The author argues that Florida is struggling in many ways recently. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the COVID pandemic led to many preventable deaths in Florida, contradicting early articles praising his response. Now DeSantis is known more for his anti-gay and anti-science stances rather than effective governance. His campaign for president seems doomed to fail due to his lack of charisma and poor performance as governor. The author expresses sympathy for Florida residents dealing with the fallout of climate change, disasters, and poor leadership.
The problem is that a vocal minority (edit: majority, these days) of GOP voters care deeply about culture war FUD and reliably show up at the ballot box. In the meantime, large swathes of the Democratic base are just not seeing anything in the candidates who claim to speak on their behalf that inspires them to get out and vote.
Add a demographic tilt toward older voters who are easy to scare and have time on their hands to turn out and run the gauntlet of election day inconvenience, and this is what you get.
Not to mention the voter suppression.