How we knew the Florida seat Democrats just flipped was one to watch

Navy veteran Tom Keen's victory in Tuesday night's special election was both a huge shot in the arm for Florida Democrats and another black eye for Ron DeSantis—and Daily Kos Elections saw it coming half a year ago.

In fact, we first wrote about this race before it even was a race: Despite appointing state Rep. Fred Hawkins as president of a public college (a position he was in no way qualified for), DeSantis refused to schedule an election to fill the new vacancy he'd just created. We knew the 35th District was swingy turf, but DeSantis' foot-dragging was quite the tell.

Whenever Republicans try to avoid setting a special election, you know something's up. It happened just last year in New Hampshire, when the GOP tried to cancel a special to resolve a race that had ended in an exact tie, and instead just seat the Republican candidate. The gambit failed, the election proceeded as planned, and Democrat Chuck Grassie romped in the do-over by a 12-percentage-point margin.