It’s called voter registration. A lot of potential democratic voters are not registered. There is no excuse for not registering at least 500,000 voters before the 2020 elections.
Well, what excuse did they offer last time?
On paper Florida would seem to be two states cobbled together, one old south and the second from the north east. It is equally split and should be purple. That is fine, but Florida is drifting further red every election because Democrats don’t really know how to appeal to the older northerners who keep flowing into the northern part of the state. Until Democrats learn how to appeal to older white people Florida is going to be problematic. So far Democrats haven’t been anymore successful with them than they have been with the Fox demographic anywhere else in the country.
Don’t get me started.
At some point, reports on the state of Florida are going to have to include the acknowledgement: Florida, a state that is widely expected by climate scientists to no longer exist by the end of this century…
2 words: felon re-enfranchisement.
I agree, but the self-selection of the new Florida northern arrivals generates a formidable tide. I was raised the old south Florida, as you rightly describe it. And even though I know many parts of Florida are worlds apart culturally from the area in which I was raised, I would never return in retirement. Never. Meanwhile, many northern whites are choosing Florida in part for the very reasons I plan to steer clear, even if they don’t openly say or even consciously acknowledge to themselves those underlying reasons.
There is a way to appeal to the Fox demographic, as we all know; it simply involves erasing fundamental values. But, then, there exists a party who’s already done that; and they’ve gone full monty. Hard to compete with that.
“An FBI probe into Tallahassee hurt him too, though it didn’t end up involving Gillum.”
As a Florida resident who voted for Gillum, I suggest the FBI probe was a major factor in his loss. While Gillum avoided indictment, the pictures and stories that came out about he and his campaign manager partying with characters who were indicted definitely damaged him. It was a surprise to me that he won his primary against Gwen Graham, but no surprise that he lost his bid for Governor.
It’s so obvious. Dems need to simply stay unified in the basic message: Republicans will not maintain Social Security, no matter what they say. Republicans will not maintain Medicare, no matter what they say. This is exactly what the Republicans are afraid the messaging from Dems will be.
Florida 2018 was a bitter pill, but if you look under the hood the Dems did a lot of good things and have made a win in 2020 more possible. Nelson flipped 3 O to T counties back to Team Blue (Monroe, St. Lucie, Pinellas). Nelson/Gillum won Seminole County for the first time in forever. Nelson/Gillum got over 40% of the white vote and improved among suburban voters.
The issue was that the latino vote share in Dade County was lower than 2016 and Dems left votes on the table in Broward and elsewhere. If they clean up the little things and make a better outreach to Latino voters, they can win.
The other thing Dems need to do is to correctly identify the GOP strength and target it. That strength is the I-4 exurbs. It’s not the panhandle. It’s not SW FL (though those are big GOP areas). It’s not Pinellas County (the rule that if you win Pinellas you win the State has been disproven in every election in which Rick Scott has been a candidate). It’s the I-4 exurb counties: (Lake, Pasco, Polk, Hernando, Marion, Sumter, Citrus, Manatee). The GOP is averaging around 30k margins across each of these counties. That’s +240k votes. That margin is just 20k shy of the margin the Dems got out of Palm Beach and Dade Counties.
The Dems either have to find a way to erode those margins and shave say 10k off of each county, or they need to make the HRC margins from 2018 in South Florida the norm while retaining the gains they made in 2018. If they do both, then FL becomes a tilt blue state.
I am bullish on FL for 2020.
We have been in Collier County, Florida for the past few weeks on vacation and I am surprised by how conservative this part of the Gulf Coast is. Republicans hold a substantial lead in registered voters, so this state is not some ripe fruit that the Democrats have failed to harvest. North Florida, and other parts of the state like Collier County that are substantially white, make it an uphill climb. By continuing to run the establishment candidates that have few new ideas, they look like the same old same old and that is not going to get the job done. When they are too far to the left they tagged as socialists, but they need some of those Bernie ideas in a more appealing package. That is what many people saw in Obama. Who is the new Obama. When they answer that question, they can win Florida.
So, they don’t want “establishment candidates” but they want a “new Obama”. Sounds like they want an establishment candidate they can convince themselves is totally new, rather than really wanting something totally new, otherwise Obama’s name wouldn’t be involved.
Florida is difficult for Democrats because it’s elderly population of snowbirds tend to be right wingers. They move to Florida for the weather and low taxes. While they die out, these older right wingers are replaced by other old right wingers. Add in the Northern part of the state (redneck land), and one can see why Florida is problematic for Democrats.
Rich to super-rich (like Pelosi who’s worth over $100 million) congressional members (of both parties) benefit enormously from republican tax cuts and other policies designed to further enrich the rich; do Democrats like Pelosi really care that republicans are in power?
My parents used to live in Naples. Like their neighbors, they voted Republican. My father loved Don the Con and watched Fox “News” all day long.
Just keep telling them that the Republicans are going to cut their Social Security and Medicare in order to close the budget deficit they created in order to give money to corporations and the already fabulously wealthy people.
I posted before I saw your comment. Great minds…
Not gonna happen because these people are well-encased in their Faux News bubble.
Better solution is to work to maximize the Obama coalition (young people + minorities). There is no excuse for GOP candidates getting 44-45% of the Hispanic vote (as they just did in Florida) in the Age of Trump. Dems need to be on Spanish radio/TV (I’m looking at you Beto) highlighting every new Trump horror and calling out specific GOP representatives/senators/governors for what they are (or more likely not) doing to stop it.