National Perspective: All eyes on Florida

VERO BEACH, Florida — Three-quarters of a century ago, when Joe Biden and Donald Trump were children, this state was a backwater, both the smallest in the South and the smallest east of the Mississippi, ranked in the bottom half of the states by population and by home ownership. Its six members of the House — fewer than Oklahoma — were nobodies, representing a sprawling peninsula that was basically nowhere. It had enjoyed booms (land, citrus) and busts (land, citrus) in recurring waves of dreams and dross. The University of Florida had about the same student enrollment (2,604) as Vermont's Middlebury College has now (2,526).

The first ancient peoples flowed here 12,000 years ago. Some 600 years ago, the Spanish nobleman and explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed here, in search, like so many who followed, of eternal youth. French explorers came next. Then arrived other settlers, some in work overalls, others in golf shirts, still more in bespoke suits and carrying bulging legal briefcases.