Republican Senator Nick DiCeglie has a record of working across party lines, and following a narrow reelection victory, he’s now navigating a new line carved into the carpet of his own party: between the Republican Party in Washington D.C., and the one governing Florida.

DiCeglie won by a slim margin: 50.88% of the vote, defeating Democratic challenger Karla Kemp by just 3,758 votes.

“Voters sent a loud and clear message on Tuesday [election] night. Look at what happened across the country: voters are not happy with what is happening in DC,” he said.

“Four years ago we were winning by double digits.”

The election results back up that observation. In 2022, DiCeglie defeated Democrat Eunic Ortiz with 56.9% of the vote, a margin of 31,223 votes. This year, that advantage shrank to fewer than 3,800 votes, just a 1.76 percentage point difference.

DiCeglie thinks the results clearly indicate a disparity between the national Republican message coming out of D.C. and the fundamental Republican tenets of low taxes and limited government that the national party has strayed away from.

“There’s no question that there is a distinction,” he declared.

As evidence, he cited how Florida Republicans maintained control of state government while Texas Republicans suffered major losses to Democrats.

In Texas, Democrats captured the governor’s office and every other statewide executive office on the ballot, while also taking control of the state House. Republicans retained their majority in the Texas Senate.

Florida, meanwhile, remained under Republican control, although several legislative contests were decided by narrow margins.

DiCeglie credits Florida Republicans for sticking to those fundamental principles of lower taxes and limited government. But he also offered a warning: the party’s existing voter-registration advantage should not be mistaken for a guarantee of continued electoral success.

DiCeglie wants the statewide party to “listen a little bit more,” particularly as Republicans consider what Tuesday’s results mean for their message and approach to governing.

“We have the ability to reset the tone. There was an overly aggressive one for a while,” he continued.

The comments come as DiCeglie prepares to take on a larger role in Tallahassee. Senate President-designate Jim Boyd recently selected him to serve as Senate Majority Leader, a position that will put him in charge of coordinating the Republican caucus and its legislative priorities.

DiCeglie has served in the Florida Legislature since 2018, first in the House and then in the Senate, beginning in 2022. By the end of his newly won term, he will have spent 12 years in the Legislature.