Mark Lane: Florida Dems are used to losing, but not like this

Florida Democrats were feeling the effects of two hurricanes last week: one actual, one metaphorical.

Democrats in Florida are used to losing elections, it's been a tradition for almost a quarter century, but they're used to losing them narrowly. Wait-‘til-next-season kind of defeats. But being pounded at the top of the ticket by almost 20 points? Those are almost Michael Dukakis numbers, to use an example from ancient history.

And ancient history is where you'd have to go to find a Democratic candidate for Florida governor losing by that kind of margin — i.e., 1868, a year when many Florida Democrats were disenfranchised for supporting the Confederacy. In a state where no candidate for governor received more than 50% of the vote since 2006 (Charlie Crist's big year), Gov. Ron DeSantis rang up the largest victory margin since Gov. Bob Graham was re-elected in 1982.

Previously: Edgewater mayoral candidate, former police chief charged in theft of opponent's signs

Florida governor race: Ron DeSantis wins in a landslide over Democrat Charlie Crist

The red wave that didn't materialize nationally certainly swept Florida.

Including the two U.S. House races in Volusia and Flagler counties. (Volusia County now straddles two districts thanks to the most recent gerrymander.) Democrats didn't bother running a candidate in District 6, which meant that Republican Michael Waltz won with 75% of the vote over Libertarian Joe Hannoush. In District 7, Cory Mills emerged from a crowded August Republican primary to win with 58.5% of the vote.

Legislative races, at least the ones where Democrats bothered to field a candidate, had like results. Few area voters are big on ticket-splitting. These margins were made starker because Democratic turnout was a good 14 points behind Republican turnout in Volusia County and 10 points behind Republicans in Flagler County.

In other parts of the ballot:

Constitutional amendments: All three constitutional changes put on the ballot by the Legislature failed to reach the 60% threshold needed for passage. Doing away with the Constitutional Revision Commission did the worse with 54% of the vote. But hey, the CRC won't meet again until 2037, so there's lots of time to try again. A property tax break for teachers, law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical responders and others came very close with 58.7% of the vote.

Volusia County Council: Jeff Brower's unprecedented attempt at running a slate of like-minded candidates failed. His candidate in District 5, Julio "David" Sosa, came in third in a three-man race in August's primary. His three remaining candidates: Doug Pettit, Ken Smith and Ted Noftall, all lost in Tuesday's election.

Jake Johansson won the at-large seat handily with 58.7% of the vote. Danny Robins was re-elected in District 3 with 61.8% of the vote, the biggest margin of any council member. And in District 4, Troy Kent won with 55.3% of the vote.

The problem with running a slate of candidates on the local level is that if you lose, it poisons relations with your fellow council and commission members. Officeholders tend to remember who tried to take them down. Expect to see more tense council votes that go against Brower over the next couple years.

Daytona Beach: The City Commission will have a new face. Monica Paris defeated Zone 1 Commissioner Ruth Trager by fewer than 100 votes. Commissioners Dannette Henry and Quanita May were re-elected.

Trager was first elected in 2014. She had been a frequent comment-time city administration critic and had unsuccessfully run for office twice before, which made her election something of an upset. In recent years, she faced accusations that she neglected property that she owns jointly with her husband, Warren Trager. Two of their Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard properties had to be torn down.

Edgewater: In another upset, 18-year-old Diezel DePew was elected mayor of Edgewater. His opponent, Mike Ignasiak, a former mayor and police chief for the town of 23,000, is facing charges of petit theft for taking DePew's yard signs along with those of another candidate. An act that was caught on video. Bad optics in the last days of a campaign. Ignasiak served as mayor from 2014 until 2018 when he was defeated for re-election by 112 votes.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Mark Lane: Florida Dems are used to losing, but not like this