With Vice President Kamala Harris almost certainly going to be President Joe Biden's replacement as the nominee, Democrats are trying to rally around her. She's gone up in areas such as her favorable ratings, and some polls show it could still be a close race, but this looks to just be the honeymoon period. Part of that excitement applies to particular states, such as the once purplish but now solidly red Florida.
Over the weekend, Biden-Harris supporters such as Harry Sisson and Victor Shi posted their excitement because members of the Villages in Florida turned out for an event supporting Harris.
Plenty of replies and quoted reposts chimed in to tell the young Harris supporters to chill out, that it wasn't a big deal. At our sister site of Twitchy, Sam J. chimed in to add some further context about this rally, including how Harris herself wasn't even there, though her campaign still seems to think Florida is in play.
"YIKES! If Dems Call This Sad Little Pro-Kamala Get Together at The Villages 'Enthusiasm' She's in TROUBLE," her headline aptly read.
Then there's Nikki Fried, who chairs the Florida Democratic Party. She's been posting and reposting a lot about the weekend's campaign efforts, with many such posts referencing "#TakeBackFL."
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Collin Rugg also made a fitting point, though, in that because Democrats will be working hard, Republicans have to do the same. As we've been saying, the Trump-Vance campaign and Republicans can't get complacent and they can't take anything for granted.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported on Friday how the weekend indeed kicked off the "100 days of action weekend." The report also highlights a particular focus on non-affiliated voters.
Democrats really do seem to think they can flip Florida:
But with nearly 30% of Florida voters not affiliated with the either the Republican or Democratic parties, Democrats believe that if they deploy an army of grassroots volunteers to make phone calls, knock on doors and engage in public displays of support, they can flip the state in November.
“We are working for every vote in this state ... it’s one we are determined to win,” said Jasmine Burney Clark, director of the Harris campaign in Florida.
That's a tall order, considering Republicans overtook Democrats in the number of registered voters statewide at the end of 2021, and now are on track to have a lead of one million by the time of the November general election.
Undaunted, Clark said 7,000 Floridians signed up as campaign volunteers in the 72 hours after Harris became a candidate. It's a surge of newcomers that veteran Democrat campaign workers said they have not seen since former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign.
The plan is to activate more than 2,600 of the newcomers this weekend.
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Fried said Democrats have a chance to stop a string of statewide losses by expanding its coalition of voters. She points to the 2023 elections, when Democrats won the Jacksonville mayor’s office and flipped an Orlando-area Florida House seat. No-party-affiliated voters broke for Democrats by more than 65%.
“They represent one-third of Florida voters (actually 28%) and will play a decisive role in November,” said Fried in a video call with reporters.
On Sunday, POLITICO put out an article as well, "'Don’t sleep on Florida': Harris candidacy jolts battered state Democrats."
The expectations look to be a bit tempered here, which is to avoid the epic losses that Democrats experienced in 2022 when Gov. Ron DeSantis was reelected by historic margins:
Now Harris’ entry in the presidential race has recharged enthusiasm among rank-and-file Democrats from Miami to Tallahassee. No, they admit, Harris probably won’t win the state; Florida is not among the “pathways to victory” for the campaign, and no Democratic (or Republican) group has invested any serious money on advertising here.
Yet high engagement could help them avoid a repeat of the disaster of the midterms — when Democratic turnout plunged as Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans romped to huge victories — and give the party a chance to start the recovery process in a state where there has not been a Democratic governor since 1999, they say.
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What happens in Florida over the next three-plus months will test Republicans’ hold on a state of more than 23 million people, which has become a reliable source of electoral votes for former President Donald Trump and the GOP. Democrats were already hoping to see a turnout boost from a pair of November ballot measures that would overturn the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks and legalize marijuana for adults.
Still, some still fear Harris excitement will give way to another round of shattered expectations, moving Florida even further from its place as a swing state that decided the presidency in 2000.
While the Harris campaign and some top Democrats insist the vice president will put Florida back in reach, others continue to lower expectations.
“Do I believe Kamala Harris is going to win Florida? No, probably not,” Reggie Cardozo, a veteran Florida political operative who served as deputy state director for Hillary Clinton. “Do I believe that Kamala Harris gives us a better shot of closing that gap than maybe Joe Biden did? Absolutely. … So for me it’s a matter of: Does the vice president lose Florida by 5 points or does she lose it by 12 points?”
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Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a South Florida Democrat and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said “Harris knows Florida” and “her super-charged candidacy expands our Democratic map especially with younger, minority and women voters who are just now engaging in the race.”
“My message is: Don’t sleep on Florida, because Kamala’s candidacy just woke a sleeping giant,” Wasserman Schultz said.
The Harris campaign, however, continues to send mixed signals about how serious it is about Florida. Harris has visited Florida — which has a diverse blend of white, Hispanic and Black voters — roughly a dozen times as vice president to put the state GOP on notice over abortion rights, gun violence and Black history curriculum.
So, what is the deal with Florida? Forecasters still consider it to be a likely win for Republicans. 270towin regards the state to be "Likely Republican," while RealClearPolitics (RCP) has it in the "Leans Republican" column. Other forecasters look to put Florida in the "Leans Republican" column as well.
When it comes to the polls, RCP has Trump with a lead of +8.5 over Harris, while 538 similarly has Trump up by +8.8 over Harris.
Earlier on Tuesday, a poll was released from the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab, showing Trump leading Harris by 49-42 percent among likely voters.
"Vice President Kamala Harris may have energized Florida's Democratic base, but a poll released Tuesday morning suggests her candidacy hasn't yet changed voter preferences in the state," a write-up from The Palm Beach Post mentioned.
Such articles above, as well as a Monday piece from the Tallahassee Democrat about the action weekend speak to an enthusiasm concern that was an issue when Biden was the nominee, which they hope to rectify with Harris.
But, RCP also shows that Trump was only leading Biden in the Sunshine State by an overall lead of +6.3.
In a way, this effort for Democrats to target Florida sounds almost like the Trump campaign's ploy to put bright blue states like New York and New Jersey in play, at least when Biden was the presumptive nominee. Democrats in New York even admitted to having a battleground status thanks to Biden. Then again, even without Biden, Democrats could still lose, perhaps not states like New York and New Jersey, but the election overall.
