YouBet said:

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Texas and Florida are not the same. Most seem to think we are so similar that Abbott can just wave a wand and be like Desantis.

Texas is ~40% larger than Florida. Floridas largest city (Jacksonville) would be our fifth largest city. Desantis doesn't have large blue cities with entrenched Democrats in overwhelming numbers.

Abbott has way different math and headwinds that Desantis doesn't have.

Y'all need to accept the fact that Texas's largest cities are lost forever. There are simply too many Democrats here. And most of them aren't native Texans.

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No one here in FL considers Jax our biggest metro area. South FL may be a conglomeration of cities rather than one large one, but make no mistake all of those cities (Miami, Pompano Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, etc) are really just one sprawling connected urban area of hard core democrats. So it was no small feat for Desantis to win down there. I never thought I'd see it.

And he's dealing with a serious blue threat in the Orlando area as well as St. Pete-Tampa area.

aggie93 said:

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Bryanisbest said:

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Like DeSantis. Appears to be a fighter. Trump? A proven fighter. The man evil hates. Trump '24.

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The difference is DeSantis wins when he fights instead of blaming others for why he lost.

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This.

Maroon Dawn said:

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Old me would have cared that political coexistence can't be allowed anymore

But thanks to Democrats I say every red state needs to make this their goal: run all Democrats completely out of their state and pass laws so deep scarlet red that no Dem even contemplates moving to your state

Create a Defacto separate country that does not recognize the authority of any Democrat run institution

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Amen!!!!

The man and his machine are relentless in pushing back and then crushing the left. I hope the hell he has a great security team.

texagbeliever said:

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YouBet said:

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Texas and Florida are not the same. Most seem to think we are so similar that Abbott can just wave a wand and be like Desantis.

Texas is ~40% larger than Florida. Floridas largest city (Jacksonville) would be our fifth largest city. Desantis doesn't have large blue cities with entrenched Democrats in overwhelming numbers.

Abbott has way different math and headwinds that Desantis doesn't have.

Y'all need to accept the fact that Texas's largest cities are lost forever. There are simply too many Democrats here. And most of them aren't native Texans.

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Florida is what 10 years or so from going blue in national and governor races. Yet it is Texas that isn't red enough to get a real republican. It is a problem of who controls the republican primary process in Texas. Whoever the powers are, they aren't conservatives.

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That's part of it. Part of the problem Texas has is what has also saved it, our Constitution. The Texas Constitution was written after Reconstruction. We have the weakest Governor in the country. The Leg meets only for a few months every 2 years. Leg makes basically nothing. Powers are divided in ways to make it very hard to get anything significant done with checks and balances everywhere. That's why the Lt Governor has more actual power than the Governor for instance.

Essentially after the Civil War and Reconstruction ended they rewrote the Texas Constitution to fill in every gap the US Constitution had left open. The US Constitution can be read over a couple cups of coffee, the Texas Constitution is a War and Peace. (4400 words vs 85,000). That's why we have so many Constitutional Amendments every election.

Another oddity is that in the 120 or so years that the Democrats controlled the Leg after the Civil War they allowed some Republicans to Chair committees. Part of that was you had a lot of very conservative Democrats who were more conservative than Republicans mixed in with actual Liberals who were all Democrats. It was a way to keep the Liberals contained to an extent. After the GOP took control they kept up the same tradition and generally it has been ok but that's getting harder and harder to justify since there aren't any conservative Democrats anymore at the State Rep level though some aren't terrible, at least on every issue, thus you can put them in charge of committees that they are more conservative.

Does that excuse Abbott? Nope. Does that excuse the Republicans being weak? Nope. They just are never going to be able to make the kind of bold actions other states can because they simply don't have the power. The good news is if the Dems get control it will be very hard for them to do so as well. We have a government in Texas intentionally designed to make it so that they have very limited power.

Bryanisbest said:

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Like DeSantis. Appears to be a fighter. Trump? A proven fighter. The man evil hates. Trump '24.

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LOL

TAMU1990 said:

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YouBet said:

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Texas and Florida are not the same. Most seem to think we are so similar that Abbott can just wave a wand and be like Desantis.

Texas is ~40% larger than Florida. Floridas largest city (Jacksonville) would be our fifth largest city. Desantis doesn't have large blue cities with entrenched Democrats in overwhelming numbers.

Abbott has way different math and headwinds that Desantis doesn't have.

Y'all need to accept the fact that Texas's largest cities are lost forever. There are simply too many Democrats here. And most of them aren't native Texans.

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Goals should be getting 45+% of the vote in these cities.

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Hmm, good luck. Three out of top five are already gone. Last election for President shows a ton of ground to make up. Governor was pretty much in line with this:

• Travis: 71-26
• El Paso: 66-32
• Dallas: 65-33
• Bexar: 58-40
• Harris: 56-43

I will say our one hope are Hispanics. Hopefully this red trend gets more legs because if they don't flip we are toast.

aggie93 said:

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This is how you play offense and win. When your opponent is down you keep going without hesitation. Can we finally stop with the "DeSantis isn't a fighter" nonsense? He is freaking unmerciful.

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"Governor DeSantis set the bar high winning 62 of 67 counties in Florida but our job is not done until we win the other five counties are red and there are no Democrats in office or considering running for office in the State of Florida," Ziegler said.

"To accomplish that, I have launched the FloridaGOP Blue County Strategy Committee, which will be laser focused on holding every Democrat in office accountable and picking off Democrat-held seats at every level of government local, state and federal," Ziegler explained.

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Quote:

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"We are known as the free state of Florida, and our battleground cities, when we have flipped them successfully, and when we have examples of conservatively-led cities, our cities will be the example to the mismanaged Democrat cities throughout the country, in the same way that Florida is an example to other states," Black continued.

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Quote:

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Members from "battleground counties," defined as counties which Gov. Ron DeSantis won by less than 60% (such as Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Seminole and St. Lucie) are strongly encouraged to join the committee to "help advise on how to best battle in and win in a blue county," according to Ziegler.

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GOP Committee to "Pick off" 5 Remaining Blue Counties office by office

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The only ones saying DeSantis isn't a fighter of the Trumpians, who are loyal to Trump and not the party or the cause.

ts5641 said:

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aggie93 said:

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This is how you play offense and win. When your opponent is down you keep going without hesitation. Can we finally stop with the "DeSantis isn't a fighter" nonsense? He is freaking unmerciful.

Quote:

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"Governor DeSantis set the bar high winning 62 of 67 counties in Florida but our job is not done until we win the other five counties are red and there are no Democrats in office or considering running for office in the State of Florida," Ziegler said.

"To accomplish that, I have launched the FloridaGOP Blue County Strategy Committee, which will be laser focused on holding every Democrat in office accountable and picking off Democrat-held seats at every level of government local, state and federal," Ziegler explained.

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Quote:

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"We are known as the free state of Florida, and our battleground cities, when we have flipped them successfully, and when we have examples of conservatively-led cities, our cities will be the example to the mismanaged Democrat cities throughout the country, in the same way that Florida is an example to other states," Black continued.

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Quote:

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Members from "battleground counties," defined as counties which Gov. Ron DeSantis won by less than 60% (such as Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Seminole and St. Lucie) are strongly encouraged to join the committee to "help advise on how to best battle in and win in a blue county," according to Ziegler.

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GOP Committee to "Pick off" 5 Remaining Blue Counties office by office

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The only ones saying DeSantis isn't a fighter of the Trumpians, who are loyal to Trump and not the party or the cause.

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I think a lot of that is ignorance of DeSantis and they can be converted.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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YouBet said:

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Texas and Florida are not the same. Most seem to think we are so similar that Abbott can just wave a wand and be like Desantis.

Texas is ~40% larger than Florida. Floridas largest city (Jacksonville) would be our fifth largest city. Desantis doesn't have large blue cities with entrenched Democrats in overwhelming numbers.

Abbott has way different math and headwinds that Desantis doesn't have.

Y'all need to accept the fact that Texas's largest cities are lost forever. There are simply too many Democrats here. And most of them aren't native Texans.

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No one here in FL considers Jax our biggest metro area. South FL may be a conglomeration of cities rather than one large one, but make no mistake all of those cities (Miami, Pompano Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, etc) are really just one sprawling connected urban area of hard core democrats. So it was no small feat for Desantis to win down there. I never thought I'd see it.

And he's dealing with a serious blue threat in the Orlando area as well as St. Pete-Tampa area.

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I'm not sure what YouBet is smoking but his post is extremely inaccurate. "Desantis doesn't have large blue cities entrenched with Democrats?" Ummmm…. Obama won Florida in '08 and '12. Did you forget the Bush v Gore scandal? In case you forgot. South Florida, which is the most heavily populated area of the state (Jacksonville LOL) was a heavy blue area. South Florida is no longer dominated by exiled Cubans that hate communism. There are Hispanics from all over that tend to go Blue. I grew up in Florida.

What DeSantis has done to transform Florida from a purple state to a solid red state is nothing short of unbelievable.

Matter of fact I would say Florida has trended more towards the right in the last ten years where Texas has slightly stalled or moved ever so slight to the left (still red but trending for the worse).

This is absolutely the right approach. Take the fight to them on a constitutional basis rather than sit back and watch them set the terms of the arguments . DeSantis will be the POTUS someday I believe. Whether it's
In this cycle certainly is in question tho. I hope it is but there's somebody mucking up the works .

I cannot even begin to tell you how optimistic I would be if we had Desantis for 8 years, and even any 4 of those he had a Republican house and senate