MSNBC host Joy Reid knocks Florida as 'far-right state' after DeSantis reelection
Reid also claimed that Miami-Dade County has been trending Republican for a long time, despite Hillary Clinton winning the county by 30 points in 2016.
An irked MSNBC host Joy Reid called Florida, a swing state in presidential elections for decades, a "far-far-far-right" state on Tuesday as returns showed Republicans Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio cruising to victory.
As she gushed over Democratic Rep.-elect Maxwell Frost as a progressive star in the making in Florida – Frost will take the seat vacated by Val Demings after her failed Senate bid against Rubio – Reid appeared to fume that Florida was overtaken by extremists.
"If there ever is a time where Florida will matriculate back to being sort of a normal political state, and not just a far, far far right state, which I think it is now, that generation will take them there," she said during MSNBC's election coverage.
While discussing how both Gov. DeSantis and Sen. Rubio outperformed President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, host Rachel Maddow noted that Miami-Dade and Florida as a whole is starting to look more and more red.
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"Florida is a red state," Reid replied to her colleague. "I think I have said this before. The challenge is, Miami-Dade has been trending Republican for a really long time. It’s been slowly slipping toward the Republican Party. And it is a 70-plus percent Hispanic county. Of the people who are Hispanic in that county, the vast majority are Cuban Americans. That’s a very conservative population. That county remained Democratic in the ’08 and 2012 elections because of one thing, Barack Obama. Barack Obama actually managed to eat into the margins."
Maddow then attempted to bring up Hillary Clinton’s massive win in the county in 2016, but Reid talked over her.
"It’s been moving in that direction. And with Obama not on the ballot, you know, I have been talking with people who have been looking at African American turnout. The precincts are barren. Turnout among African Americans is dismal in Florida," Reid added.
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MSNBC's Joy Reid bashed anyone who voted Republican as choosing "literal fascism" in February. (MSNBC)
Reid started her political media career as a Florida blogger, but she hasn't always shown strong knowledge of the state. She once thought the data site FiveThirtyEight was named after George W. Bush's margin of victory in 2000 against Al Gore in Florida; rather, the site name refers to the 538 votes up for grabs in the Electoral College.
In 2020, President Biden won Miami-Dade County over Trump by 7 points, while losing the state to Trump overall. Four years earlier Trump lost the county to Clinton by 30 points and barely won the state. Rubio also lost the county by almost 10 points in 2016.
Miami-Dade County has a population of around 2.3 million people, and is 70% Hispanic, with a large chunk of that population Cuban Americans.
In 2002, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush became the last to-date Republican gubernatorial candidate to win the heavily-populated and diverse Miami-Dade County in South Florida.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was reelected on Tuesday night. (James Gilbert/Getty Images)
Democrats have expressed concern about Cuban Americans supporting the GOP in the past, and a group linked to far-left billionaire George Soros is attempting to purchase the conservative Miami-based, Spanish-language Radio Mambi. The talk radio station has long appealed to anti-communism Cuban Americans, but many of Radio Mambi’s biggest stars believe the planned takeover is an attempt by the left to control the flow of Spanish-language information available to voters.
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The deal, which is pending FCC approval, is considered a sign that high-powered Democrats are concerned about future elections.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.