Charlie Crist Defends Historic Triple Crown Title

Democrats

‘Worn-out old donkey’ is only candidate to lose as Democrat, Republican, and independent

Andrew Stiles • November 8, 2022 9:30 pm

Charlie Crist on Tuesday successfully defended his title as the only candidate in American history to lose a statewide election as a Democrat, Republican, and independent.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) easily defeated Crist on Tuesday, putting the “worn-out old donkey out to pasture.” Major networks called the race for DeSantis shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The incumbent led by 18.6 percentage points with more than 83 percent of the vote counted, according to the New York Times.

Crist won his first Triple Crown title in 2014 after running as a Democrat in the Florida gubernatorial election and losing to GOP candidate Rick Scott. In 2010, he lost badly to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) after leaving the Republican Party to run as an independent candidate in a three-way race. As a Republican in 1998, he unsuccessfully challenged incumbent senator Bob Graham (D., Fla.).

The failed politician has been a Democrat since 2012, when he formally announced his party switch in a book titled, The Party’s Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat. A review published in the New Republic called it “a dishonest and boring memoir” written by “a man with no convictions.”

Tuesday’s outcome means that both of Florida’s U.S. Senators and its governor have beaten Charlie Crist in a statewide election.