Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis must have been saints in a past life because their already successful political careers could keep on rising, as their biggest Democratic challengers in 2022 are perennial losers.
DeSantis faces two notable challengers so far. The first is Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the conspiracy theorist who is currently the only elected Democrat holding a statewide office in Florida. But she is currently trailing by double digits in polls to another Democratic challenger: former Gov. and current congressman Charlie Crist.
Crist served as a Republican governor of the state from 2007 to 2011. Instead of running for reelection, he ran for an open Senate seat in 2010 and switched to run as an independent after falling far behind Marco Rubio in the GOP primary. Rubio defeated him by 19 points in the general election as Crist siphoned support from the Democratic candidate.
Crist then took a break from politics, endorsed former President Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in 2012 (Romney and the GOP were too “extreme”), and lost as a Democrat to Rick Scott in the 2014 race for governor. He has since defeated GOP Rep. David Jolly (who himself has since become a party defector) in 2016. Showing that he is willing to say anything or flip his position on any issue just to get elected, he now faces a third statewide loss in a state that seems more reliably Republican now than it has in years.
Meanwhile, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, hasn’t decided to run against Abbott, but he has floated the possibility. O’Rourke turned in an admittedly strong challenge against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz (albeit in a Democratic wave year) in which it was made clear that he was nothing more than an empty suit onto whom liberal media could cast their John F. Kennedy comparisons.
O’Rourke then decided that a close loss was enough to qualify him to run for president. His flailing presidential campaign was put out of its misery when fellow Texas Democrat Julian Castro exposed O’Rourke’s lack of political talent on the national stage. In an effort to save his dying campaign, he decided to make himself the gun control candidate, a move that he apparently thought would shake up the field in the most left-wing Democratic presidential primary ever. Now a back-to-back election loser, he might run in Texas as the candidate who boasted, “Hell yeah, we’re going to take your AR-15.”
Abbott has cruised in his past two elections, including in the same 2018 wave year that saw O’Rourke nearly defeat the far more unpopular Cruz. DeSantis, who may well be the 2024 presidential front-runner, has gone from a narrow 2018 victory to build strong support in polls. Both would be the favorites to win reelection regardless, but if Crist and O’Rourke are the best Democrats can do, it will be an easy election cycle for the two most prominent Republican governors in the country.
