Florida has historically been held up as a massively important state for any White House aspirant, and as a result has been on the receiving end of large candidate rallies, surrogate events and huge sums of national money fueling wall-to-wall campaign ads across the state’s 10 expensive media markets. But for the first time in recent political memory, the 2024 presidential race has left Florida as a comparative afterthought.

If you ever wondered why Florida and Texas have been turned into such conservative hellholes, this is exactly why. Both were starting to turn bluer, and the Republicans didn’t want to lose those precious electoral college votes.