On Nov. 8, 2022, Florida was the first big state where midterm election results started rolling in, confirming what most pundits believed was the story of the night: Democrats were in for a bloodbath. The Sunshine State, which had been a key battleground in presidential races for decades, was now a conservative bastion, with Republicans flipping four congressional seats, winning a supermajority in both the state House and Senate and easily holding onto a U.S. Senate seat. Gov. Ron DeSantis, then 44, was quickly crowned king of the night, as he notched an almost 20-point win, the largest for a …
