It was a smaller wave in Florida. The vote definitely moved left statewide just not enough to get Governor over the line. The Dems flipped a number of seats. The main mitigating factor was Rick Scott's 70 million dollar investment and long working outreach to the Hispanic community. Nelson couldn't come close to matching the funds and didn't even try with the hispanic outreach. So Scott was able to eek out a win and likely saved Desantis. Self inflicted wounds like Nelson's campaign and the Dems not running a Mayoral candidate in Jax have buoyed the GOP a little longer than in most swing states. (admittedly Trump being a little more popular here is also a factor). However the media tales that Florida is moving right are nonsense. #Swingstate .
I still contend the other thing that hurt was the candidate the Dems elected in the primary. To me, aside from the rhetoric and nonsense, DeSantis was like Trump, Gwen Graham like Hillary, and Gillum like Bernie. I consider myself Republican, but I didn't like Trump at all. I voted for Hillary. But, if the Dems gave me Bernie as my alternative, I think I would have voted Trump. Said differently, if the race was DeSantis-Graham, I would have voted for Graham.
Unlike most candidates, even those with money, Rick Scott is willing to spend what it takes of his own money to win. There's no competing with that. In both races, the returns were so close that any one thing could have turned the table in the other direction. I do agree that Graham would have gotten more votes from moderates and disaffected Republicans. But I don't know that she would have been as strong with the African-American and staunch progressive vote.
What's interesting about Jax is that major elections have been leaning Democratic, finally getting over the hump in 2018, but the local party still isn't winning consistently outside the minority access districts. IMO, Jax will start going Democratic more consistently only when the local party gets its act together.