FMNN graphic: electoral vote bars for the 2024 map. 2024 result Democrats 226, Republicans 312. If Texas flips, 266 to 272. If Texas and Florida flip, Democrats 296, Republicans 242. Below, a tombstone reads R.I.P. The GOP Path to 270, 1854 to 2028? — The 2024 electoral map with Texas and Florida flipped. 270 to win. Tap to enlarge. Graphic: FMNN.

Texas Republicans carved up the suburbs, traded Cornyn for Paxton and made cruelty a strategy, and Texas voted them out. Florida held on by a point. Flip both in 2028 and Republicans can sweep every swing state and still lose.

OPINION | By Joseph J. Jackson | ST. PETERSBURG (Nov. 11, 2026)

The short version

On Nov. 3, Texas Democrats won the U.S. Senate seat, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the Texas House. James Talarico beat Ken Paxton 55.1% to 43.0% in a state Trump carried by 13.7 points in 2024.
Florida stayed red by a hair: Byron Donalds beat David Jolly 50.1% to 48.7%, and Ashley Moody beat Angie Nixon by about three points.
The math: add Texas (40) and Florida (30) to the 226 electoral votes Democrats lost with in 2024, and that losing map becomes 296, a win without a single swing state.
Take Texas and Florida away from Trump's best map (312) and Republicans fall to 242. They could sweep all seven swing states and still lose.

Florida watched Texas go blue on Nov. 3 and stayed red. Barely.

Byron Donalds beat David Jolly 50.1% to 48.7%. Ashley Moody beat Angie Nixon by about three points. In a state where Republicans have about 1.5 million more registered voters than Democrats, that isn't a mandate. That's a warning.

Texas is that warning. Texas is also the blueprint.

The warning

Texas went blue at the top of the ticket: Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the Texas House. And Texas Republicans are apparently still trying to figure out what they did wrong.

Williamson County, just north of Austin, is suburban Texas. James Talarico carried it by about 20 points.

Now look at the U.S. House map. Mmmhmmm.

Back in 2018, all of Williamson County was in John Carter's congressional district. Beto O'Rourke carried the county by less than three points. Just the slightest hint that the suburbs north of Austin might not stay Republican forever.

The first chance Texas Republicans got to redraw the map after that, they split Williamson County across four congressional districts.

So by the time FELON47 asked for five more Republican seats, those communities had already spent years carved up. The latest gerrymander backfired. Republicans flipped only one of their five targets and lost two seats they already held. Williamson County is still living with what Republicans did to it in 2021.

People in small towns deserve somebody in Congress who understands their communities. So do people in the suburbs. When you slice up a suburban county and attach the pieces to districts that stretch across a bunch of other counties, you make it harder for those voters to elect somebody who answers to them.

Texas could have sent a few more Democrats to Congress if Republicans hadn't spent so much time deciding which voters should cancel out which other voters.

Florida, sound familiar? DeSantis drew a new congressional map aimed at four Democratic seats and pushed it through the Legislature two days after lawmakers got it. It was supposed to make Florida a 24–4 delegation. It came up short, just like Texas. Jared Moskowitz held the 25th.

Then there's the Senate race. Talarico didn't squeak by. He beat Ken Paxton by about 12 points in a state Trump carried by nearly 14 two years ago. Republicans traded John Cornyn for Ken Paxton. If they were going to do something that stupid, couldn't they have done it when Ted Cruz was up for reelection?

Senate Republican leaders wanted Cornyn. Trump backed Paxton anyway, complaining that Cornyn had been late to support him. Apparently, representing Texas comes with a separate performance review on how promptly you kiss the presidential ass.

Cornyn had seniority, influence, and experience getting things done for Texas. Plenty of people who disagreed with him could still see the value in that. Republicans threw it away for Ken Paxton. And after everything, plenty of Texans still looked at Paxton and thought, Yes, that's who should represent Texas.

There are still Republicans who do their jobs well. A local judge can earn the respect of Democrats, independents, and third-party voters by being a good judge. The party's decision to reward somebody like Paxton looks even worse alongside that kind of public service.

And then there's the cruelty.

Trump made incivility, bigotry, and outright cruelty politically acceptable, and Texas politicians decided to see how far they could take it.

Texas put razor-wire-covered barrels in the Rio Grande. A trooper reported that a father was seriously cut rescuing his trapped child, that a teenager broke his leg trying to get around the wire, and that a woman was caught in it while having a miscarriage. He warned that the wire was forcing people into deeper, more dangerous water.

People were already drowning in that river. Texas chose to make it more dangerous.

After the July 4 floods last year, federal funding for FEMA's call-center staffing lapsed. For days, most calls to its disaster-aid hotline went unanswered. People survived a flood and couldn't get through to ask for help.

Texans deserve a government that gets warnings out before a flood, answers the phone when survivors need help, and keeps the power on when people need it most.

And through all of it, Abbott kept finding time to go after families with transgender kids. On Nov. 3, Texans found time to send him home.

Those kids are not fucking hurting you. Their families are trying to take care of them. Leave them the fuck alone.

The blueprint

Texas didn't flip because Democrats got lucky. It flipped because Republicans carved up communities, picked loyalty over competence, and treated cruelty as a campaign strategy for so long that voters stopped buying it.

Florida Republicans have been running that same playbook from Tallahassee for years. Same gerrymander. Same loyalty test. Same cruelty, from Alligator Alcatraz on down.

What Florida Democrats don't have yet is the money. Donalds raised nearly $174 million. Jolly raised less than $28 million. Talarico ran in the most expensive non-presidential race in U.S. history. Florida Democrats got within a point and a half on a fraction of that.

The next test comes fast. Moody won only the last two years of Marco Rubio's term, so she's on the ballot again in 2028, with the presidency at the top of the ticket. And Angie Nixon is already running again on the Democratic side. The rematch is set.

The math

Here's why Florida is the whole ballgame.

California is blue. New York is blue. Everybody knows that before a single vote is counted. Now add Texas and Florida to that list.

Those four states alone are worth 152 electoral votes, more than half of the 270 it takes to win the White House.

Start with the map Democrats lost with in 2024. Kamala Harris carried 226 electoral votes. Add Texas (40) and Florida (30), and that losing map becomes 296. That's a win without Pennsylvania, without Michigan, without Wisconsin, without Georgia, Arizona, Nevada or North Carolina. Democrats could lose every swing state on the board and still be sworn in.

Now flip it around. Trump's 2024 map, his best in three tries, was 312 electoral votes. Take away Texas and it's 272, two votes to spare. Take away Florida too, and it's 242. Republicans could run the table in every swing state again, all seven of them, and still lose.

2024 result: Democrats 226, Republicans 312. Republicans win.
2024 map, Texas flips: Democrats 266, Republicans 272. Republicans win by 2.
2024 map, Texas and Florida flip: Democrats 296, Republicans 242. Democrats win.

Texas alone leaves Republicans hanging by two electoral votes. Florida is the final nail.

And it gets worse for them after that. The 2030 census is projected to shift House seats, and electoral votes with them, toward Texas and Florida starting in 2032. One projection has Texas and Florida combined passing California and New York combined. The states Republicans have been counting on to save them are about to be worth even more.

That's what the death of a party looks like in a presidential system. Not a scandal. Not one bad night. A map where the other side has 270 before a vote is counted, and you have no path left to build one.

Yes, surprises happen. Texas just proved that. That's why we still vote. Trump won Florida by 13 points two years ago, and one midterm doesn't change that by itself. But Texas was a 14-point Trump state two years ago, too.

Is this the beginning of the end?

Not on its own. One election doesn't kill a party. Republicans still hold the Texas Senate, 19 to 12, and the 2021 lines still carve up Williamson County. But Democrats flipped the Texas House, and the Republican trifecta that has run Texas since 2003 is gone. That is the end of something: the idea that Republicans can do anything they want and voters will back them anyway.

Whether it becomes the beginning of the end depends on what they learn. And so far, the man who demanded the gerrymander and endorsed Paxton spent election week blaming Abbott for going "RINO."

So, dear Republicans of Texas, you lost. You didn't lose badly enough.

Dear Republicans of Florida: you're next.

If you're wondering what to do differently next time, start with basic human decency. Fiscal conservatism still means something to plenty of voters. So do competence and public service.

You're there to govern. Stop being bullies and bootlickers.

Can Florida follow the path of Texas in 2028? Texas already answered half the question. Florida gets to answer the rest.

The electoral math uses 2024 results; 2028 uses the same electoral votes. Graphic: FMNN.

Opinion | Florida, The Final Nail in the Coffin for the Republican Party?

The short version

The warning

The blueprint

The math

Is this the beginning of the end?

Sources

Florida Man News Network

Opinion | Florida, The Final Nail in the Coffin for the Republican Party?

The short version

The warning

The blueprint

The math

Is this the beginning of the end?

Sources

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