Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Republicans have only themselves to blame for younger voters’ growing openness to socialism after voters 30 and under shifted sharply toward Democrats in last week’s midterm elections.
During an appearance on “The Sage Steele Show,” the term-limited governor criticized what he called “corporatist Republicans” who steer government policies toward favored industries and companies. He argued that such practices are fueling young Americans’ frustration with capitalism and making socialism appear more appealing.
“Young people have a very positive view of socialism compared to capitalism. The question is, why is that?” DeSantis said Wednesday, one day after Democrats captured both chambers of Congress by overwhelming margins.
“Some of it is the education in our universities. But I think a big part of that is, what they’re comparing is not free enterprise versus socialism. What they’re comparing is how government gets involved in business, and you have crony capitalism.”
“The best kind of indirect supporters of socialism are some of these corporatist Republicans who propagate these crony policies,” he continued, arguing that those figures are alienating younger voters.
DeSantis said a socialist candidate on the ballot would be an automatic deal-breaker for a Republican like him. But he questioned whether the label still carries the same force among less partisan voters.
“If it’s cronyism versus socialism, there’s going to be enough people who are going to choose socialism,” he warned.
Tuesday’s results indicated that the “socialist” label did little to deter voters.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Poet Michael Ruiz Arrested After Video Shows Attack on TPUSA Member
Throughout the campaign, Republicans repeatedly sought to link vulnerable left-leaning Democrats to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist.
“House Republicans will make Zohran Mamdani famous in battleground races next November,” the National Republican Congressional Committee said in an October 2025 memo, according to Axios.
By Wednesday, DeSantis had described the elections as “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country.”
In a post on X, he predicted that Republicans could remain shut out of the Senate until 2032.
The results supported his bleak assessment. Democrats flipped Republican-held Senate seats in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina.
In Florida, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) won the governor’s race by just over one percentage point, narrowly defeating Democrat David Jolly to replace the term-limited DeSantis.
DeSantis’s criticism of crony capitalism predates the election setback. In September, he told the Heartland Institute that the system amounted to “warmed over socialism.”
The electoral shift was most pronounced among the very voters he was discussing. Voters under 30 backed Democratic House candidates by 66% to 31%, according to a preliminary estimate from Tufts University’s CIRCLE. That marked an increase from the Democrats’ 14-point advantage among the same age group in the 2024 House exit poll.
