Can an Independent Candidacy Win in Florida in 2026?

2026 will one again be a wild ride in Florida, as we face an open race for the Governorship, and thanks to John Morgan and/or Jason Pizzo, for Florida’s first time, we might have a legitimate third-party effort.

I am not breaking any news here – long time followers of mine know I’ve always been intrigued by the possibility of a third-party candidacy.  At a very conceptual level, there is no doubt voters are open to the idea, and having sat in two days of focus groups since the 2024 election, I do believe voters want less rank partisanship and more action on core issues that impact their lives and their wallets.

But thinking about a third-party candidacy in concept, and building a pathway for one to win, especially in a state like Florida, are two entirely different conversations.

OG readers of my blog may remember that one of my first ever pieces was an analysis of then Governor Charlie Crist’s independent bid for the United States Senate in 2010.  In that piece, a piece I wrote to think through my own curiosity about the race, I argued that despite Crist’s near universal, and largely positive name recognition, his odds of winning were low, given the partisan voting habits of Florida voters.   You can read those two 2010 pieces here if you are interested (Sorry Charlie, and More on Crist's Steep Climb).

It is fair to say I took a lot of shit at the time from certain corners of the political punditocracy for those pieces, but history proved those models to be correct.  Any way you slice it, for a third party candidacy to succeed, you are asking a significant share of partisans to dump their habits and vote for something different. Moreover, you likely need one of the two party nominees to have the bottom fall out, since any independent candidate will be required to take a position or two (or 20) that will make them unacceptable to a broad reach of the other side. Any successful third party candidate will likely need their vote goal based in one of the two parties. 

John Morgan’s toying with a candidacy already had me thinking it was time to update that 2010 piece, but now that widely talked about 2026 candidate State Senator Jason Pizzo has decided to become an independent, now is as good of a time as any.  If you haven't heard Morgan talk about his potential run with Florida Man Chuck Todd, it is very much worth your time:  https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-chuck-toddcast-220098/episodes/im-controversial-john-morgan-t-235284933

What does a 2026 Path to Victory Look like?

Couple of caveats to begin.

This isn’t what I think will happen.  I am sure some dude banging away on a 2013 Dell desktop computer from his mother’s basement is going to tweet “that moron Schale just said he thinks X…” after reading this – and to be clear, what I will write below are just numbers off an excel spreadsheet that lay out what would have to happen.   This is a model, not a prediction.

I also have no beef with either John Morgan or Jason Pizzo.  I am not writing this to shit on either one of their potential candidacies. In fact, I like them both personally, and I appreciate both have tried to carve a path towards the median voter.  I would be intrigued by either one of them running (though I think both have a hard road).

I do not have a candidate in this race (the other rumor I heard this week), nor am I looking for one.  I started this exercise because someone asked me the other day what I thought it would take for Pizzo to win as a Democrat.

And finally, I love the Travis Hunter pick.  Absolutely love it, and you should too.  We’ve screwed up so many drafts that I appreciate the Jaguars being aggressive. 

So, let’s start with some assumptions.

Today there are about 14.1 million registered voters.  In terms of assumptions, I am going to assume that this number won’t change much between now and 2026.   I think this is reasonable for a few reasons:  between 2020 and 2022, the total number of registered voters was nearly identical – and between 2022 and 2024, the total number declined.  

Maybe it goes up a few hundred thousand – maybe it goes down, but 14.1 million voters is a decent place to start for this exercise.

Let’s peg voter turnout at 55%.   52.5% is the average of the last seven but given that the state has increased the speed at which voters are removed from the active rolls, a larger share of the active voter roll are likely voters.

Let’s also assume some of the partisan national mood favors Dems a little – so at that 55%, we can assume Republican turnout is down a bit (let’s say 65% compared to 67% in 2022), and thanks to Trump, Democrats are up (58% from 51%).  We’ll keep NPA at the 38% that it was in 2022.

Let’s also assume the Jaguars beat the Colts in Jacksonville in 2025…something that’s happened every year since the middle of Barack Obama’s presidency…

But I digress. 

Assuming the current partisan make-up holds steady – GOP with a +9% registration edge (apropos of nothing, would note that when I left the Florida Democratic Party payroll, the Dem advantage was like +4.5% and we held 14 more seats in the State House, but alas, I again digress), the final electorate would look something like this?

Total voters:  7,795,136

GOP:  3,663,251 (47% of voters)

DEM:  2,566,435 (33% of voters)

NPA:   1,565.450 (20% of voters)

Now we can quibble about this, but mostly if you want to quibble, rather than being insufferable on twitter, I invite you to make your own excel spreadsheet and voter model…

Back to the exercise.

Since I first thought about this in terms of what a Democratic Jason Pizzo would have to do to win…let’s look at one possible scenario (note, I said possible, not plausible):

In a two-party race, Pizzo would need 16% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats, and 60% of NPA voters to win by a very narrow margin that is similar to DeSantis’ margin in 2018. 

Now, let’s throw Morgan or Pizzo in the race.

In this scenario, let’s look at race between a Republican Byron Donalds, endorsed by President Trump.  A Democratic David Jolly, and either Morgan or Pizzo.

(Yes, I know Donalds might not be the nominee.  Yes, I know someone other than Jolly might run.   You can call it Trevor Lawrence vs Blake Bortles.  Whatever.  Stop taking this stuff so seriously!)

If you assume that a Democrat with the kind of profile of Jolly, even with Morgan or Pizzo in the race, is going to win 50% of Democrats, and 20% of independents, that alone gets Jolly to just over 20% of the statewide vote, meaning the statewide win goal lands just under 40%.

How would Morgan or Pizzo get to that win?

They would need to win more than a quarter of Republicans – in this model, 27% to be exact (assuming that 2% vote for Jolly – which is probably a low assumption).   

And they would need to win ¾ of the remaining NPA voters – 60% overall.  

A win would look like this:

Republicans:  71% Donalds, 2% Jolly, 27% Pizzo/Morgan

Democrats:  5% Donalds, 50% Jolly, 45% Pizzo/Morgan

NPA:  20% Donalds, 20% Jolly, 60% Pizzo/Morgan

Which would lead to an outcome:

Pizzo/Morgan:  39.6%

Donalds:  39%

Jolly: 21.4%

 In fairness, there are a lot of assumptions baked into all of this that are probably a reach.   If the GOP increases its voter registration advantage, a third party would need a larger share of that (and same if by miracle my side got its shit fully together).   Would a Trump backed Republican – even if Trump’s numbers continue to slide – get less than 80% of a GOP midterm base?  That is hard to imagine.

Are independents, who tend to have partisan voting habits, likely to break by 60% for an NPA candidate?  Or more than half of Democrats bailing on a plausible Democratic candidate?  A lot has to happen for either to occur.

Moreover, can someone stake out a position that appeals to 30% of Republicans that doesn’t anger a big enough chunk of Democrats to make the math hard?  Or vice versa?  Can Gabe Davis play an entire NFL game without a stupid drop?  These are all difficult questions to gauge.

Furthermore, neither John Morgan nor Jason Pizzo starts with the profile of Crist.  Governor Crist started the 2010 general with the strongest positive name ID in the field.  While Morgan has strong statewide name ID, he doesn’t carry early 2010 Crist numbers.  And Pizzo, while well-regarded in Tallahassee, is largely unknown statewide.

I get the argument some of my center-left (and center-right) friends make that this might be the best pathway in the short term. But one rule of politics that holds firm:  the best way to predict future voting behavior is to know past voting behavior and given the partisan loyalty that exists among partisan voters.  

But then again, this is Florida.  And we've seen the unpredicted happen in America on a seemingly quite precedented frequency of late. I am a skeptic for sure, but it would be fun to watch.