TALLAHASSEE — Many prominent Florida Democrats sought a reckoning after their losses in 2020. They wanted a change within the party structure and a rejuvenated party to take on Republicans in 2022.
There were changes at the Florida Democratic Party, as Manny Diaz was elected chairman in January after Terrie Rizzo resigned, but by some measures, their prospects for 2022 have only worsened.
“It’s going to be rough,” said Matt Isbell, a Tallahassee-based Democratic consultant. “It’s going to be pretty bad.”
Diaz took over a party coming off a string of losses in 2020, including the presidential race — although Joe Biden won the White House he lost Florida by 3% to former President Donald Trump — and a handful of U.S. House and state legislative seats. But it also had severe financial troubles, so much so that the party let health insurance for staffers lapse.
Diaz has had to rebuild the party from the ground up, said Isbell, who has done contract work for FDP earlier this year.
“Basically we had no functioning party by the end [of 2020],” Isbell said. “So we have to rebuild all of that while dealing with a Republican Party that is already flushed with cash and very well organized in a state that seems to be trending more consistently to the right.”
Amid those issues, Democrats are losing ground when it comes to active registered voters. Florida Republicans forged ahead of Democrats in registered voters in October for the first time in modern history. In 2008 the lead was more than 500,000 voters and as recently as the 2016 general election Republicans were 134,242 behind Democrats.
As of Nov. 30, the GOP has 25,000 more active registered voters, of the about 10.2 million registered in total for both parties.
Some liberal and progressive groups’ efforts have aimed specifically at registering new voters but have failed to gain traction. Andrew Gillum, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018 who narrowly lost to Gov. Ron DeSantis, said in 2019 he intended to register 1 million voters but failed to sign up a fraction of that amount.
Diaz was unavailable for an interview, an FDP spokesman said, but he told South Florida TV station WPLG earlier this month that the GOP’s voter registration advantage wasn’t because of increased enthusiasm but came instead from marking large numbers of Democratic voters as “inactive.”
Registered voters are deemed “inactive” if they didn’t vote in the previous four years and don’t confirm or update their registration information, such as their address. He said Democrats still hold a slight lead when inactive voters — who remain registered and eligible to vote — are counted, but he admitted his party needs to do better at registering and engaging voters.
“This has been a marketing ploy that has been going on since the beginning of the year. It is not unexpected,” Diaz said in the TV interview. “I will acknowledge the fact that over the course of the last 10 years the Democrats completely blew it and just went on vacation and stopped registering people to vote — totally acknowledge that. However what you’re seeing this year ... it has nothing to do with an aggressive voter registration program and people out on the streets.”
Other efforts have tried to buttress FDP’s registration drive. State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, has pushed her own voter drive, with a political committee that has spent $300,000 since 2020 on registration efforts. But beyond that, she said the party needs to stay true to its values and invest early in ground campaign efforts to win in 2022.
“You cannot start field [work] in July,” Eskamani said. “You’ve got to start field right now.”
Swing status slipping?
Despite Florida’s status as an ultra-swing state, Florida Democrats haven’t won a governor’s race since 1994. They’ve only won two Cabinet races since 2000. Every close race has been claimed by Republicans, including Gov. Ron DeSantis’ and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s victories in 2018 by less than 0.5%, which required recounts.
Reversing that history in 2022 will be an uphill climb for Democrats. Isbell notes that voter and demographic trends in Florida, which Democrats thought would favor them, appear to be trending towards the GOP.
Trump’s victory in Florida in 2020 was helped with large swings in the Hispanic vote in Miami-Dade County, despite Biden’s improvement in the suburbs compared with Hillary Clinton in 2016. If that trend continues, it will make winning statewide in Florida that much more difficult for Democrats.
“They’ve made gains in suburbia but they not only have continued to lose ground with white working class and rural voters, they’ve now shed a tremendous amount of support from Hispanic voters,” Isbell said. “When you talk about trying to form a 50% of the vote strategy for 2022 – it is a very daunting task.”
In 2022, DeSantis is again on the ballot, but his status among Republicans has grown. His laissez-faire approach to COVID-19 has been embraced by GOP voters and he’s regularly touted as a potential 2024 presidential candidate, if former President Donald Trump doesn’t run.
DeSantis will also likely have an advantage Republicans have had over Democrats in the last two decades: much more money.
As of Nov. 30, DeSantis had more than $67 million cash on hand in his campaign and political committee accounts. His three main Democratic challengers, U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and state Sen. Annette Taddeo, have $7.5 million combined.
“It’s not even a governor’s race. It’s almost comparable to a presidential race,” said Republican Party of Florida vice chairman Christian Ziegler of the fund-raising for DeSantis. “It won’t equal what we did in 2020 for President Trump but it’ll be pretty close.”
One bright fundraising spot for Democrats has been U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Orlando, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Miami, for his seat. She raised $8.4 million over the summer, the most during that quarter of any U.S. House candidate.
Bracing for the worse
But unlike previous election cycles, outside funds could be harder to find for Democrats. The Democratic Governor’s Association recently pushed back on a Politico article suggesting the group would abandon Florida in 2022, but Florida’s expensive media markets and poor recent electoral history could lead it and other national groups to focus on other races across the country.
With such a discrepancy in resources, Republicans could be free to focus on down-ballot races. No major Democratic candidates have jumped into the Cabinet races, and Fried’s decision to get in the governor’s race means the agriculture commissioner’s seat will be open as well.
GOP officials are also eyeing school board races in 2022 after raucous meetings in the fall where activists protested mask mandates imposed by several boards throughout the state.
The Republican base will be geared up for DeSantis’ reelection, Ziegler said, but “right after that the energy and excitement is going to be on these local school board races.”
It all has Democrats bracing for the worst in 2022.
Isbell says he’s telling fellow Democrats to “be prepared to lose bad in 2022. The focus needs to be on rebuilding and restructuring and figuring out what we’re going to do for the presidential cycle [in 2024].”
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