TIS,” she mouths.
“Why DeSantis?” I shout. Williams is a black woman who looks to be pushing forty. She has a fiancé and, after two slow years, a job. It was her brother, she says, who made her rethink her politics.
Finally, she shouts back, over the bar, through the din: “Money.”
Williams is one of the DeSantis Democrats: Florida voters who, until recently, identified as Democrats but in November opted to reelect Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—he who resisted the Covid lockdowns, tangled with Disney, and governed with a record budget surplus—in a landslide.
[Get enough of the Reagan Democrats, Trump Democrats, and DeSantis Democrats together, and you know what you have? A majoritarian Republican Party, or at least a pluralitarian GOP. — Ed]
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