Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis reelected; Kemp defeats Abrams

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a second term Tuesday, defeating Democratic challenger Charlie Crist, a former congressman, one of several gubernatorial races on the ballot with national implications.

DeSantis vastly out-fundraised Crist and performed better in polls in the lead-up to an election where the governor rarely mentioned his opponent by name and instead characterized the race as a fight against the “woke agenda” of liberals.

Crist, on the other hand, centered his campaign on DeSantis, framing the Republican as a bully fixated on angling toward the presidency at the expense of the everyday problems of Floridians. At the candidates’ only debate, Crist repeatedly pressed the governor to commit to serving a full second term if elected. DeSantis skirted the question.

“We fight the woke in the Legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die,” DeSantis told elated supporters during his victory speech, telling the crowd in closing, “I have only begun to fight.”

The victory continues DeSantis’ rise as a national Republican star as he eyes a possible 2024 White House run that could leave him well positioned to be a GOP primary alternative to Donald Trump.

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro won the race for governor against Republican Doug Mastriano.

Shapiro thanked his family and supporters and went on to tell a cheering crowd in suburban Philadelphia that “real freedom won tonight” and “Democracy endured.”

Mastriano, who ran a hard-right campaign, had not publicly conceded by early Wednesday. Shortly after Shapiro’s comments, Mastriano spoke in a hotel in suburban Harrisburg, telling the crowd they would wait for every vote to be counted and “respect” the decision Pennsylvanians make.

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott won a third term following one of the most expensive races of the 2022 midterm elections. Abbott’s defeat of Democrat Beto O’Rourke extends decades of GOP dominance in Texas. The victory strengthened Abbott's position as a potential 2024 Republican presidential contender and secured his place as the state’s second-longest serving governor.

In Georgia and Michigan, the incumbents remained locked in close races Tuesday. But by late in the evening, Kemp claimed victory after Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams conceded in a rematch of their 2018 race. Kemp, 59, seemed on shaky ground among Republicans after the 2020 presidential election, when Trump blamed him for not doing enough to overturn President Joe Biden's narrow win in Georgia. Trump helped lure former U.S. Sen. David Perdue into a primary challenge to Kemp, whom he called a “complete and total failure."

Abrams, a lawyer whose 2018 loss to Kemp helped launch her into Democratic stardom, would have been the first Black woman to serve as a governor in the United States. She was seeking to avenge a defeat that she acknowledged while refusing to use the word “concede,” saying Kemp abused his prior position as secretary of state to raise barriers to voting.

In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, led Republican challenger Tudor Dixon late Tuesday in a race significant beyond Michigan, a presidential election battleground. The winner will be in office for the 2024 contest, and could influence voting laws and how the election is conducted. Trump, Biden and former President Barack Obama have all visited Michigan in recent weeks to rally support for their party’s candidates.

Dixon is a former commentator for a conservative online program backed by former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her politically powerful and wealthy family. She won a highly contested August primary after the two predicted front-runners, James Craig and Perry Johnson, were eliminated in a signature fraud scandal.

Other races were noteworthy for other reasons.

Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders won the race to be the next governor of Arkansas, becoming the first woman to lead the state and the highest profile Trump administration official in elected office.

Sanders defeated Democratic nominee Chris Jones in the race for governor in her predominantly Republican home state, where Trump remains popular. Sanders had been heavily favored to win the race, which also included Libertarian nominee Ricky Dale Harrington.

Maryland elected the state's first Black governor, Democrat Wes Moore, who defeated Republican Dan Cox in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1. Moore’s victory flips a governor’s office from Republican to Democratic.

Of the 36 governor’s races this year, Maryland and Massachusetts represented the best chances for Democrats to regain a governor’s office. With the slogan “leave no one behind,” Moore, a combat veteran and former CEO of one of the nation’s largest anti-poverty organizations, campaigned on creating equal opportunity for Maryland residents.

In Massachusetts, Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey, made history as the state’s first woman and first openly gay candidate elected to the governor's office. Healey defeated Republican candidate Geoff Diehl, a former state representative.