TALLAHASSEE – Although home to the two leading Republican presidential contenders, Florida is expected to see political ad spending plummet in the 2024 race for the White House, according to a report released by the tracking company AdImpact. 

The firm projected Tuesday that after leading the nation in media spending in the 2020 race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Florida will likely tumble to eighth place next year, behind battleground states Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, and Wisconsin. 

The reason: Florida has shed its toss-up reputation in recent years, turning decidedly Republican red. That takes away the motivation for either party to spend heavily here, AdImpact concludes. 

“Florida is projected to see $81 million in presidential general spending, significantly dropping from its $350 million total in 2020,” the analysis shows. “This decrease is largely due to the state’s political shift to the right over the past several years.” 

Quick math indicates Floridians will endure 77% fewer presidential campaign ads than they did just four years ago, when they were bombarded by the nation’s highest ad buys.

Well, huzzah to that! The handwringing of the state’s reliably left newspaper editorial boards and columnists notwithstanding, AdImpact’s forecast provides yet another reason to be grateful for Florida’s one-party domination.

There are all sorts of knock-on implications for this tumble, including that Florida Democrats will feel far less outside energy urging them to the polls. Such a development bodes well for the reelection of GOP Sen. Rick Scott — who, despite going undefeated, never has won what you would call a landslide — as well as down-ballot candidates seeking to preserve Republicans’ majorities in Congress and Tallahassee.

So, why thank DeSantis if, as AdImpact says, this is all about “the state’s political shift to the right over the past several years”? Because political ships are like aircraft carriers: massive, unwieldy, and prone to inertia.

Florida Republicans got the wheel turning in the late 1990s, and have enjoyed statewide electoral success since the turn of the century. But the battles have been largely uphill, and often were achieved by persuading traditional Democrats north of Orlando to vote Republican in general elections.

Remember, Democrat darling Barack Obama carried Florida twice, and, in his first race for governor (2018), DeSantis eked out a 0.4% win over Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. Four years earlier, Scott won reelection to the governor’s mansion by a single point over an empty-suit party-switcher whose name now is protected by compassion for victims of electoral avalanches.

What happened? The BBC was fascinated.

Republicans won by astounding margins in all the key races and Republicans also flipped four House seats that were held by Democrats, a result helped by the fact that Governor DeSantis had pushed through a new congressional map that favoured his party.

It was DeSantis himself who had the best night, winning by a landslide of more than a million and a half votes, the largest margin of any Florida governor in 40 years.

Voters debriefed by the BBC praised DeSantis for keeping the state “open and free” during COVID, standing with business owners who were able to “keep operating and making money.” Still others had grown “tired of having received promises never fulfilled by the Democratic Party” and at last embraced the party that reflects their values — faith, family, the economy.

All of these developments reflect the policies and energy of Florida’s chief executive. It’s not for nothing Republicans erased a longstanding registered-voter deficit during the first DeSantis administration. The Sunshine State witnessed a governor who was not simply combative, outspoken and relentless, but also was deeply informed, quick to summon relevant facts and details, and directed the state’s resources effectively and efficiently.

Now, even as Florida Democratic Chair Nikki Fried touts her party’s voter-registration comeback attempt, Florida Republicans continue to stretch their lead, now closing in on a 600,000 registered-voter advantage.

As FiveThirtyEight notes in a post otherwise begrudging DeSantis’ authorship of the surge:

DeSantis probably had more of an impact on Florida’s political hue by investing in campaign field operations to expand the state GOP. There are currently 525,418 more registered Republican voters in Florida than there were at the end of 2018, and some of that growth can be credited to DeSantis. Shortly after his 2019 inauguration, he directed the state GOP to focus on registering more Republican voters. The GOP’s net increase of more than 40,000 voters that year was the party’s biggest gain in the year before a presidential election this century. Then, in 2020, the party added a modern record of nearly half a million voters on net. In 2021, DeSantis contributed $2 million to the registration push, and it paid off that November, when the number of registered Republicans at last surpassed the number of registered Democrats. Finally, in 2022, amid DeSantis’s reelection campaign, the GOP capped off an impressive quadrennium by adding 188,323 Republicans to the rolls on net. You guessed it: That was the most for a midterm year in at least 20 years.

AdImpact doesn’t think it’s a one-off. And for that, yes, thank Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been diligent about helping Republicans close the turn-Florida-red campaign begun in the late 1990s. All in pursuit of the ideals that drew him into public service originally: attacks on the nation he loves.

Sometimes, waging battles means you put your legal career on hold and join the U.S. Navy and head into harm’s way. Other times, it means persuading enough people to your side that you win — and win, and win — elections. Because if you don’t win, you can’t govern. 

Now, if DeSantis only can get the chance to work that ABC  — Always Be Closing — magic nationally.