Why Florida Democrats should be optimistic — and why they should be pessimistic

The November general election field is set, and Florida Democrats are getting excited.

A bunch of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ endorsed school board candidates face-planted Tuesday. The presidential candidacy of Kamala Harris has given Democrats a shot of much-needed energy and enthusiasm at the top of the 2024 ticket. Social media is awash in clips of the Obamas throwing out Donald Trump disses at the Democratic National Convention.

After years (decades?) of bitter disappointment and dysfunction, ask Democratic leaders, and they’ll tell you the party is back.

“Watch out, country,” said Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democrat who’s set to challenge Republican Rick Scott in November for a U.S. Senate seat. “You better be watching what’s going on here in Florida.”

Look at the data, and it tells a more complicated story. One million more active registered Republicans in the state. A comfortable lead for Trump over Harris in the Florida polls. A GOP cash machine that is alive and well, with Republican leaders bragging about a 17 to 1 fundraising advantage over Dems.

So how should Democrats feel headed into November and beyond?

The case for Democratic optimism

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Harris isn’t likely to win Florida.

Recent polls have shown the Democrat cutting into Trump’s lead, and her campaign says it has signed up some 33,000 volunteers since she entered the race. But if the national party thought Florida would be competitive this year, major donors would have already invested tens of millions of dollars here. They haven’t.

Look no further than Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign. By around this point in 2022, Democrat Val Demings, who was challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, had raised some $46 million. Mucarsel-Powell has raised about a third of that.

That’s not to say the party has written Florida off, or that Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign is hopeless. It’s more that the actions of the party’s power brokers suggest Florida Democrats should be thinking beyond this November.

“The thing that is real is the engagement this cycle,” said Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who worked on former President Barack Obama’s victorious 2008 and 2012 Florida campaigns. “The test … is to harness those moments and turn them into something that is more permanent.”

So what do the state’s Democrats feel good about? Let’s start with the — unproven — thesis that voters are beginning to tune out DeSantis.

The governor often touts his efforts to turn Florida red. In 2022, he became the first governor in recent memory to wade into school board races. His effort was an overwhelming political success: Roughly two dozen of his 30 endorsed candidates won.

But DeSantis’ efforts to remake Florida in his conservative image took a sizable hit Tuesday when six of his 23 endorsed school board candidates took home victories. Eleven lost outright; six more are headed to runoffs.

To Democrats, Tuesday was a sign that the tide is turning in Florida.

“Floridians are tired of the chaos. They are tired of the culture wars,” Democratic Party chairperson Nikki Fried told reporters in a triumphant Wednesday news conference. “They are ready for government to go back to working for them, and they are ready for this moment.”

When asked about the primary results at a Wednesday news conference in Sarasota, DeSantis pointed to his overall record of supporting candidates who back his vision for schools. He noted that conservatives have still made headway during his time as governor.

“Just think about it. You’re now in a situation where someone’s celebrating on the Dem side that they held a school board in a blue district?” DeSantis said.

But Democrats did more than that. In Sarasota County, the epicenter of the conservative Moms for Liberty movement, the chairperson of the school board was ousted by a Democrat-backed challenger. In Miami-Dade, which DeSantis won in 2022, the Democratic county mayor was reelected in a landslide.

A former DeSantis staffer, Nick Primrose, lost his GOP House primary in a northeast Florida district despite the governor’s endorsement. DeSantis’ political appointees were defeated in Manatee and Sarasota.

Outside of the primary, state Republican officials and lawmakers last week staged a revolt over the DeSantis administration’s plans for Florida parks.

DeSantis blamed his candidates’ struggles partly on a busy political schedule. He noted that he’s raising money for Trump’s super PAC and opposing constitutional amendments on marijuana and abortion this cycle.

The Democrats’ thesis that voters are tired of DeSantis’ culture wars will be tested by those amendments. Amendment 3 would legalize marijuana for adult recreational use. Amendment 4 would stop most abortion restrictions. Each would need the approval of 60% of voters to pass.

DeSantis says to vote “no” on both. Will voters listen?

The case for Democratic pessimism

The case for Democratic pessimism is easier to make. An underachieving Democratic Party is, with a few exceptions, the story of Florida politics this century. Republicans have dominated state politics for 25 years, and no Democratic presidential candidate has won the state this century save Obama.

While Harris is generating excitement for the party in Florida and around the country — and could expect a boost from the Democratic National Convention — critics note she remains untested on the biggest political stage. Eventually, they argue, the honeymoon will end.

“She’s going to have to start answering questions and talking about policies, and when that happens, Trump wins all day,” Pinellas GOP chairperson Adam Ross said.

If Harris’ popularity fades, it could dampen turnout. The 2022 Republican wave that hit Florida came in large part because Democratic turnout plummeted.

A Democratic optimist would argue 2022 was an anomaly. A pessimist might say that a series of Republican-passed policies have made it a permanent struggle to turn out the kind of infrequent voters who have traditionally supported Democrats.

New regulations have rendered nonpartisan voter registration drives less effective. Tens of thousands of voters have been deemed “inactive,” meaning they can vote, but are less likely to be reached by campaigns. These barriers for Democrats aren’t going away.

“They’re really going to have to hustle,” said Brad Ashwell, the Florida director of All Voting is Local, a nonpartisan organization that fights what it calls “voter suppression.”

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to pad their lead in voter registration, with their edge recently surpassing 1 million registered voters in the state. (That advantage remains about 700,000 when accounting for those who have been put on the inactive list.) And it’s happening at a time when the Republican Party has a massive fundraising advantage virtually every election cycle.

Fried on Wednesday projected confidence that Democrats could overcome the obstacles. She said that Democrats have knocked on 1.2 million doors this cycle so far, and made 2.1 million phone calls.

“Money doesn’t win, people do,” Fried said. “That is how you win elections. By going to the people.”