According to forecasts, Republican Ron DeSantis won the gubernatorial election in the US state of Florida as expected. The 44-year-old incumbent prevailed against his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist in the vote in the populous state in the south-east of the country, according to forecasts by the TV stations CNN, Fox News and NBC.
DeSantis, popular in Florida – who was elected governor in 2018 by a narrow margin – was always well ahead of Crist in polls. DeSantis is considered a possible presidential candidate for 2024 and the biggest Republican competitor to ex-President Donald Trump. Florida is considered a so-called “swing state” in which voters sometimes prefer the Republicans and sometimes the Democrats.
Democrats win governorships from Republicans
The Democrats have recaptured the governorships from the Republicans in two states on the east coast. In Massachusetts, Attorney General Maura Healey prevailed, in Maryland the author Wes Moore, as the US news agency AP reported on the basis of vote counts and surveys of voters. Healey becomes the first openly gay female elected candidate in Massachusetts, and Moore becomes the first black governor in Maryland.
A former White House spokeswoman under then-President Donald Trump, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will become the new governor of the southern US state of Arkansas. This was reported by the US news agency AP based on vote counts and surveys of voters. The 40-year-old Republican therefore beat her Democratic opponent Chris Jones (52).
In conservative Arkansas, the victory of Trump-backed Huckabee Sanders was considered certain. She was the White House spokeswoman from 2017 to 2019. During this time, she had repeatedly been accused of spreading untrue or misleading statements.
In 36 states, new governors will be appointed in the US midterm elections – the most powerful office in a state, comparable to a prime minister in Germany.
