RSLC confident ‘Blue Wave’ won’t flip Florida House, Senate

On Wednesday, Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) President Austin Chambers and Senior Advisor Ward Baker gave their views of a pivotal 2020 election for state legislatures, including in the Sunshine State.

At issue: redistricting, the next big hurdle after the 2020 election in Florida and elsewhere.

There is a slim chance Democrats could compete in the Senate, which is R+3, but there’s no chance whatsoever the House comes close to flipping blue, with 72 Republicans and 46 Democrats.

Despite the favorable map, outside spending will drive action, Chambers noted, requiring a concerted RSLC push so that the party can control the House and the Senate both, as they do now.

Thus far, they’ve spent nearly a million dollars on the House and the Senate in Florida in the last year and a half, and “significantly more” will be spent to “match the money coming in from outside the state on the Democrats’ side,” Chambers said.

Targeted seats are in South Florida and Central Florida, he added, with candidates such as Fiona MacFarland benefiting from the leg up

“Florida is a state where we’re all in. We’re going to do whatever it takes to retain the House and the Senate,” Chambers said, describing Florida as a “tossup today but leaning in a Republican direction” at the presidential level.

It’s that battleground nature that will drive resource allocation.

“Another group that announced they were going to spend a couple million bucks in Florida trying to flip these seats. Florida is one of the places where we have more Republicans in Clinton districts than Democrats in Trump districts,” Chambers said. “Democrats absolutely have an opportunity in Florida, but I think ultimately we will hold the House and the Senate. But there’s a lot to play out in the next 55 days.”

Florida presents a contrast to states where control of the legislative chamber hangs in the balance.

Chambers noted that nationally the “environment is the toughest for the Republican Party in a couple of decades,” with a President struggling in polls, but that Democratic expectations of “flipping everything” will fall “well short.”

“Republicans are in a position to defy the expectations of a Blue Wave,” he noted.

The path: “to go on offense while playing defense,” with an eye toward Trump districts that are represented by Democrats, “making sure that those Trump supporters vote Republican up and down the ballot.”

To that end of generating turnout, the organization will be visible on various platforms, including a new web spot “exposing the Democratic Party’s radical ideas and dangerous agenda that would dismantle the American dream.”