That, or trying to raise their public profile so they can get the VP spot (which is political suicide) or a cabinet position. These campaigns are pathetic, Trump is facing dozens of felony charges, rape allegations and has had tons of failures in his time as president, and these fools are like, "Trump was a great president, I have the same platform as him, but he's old now. Vote for me. Please clap."

The end goal for all politicians is not a position of power, it's a media and lobbying career. Politics is a way to raise their personal brand awareness in order to get a higher retainer when they go on Fox as a contributor, or get hired by a think tank/lobbying firm.

Just like Rick Scott, Desantis won reelection by default. The Democratic Party in Florida is that bad. The party has been unable to nominate a Democratic candidate capable of winning the general election since the early 1990s.

Andrew Gillum almost beat Desantis in 2018, came within 1 point of winning with the most progressive agenda that a Democratic candidate has ever had in this state. So of course in 2022 the Democrats nominate former Republican governor Charlie Crist as their candidate, who runs as basically a moderate anti-Trump Republican, and then loses to Desantis by 11 points. Because who the fuck is going to vote for that? Who wants that shit?
They nominate former cop Val Demmings to run against Marco Rubio, she absolutely plasters the state with ads and commercials about how she is a cop, and she loves cops, and cops should have all the money. These ads don't even mention that she is a Democrat. There are an insane amount of them, everywhere for months. She loses to Marco fucking Rubio by 16 points.

After a certain balance of lost elections, it should become clear that running as far to the right as possible has less to do with being the "only way to win" and more to do with the class interests of the the people in charge of the democratic party.

Yeah in Florida especially it's very hard to deny the idea that the Democratic Party is just the rear guard for the Republicans. I mean they have reached the point where they are straight-up nominating Republican candidates from a decade ago, and losing by huge margins, and not changing course one iota.

Sometimes?!