Florida Democrats want to stage a comeback. They think DeSantis might be able to help
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Florida Democrats are leaning on their biggest adversary as they look to revamp their party ahead of 2024: Gov. Ron DeSantis.
After two tough election cycles in a row — including a particularly bruising 2022 midterm year — the state party has begun an aggressive counteroffensive against DeSantis in an effort to claw its way back from the brink of political irrelevance, seeing the top-tier Republican presidential hopeful as the perfect foil to fuel their political resurgence.
The animosity between Florida Democrats and the state’s powerful Republican governor isn’t new. What’s changed, party officials and operatives said, is that DeSantis’ nascent bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination has elevated their platform and allowed them to appeal to national Democrats — including donors — in a way that’s been lacking in recent years.
“What it’s done for Florida Democrats is one: it has brought us fire in our bellies to take him down, and two: it is absolutely raising the national profile of Florida Democrats, because we are the frontlines,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said in an interview with the Miami Herald.
“We live this every single day,” she continued. “We live every bill he passes, every veto of the budget, every insane decision he’s making with the Department of Education, all the things that he is doing.”
Since taking the helm of the state party in February, Fried has sought to refashion it as a more-aggressive, sharper-tongued political force, hoping to juice enthusiasm among Democratic base voters and win back donors who have turned their attention elsewhere in recent years amid growing skepticism of Democrats’ chances of winning in Florida.
The efforts are unfolding on multiple fronts.
Fried filed formal complaints this week against three aides in the governor’s office over allegations that they solicited donations for DeSantis’ presidential campaign from lobbyists and lawmakers. DeSantis’ office dismissed those complaints as “politically motivated” and asserted that members of the governor’s executive team have a right to “fundraise, knock doors, or volunteer their free time.”
And on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a first-term Democrat who has gained a reputation as a DeSantis antagonist in D.C., held an ad hoc congressional hearing on so-called “anti-democratic abuses of power” by DeSantis and his allies, using the 90-minute gathering to air a long list of grievances against the governor.
“You have people like Maxwell [Frost] and other state reps and even other members of Congress — people who would usually be more measured — saying: ‘Enough.’ We’re going to speak out and become more confrontational,” Thomas Kennedy, a Democratic National Committee member from Florida who has long been critical of the state party, said. “The party as a whole has been more aggressive.”
Kennedy, a prominent activist who was banned last year from attending the governor’s press conferences after being tossed out of multiple events, said that DeSantis’ presidential bid has fueled that sense of urgency among Democrats. He added that while the Florida governor had long been expected to run for the White House, it’s become a more powerful motivator in the weeks since he declared his candidacy.
“A lot of national groups and entities — they’re looking at Florida in a way that they didn’t look at it in 2020 and especially 2022,” Kennedy said. “They’re looking at it and saying, “if we don’t at least check these people, check these far-right figures that are starting to create a laboratory for extremist policies in Florida, the Florida of today could become the America of tomorrow.”
What’s Different This Time?
It’s a strategy that hasn’t necessarily worked wonders in the past. Charlie Crist, the former congressman and last year’s Democratic nominee for governor, hitched his campaign to the idea that Democrats needed to stop DeSantis in 2022 before he had the opportunity to mount a presidential bid. He struggled to raise even a fraction of DeSantis’ fundraising haul and went on to lose that race by a staggering 19-point margin.
So far, Democrats say, there’s at least some reason for optimism. Democrat Donna Deegan’s win in the Jacksonville mayoral race in May was held up by many in the party as an early sign that their losing streak could be coming to an end.
And Fried said that she’s gotten assurances from President Joe Biden and Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison that national Democrats are still planning to contest Florida in 2024.
The DNC began running a digital ad in key battleground states, including Florida, just this week targeting several Republican presidential contenders on their abortion stances. That includes DeSantis, who signed a six-week ban on the procedure in April, though that law has yet to take effect.
Of course, Democrats still have a lot of ground to make up. The 2022 midterm elections in Florida were nothing short of devastating for Democrats; DeSantis won reelection by a landslide and Republicans captured supermajorities in both chambers of the state Legislature, as well as control of every statewide elected office.
Since then, the Florida GOP has continued to expand its voter registration advantage in the state, with the latest data made available this week showing nearly 500,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats. And Republicans have a yawning financial advantage that even Fried acknowledged would be nearly impossible for her party to make up.
“Are we going to make up the fundraising with Republicans? No,” she told the Herald. “That is not in the game plan. Which is hard. It is hard to raise when you don’t have a statewide [elected official]. It is very easy when you have a governor and you have two U.S. Senators.”
Asked what her party’s finances currently look like and whether it’s on track to narrow its cash gap with the Florida GOP, Fried noted that the party’s annual fundraising gala in Miami Beach next month had already sold out, but conceded that bolstering the party’s finances is “still going to take time.”
“The money is going to come in this year,” she said.
There are other challenges, as well. Multiple Democrats, including Fried, acknowledged that the party’s field program — the operation that deals with persuading and mobilizing voters — is still far from where it needs to be, and others noted that Democrats still don’t have a clear idea of who to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott next year.
There’s also the lingering question of whether Florida’s rightward lurch in recent years is more than just a temporary hiccup for Democrats.
“If Florida Democrats are trying to rebuild their greatly diminished party after the shellacking they received last year, they are far from the target given the increasing Republican Party advantage in voter registration,” the Republican Party of Florida said in a statement to the Herald. “Florida voters are registering Republican because they agree with our strong policies that are keeping Florida free. It isn’t a slogan, it is a way of life.”
Fernand Amandi, a Miami-based Democratic pollster who helped former President Barack Obama win Florida in 2008 and 2012, said that any successful effort by Democrats to put the state back into play is going to require more than just an aggressive counter-messaging campaign against DeSantis.
“When there’s a massive, multi-million dollar investment into trying to win Florida that is sustained over time, that’s when I think we can say Florida is potentially back in play,” Amandi said.
“Until that happens, unfortunately for Florida Democrats, it’s a lot of well-meaning talk that is not backed up by what a campaign needs to be successful, which is money, messaging and a new brand, because the Democratic brand in Florida, for better or for worse, is a damaged brand.”
