Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) on Friday warned Republicans against banking on victories during the 2026 elections in areas President Donald Trump won last year.
“I think Republicans have an issue that Donald Trump has created a big pool of voters, but some of them are unique to him, right?” the Florida governor said during an appearance on Fox News’s Fox & Friends, referencing the “big tent” coalition transcending gender, racial, and socio-economic lines that Trump built which handed him a second term.
“So they’ll go vote for Trump, and they’ll vote for all Republicans when Trump is on the ballot. But if he’s not on the ballot, some of them don’t vote,” DeSantis continued.
The governor had previously cited the results in a recent special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District as evidence that Trump supporters aren’t reliable GOP voters. Republican Matt Van Epps defeated Democrat Aftyn Behn by nine points on Tuesday despite Trump having carried the district by more than 20 points in 2024.
“Special, off-year, and midterm elections historically benefit the party out of power because its voters are motivated to vote, while voters of the incumbent party become more complacent,” DeSantis wrote in a message to X on Wednesday.
“This is more glaring for today’s GOP because a chunk of voters who put them in power in 2024 are Trump-specific voters; they will vote GOP down ballot when Trump is running, but won’t turn out to vote for a typical congressman in a midterm when Trump isn’t running,” he added.
Vice President JD Vance issued a similar message after the GOP saw disappointing results in the Virginia and New Jersey elections earlier this year.
“One of the lessons that we learned in Virginia and New Jersey, is that when Donald Trump is not on the ballot, you’ve got to give people something to actually believe in, something to be inspired by, to get out there and vote. They’re not going to vote just because you have an R next to your name; you’ve got to speak to this new working-class coalition,” Vance said last month.
On Friday, DeSantis again cautioned the GOP against complacency after Trump’s strong performance in the 2024 presidential race.
“In an off-year midterm, the party in power’s voters tend to be more complacent…the party out of power, they get upset, right? That’s just the nature of midterms,” he said.
The governor goaded Republicans to fight for gains, pointing to Florida Republicans’ victories during the 2022 elections as proof that expanding GOP power is possible, even when at a historical disadvantage. Republicans must put Democrats on the offensive, he suggested, particularly on economic and immigration issues.
“Democrats, they caused a lot of this with the inflation, and now they’re acting like … they had nothing to do with it,” he said, adding that the GOP should remind voters that Trump stopped the “influx” of illegal border crossers given passage when former president Joe Biden was in power.
In 2022, Florida Republicans were able to win “20 points, the biggest Republican win ever,” DeSantis said, because they ran “based on results and substance.”
“We did it by flying under a banner of bold colors, not pale pastels,” the governor said. “We were sticking it to the left every single day and delivering big victories… So, it can be done.”
Redistricting efforts pushed by both parties, including in Florida, promise to change the dynamics of the 2026 elections.
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Democrats are hoping to cut into the opposition’s razor-thin majorities in both chambers of Congress, though a “blue wave” is unlikely.
If Democrats were to win every seat Trump won or lost by 5 points or less, that would only give the party a gain of 14 seats, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.