DeSantis picked Miami for initial campaign gathering, but will Miami pick him in ’24?

Democrats rolled out the attack wagon for Ron DeSantis on Wednesday in Miami, a Democratic city that the Republican governor almost turned red last fall.

A billboard truck hired by the Democratic National Committee circled the Four Seasons hotel with attack ads blaring against DeSantis while his donors gathered inside to celebrate a looming presidential announcement.

READ MORE: DeSantis win in Miami-Dade comes just in time to give Republicans hope for sheriff in ’24

Citywide, the results from the 2022 gubernatorial election are part of DeSantis’ bragging rights at the heart of his pitch as a Republican who can compete where Donald Trump loses. They’ll go head to head along with other candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in the Florida primary on March 19.

DeSantis narrowly lost Miami to Democrat Charlie Crist in November, two years after Joe Biden beat Trump in the city by 19 points, according to a McClatchy analysis of precinct data.

“Donald Trump excites conservatives. The problem is he excites Democrats, too,” said Giancarlo Sopo, a communications consultant who grew up in Miami and is backing DeSantis in the GOP primary. “DeSantis excites the conservative base, but independents and Democrats are open to him.”

The 2022 election was a debacle for Miami-Dade Democrats, who saw a Republican candidate for governor win the county for the first time in 20 years. Miami was a statistical bright spot in that the Democratic nominee, Charlie Crist, still managed a win, but at a margin that showed big DeSantis inroads in a city where Democrats and unaffiliated voters both outnumber Republicans.

The Democratic nominee for governor in 2018, former Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, won Miami by 20 points, matching Biden’s later margin. When DeSantis ran for reelection, Crist only managed to beat DeSantis by fewer than two points in Miami — winning the city of 440,000 people 50% to 49%.

Though Miami is led by Francis Suarez, a Republican mayor who also might run for president in ‘24, Democrats enjoy a healthy registration advantage. Of the 209,000 registered voters in Miami, 40% are Democrats, 34% have no party affiliation and 25% are Republicans, according to the Miami-Dade Elections Department.

Christian Ulvert, a campaign consultant who works for Democrats in Miami-Dade, including for Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, said the DeSantis showing in Miami only highlights the struggles he’ll face in a presidential election.

While Crist failed to energize his party’s base, Ulvert said the 2024 GOP nominee will need to contend with strong turnout from Miami Democrats to block the kind of narrow margin DeSantis saw in his off-year election. In Miami-Dade, voter turnout for the gubernatorial election was 48%, but Ulvert said the number dropped to 28% for Black Democrats and 31% for Hispanic Democrats.

“When you look at the countywide numbers, you realize he won not because he did something great. It was because Democratic turnout was so abysmal,” Ulvert said. “He didn’t have this major crossover appeal.”

Ben Wieder, investigative and data reporter at the McClatchy Washington Bureau, contributed to this report.