Florida Democrats Face Uphill Political Battle Ahead of 2024

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his wife Casey DeSantis, and their children walk on stage to celebrate victory over Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist during an election night watch party at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2022. Octavio Jones/Getty Images

News Analysis

In the wake of sweeping Republican victories in the Sunshine State in the 2022 midterm elections, Florida Democrats are struggling to maintain political relevance heading into the presidential election in 2024.

For decades, Florida was considered to be the largest and most unpredictable swing state in the nation, a state that twice put George W. Bush in the White House and did the same for Barack Obama. In 2019, columnist and political commentator George Will suggested that without Florida, it would be difficult for any presidential candidate to find a path to 270 electoral votes.

“Florida is incomparably the most important swing state in the country,” Will said during an appearance on “The Florida Roundup.”

But that was before the Republican sweep in 2022, which turned the Sunshine State solid red when Democrats lost every statewide race on the ballot.

Florida Gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) gives a victory speech after defeating Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried in the Democrat primary at the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Aug. 23, 2022. Octavio Jones/Getty Images

The 2022 Midterms

With the exception of the 2018 race for Commissioner of Agriculture—in which Democrat Nikki Fried defeated Republican Matt Caldwell by a narrow margin of 50.04 to 49.96 percent—Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Florida since 2012.

For the 2022 midterms, Fried gave up that seat to launch a bid to become the Democrat gubernatorial nominee to face off against incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis. But she was defeated by then-U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist. With that victory, Crist—who had defeated Republican challenger Anna Paulina Luna in the 2020 election to represent Florida’s 13th Congressional District—resigned his congressional seat.

The Democrat challenger for Crist’s vacant seat, Eric Lynn, was subsequently defeated by Luna in the 2022 midterms.

But DeSantis was reelected by almost 20 points, and several school boards flipped from majority Democrat to majority Republican, including in Miami-Dade County, which is now the largest school district in the country with a conservative-majority board.

Republicans now hold super-majorities in both houses of Florida’s Legislature, and with Fried gone, there’s not a single Democrat who holds a statewide office.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) flexes his arm alongside Rep.-elect Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) after getting into an argument with Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) in the House Chamber during the fourth day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Jan. 6, 2023. Win McNamee/Getty Images

In one of the most unexpected upsets, Democrat state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith—who was seeking a fourth term in the Florida House of Representatives for the solid blue 49th District—lost to Republican challenger Susan Plasencia, who attacked what she described as Smith’s “wokeism.”

“The problem with Carlos Guillermo Smith is he was going down the path of ultra-wokeness,” John Dowless, the mayor of Edgewood in Orange County and a Republican consultant for Plasencia’s campaign, told The Epoch Times. “It was an ultra-woke ideology that most people don’t agree with. I think most people agree that everyone should have equal opportunity, including those in the LGBTQ community. But he was taking it beyond that, and I think he hung his hat on the Parental Rights bill and went after it with vengeance. He may even be the one who coined the phrase ‘Don’t Say Gay.’ That’s not what the bill said at all. It says stop sexualizing our children.”

Florida’s Democrat Party also has no leader. In the wake of the 2022 defeat, Manny Diaz, the former mayor of Miami who vowed to rebuild Florida’s Democrat Party, resigned as party chair.

In a five-page letter, Diaz blamed the party’s poor ground game and a “long standing, systemic and deeply entrenched culture resistant to change” in which "individual agendas are more important than team; where self-interest dominates and bureaucracies focus on self-preservation.”

John Dowless, Mayor of Edgewood in Orange County and Republican consultant. Courtesy of John Dowless

Looking Ahead

Heading toward 2024, Dowless said he believes Florida’s Democrats will continue their struggle while ignoring why Republicans have been so successful.

“I honestly think that the Democratic Party’s leadership has abandoned their base in the Sunshine State, at least in Miami-Dade, where Hispanic, family-oriented voters live,” Dowless told The Epoch Times, noting the party’s disconnect in trying to force its agenda on Florida’s children. “They don’t understand, you don’t mess with mama bear and her kids.”

Dowless attributed DeSantis’ political success—a decisive reelection victory and growing support for a 2024 presidential run—to his determination to protect parental rights and to maintain Florida’s position as the “place where woke comes to die.”

“The states that are losing populations are being run by Democratic governors,” Dowless said. “But their pride gets in the way of reason and instead of watching and learning, I think they’re dismissing and trying to diminish the work of DeSantis and conservatism.”

Dowless also noted how Florida was named by the U.S. Census Bureau as the fastest-growing state in the nation.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis walks onstage during an election night watch party at the Convention Center in Tampa, Fla., on Nov. 8, 2022. Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images

“We’ve always been growing because of our weather,” he said. “But when we’re the fastest-growing state in the nation you know it’s gone past weather. In my opinion, there’s only one logical answer and that is DeSantis’ leadership through COVID.”

Dowless described his disappointment in seeing how leaders in other states refused to listen to their constituents and would not stand up against the “woke mob” to protect their children, their freedoms, their businesses, and their jobs.

“It absolutely polarized our leaders in ways I was sad to see,” Dowless lamented. “But it definitely showed the true colors of some of our country’s leaders whether they will support freedom or whether they are going to use fear to force certain ideologies on the voters, and I think that’s what happened.”

“The reason why people want to live in Florida has a lot to do with DeSantis’ leadership,” Dowless asserted. “We’re already the third most populous state. For us to take over the lead in new residents is huge.”

On Feb. 7, DeSantis made an announcement on social media.

“In 2018, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by nearly 300,000,” he wrote on Twitter, adding that Republicans outnumbered Democrats by 300,000 by Election Day in 2022.

“Today we can announce that Republicans outnumber Democrats by 400,000. Freedom is here to stay.”