Democrats have a new reason to worry that Florida is slipping away
THERE IS A DEBATE HAPPENING. AND SOME THINK, DUE TO FLORIDA’S SIZE AND RECENT DISAPPOINTMENTS, WE SHOULD SHIFT RESOURCES AND FOCUS ELSEWHERE.
Greg Speed, president of the national progressive organizing group America Votes
Liberal grassroots groups in Florida are reducing staff and scaling back voter-outreach efforts because of a growing reluctance from outof-state donors to spend money on the state, say top progressive strategists.
If the financial pullback continues, they warn, it threatens not only the party’s chances in this year’s slate of midterm races but also Florida’s place as a top-tier battleground in the 2024 presidential election.
“There is a debate happening,” said Greg Speed, president of the national progressive organizing group America Votes. “And some think, due to Florida’s size and recent disappointments, we should shift resources and focus elsewhere.”
America Votes, which has helped organize voters in the state since 2007, is one of the groups shrinking its footprint, planning to ditch a statewide organizing effort in favor of a regionally focused one. After years of “massive investment” in turnout operations, Speed said, this year’s effort “is shaping up to be more regionally focused and probably smaller overall.”
Other groups in the state are struggling to hire and retain staff because the lack of interest from national donors has scrambled budgets, said Raymond Paultre, executive director of Florida Alliance, a network of progressive donors.
Paultre says that, in conversations, many national donors are blunt with their pessimism about the state’s politics and their lack of interest in investing.
“They’ll tell you we’re not on the map,” he said. “They’ll go, ‘You’re not on our map.’ It’s not over-complicated.”
Concerns about Democrats’ competitiveness in Florida have festered on the left ever since former President Donald Trump’s victory in the state in
2016. But liberal strategists say that, while it’s not too late to turn things around, what they’re seeing now makes them concerned that Florida is entering a dangerous new phase, in which the failure of past elections saps resources for future races and makes winning even harder — pushing the party into a kind of death spiral here that could turn a former swing state into one Republicans dominate for a generation.
“It often feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy that there’s anxiety and reluctance to invest in Florida because it’s large and complex,” said Andrea Mercado, executive director of Florida Rising, a progressive organization that advocates for economic advancement and racial justice.
“I think the right wants you to believe that Florida is not winnable for Democrats because they have no path without Florida,” she said.
ULTIMATE BATTLEGROUND?
Florida has famously sat at the center of the country’s politics since 2000, when a contentious weeks-long recount between Al Gore and George W. Bush ended with the Texas governor’s victory by just 537 votes.
Ever since, it’s been the home of some of the nation’s most competitive federal and state races, with the winning candidate often winning by only a sliver of the overall vote. The state’s size and unique population have also made it a magnet for national attention and money, and it’s been a top focus of nearly every recent presidential campaign.
But a string of recent stunning Democratic defeats, including Trump’s dual triumphs in 2016 and 2020 and the success of Sen. Rick Scott and Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2018 midterms, have changed the perception of the state, party strategists acknowledge. Democrats lost the last presidential race here despite a late $100 million investment from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, concentrated largely on TV ads.