Ron DeSantis Goes Scorched Earth on the State of the GOP After Party’s Election Debacle: ‘Extinction-Level Event’

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) delivered a strong speech against the state of the GOP following the results of the 2026 midterm elections on Wednesday.

After first acknowledging that Florida, unlike many states previously considered safe by the Republican Party, managed to pull gains and retain power, DeSantis lit into other states and the GOP as a whole.

DeSantis continued:

This is as close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country, as we have seen probably in the last 100 years. In January, when everyone in office leaves, who were either term-limited or voted out, of the ten largest states in this union, only one state will have Republican control of their state. The state of Florida.

If you look at our chief rival — in a healthy sense, the state of Texas — I would say over my lifetime, Texas has been the crown jewel of Republican politics. I think we’ve been the leader for Republicans and conservatives since I’ve been governor, but you go over the whole generation, no one holds a candle on the Republican side to the Lone Star State. Not only did they lose a highly publicized U.S. Senate race, they lost everything. The governor, attorney general, all the other statewide.

The losses are “going to hurt not just for the next two years,” he continued. “That is something that can reverberate for the next decade or more. If the Republican Party doesn’t have Texas as an anchor, we won’t be viable nationally going forward.”

He also touched on what happened nationally:

The federal results, you have to put a good face on this. I was very clear we were running into headwinds and honest about that. I said a victory would be minimizing the losses given the climate.

We knew it could be worse. I don’t think most of us thought it would be this bad. Democrats will likely go into January with 56 U.S. Senate seats and as much as 258 U.S. House seats. So what that does not only is that going to totally change the dynamic of the next two years to the detriment of President Trump, this is going to last far beyond just two years.

You look ahead to 2028 election, a presidential election. You are not as Republicans going to be able to retake the Senate under this current map two years from now, and all the House seats are probably not viable to take that back as well. So this is really going to have an impact two years, four years, six years.

“This is probably the political worst-case scenario for an election,” he added. “Why did Florida hold up and hold the line? I think the answer is that we built up a record of achievement.”

DeSantis also insisted Democrats “were able to win based off the sentiment that’s existing in the country right now; they did not earn a mandate to indulge their left-wing fantasies.”

Watch the above via Fox News.

The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
The single summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting from both sides of the aisle. Subscribe now!