FL Democrats say their base will come out stronger for Harris-Walz ticket

Florida Democrats have been giddy since Kamala Harris succeeded Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee. But while most neutral observers don’t believe the shift will harm Donald Trump’s chances of winning Florida in November, some Democratic lawmakers contend it can help their down-ballot candidates.

“We are taking Florida back,” Tampa Bay area Democratic House member Michele Rayner asserted this week. “I feel it so strongly because we have the ticket that we have, that we’re going to see ‘Yes on 4.’ We’re going to see the Legislature a little bit more blue than it is red.”

Amendment 4 would restore abortion rights through viability and will be on the November ballot.

Republicans hold supermajority leads over Democrats in both chambers of the Legislature and are fighting to maintain that advantage.

Rayner was one of a group of Black female state Democratic lawmakers who appeared during an organizing Zoom call held on Wednesday night by the Florida for Harris campaign, during which it was announced that more than 17,000 people have volunteered to work on the presidential campaign here.

Before touting the newly formed Harris-Tim Walz Democratic ticket, both Rayner and Orlando Democratic Rep. LaVon Bracy Davis paid tribute to Joe Biden, who remains president but has rarely appeared in news coverage since he announced on July 21 that he would not run for re-election.

“I must give a shoutout to President Joe Biden for showing the world what a patriot looks like and how you need to put country first,” Bracy Davis said.

Trump won Florida by a little bit more than 1 percentage point in 2016 over Hillary Clinton and more than 3 percentage points over Biden in 2020. His polling lead over Biden this year in Florida was 6 points, and two surveys comparing Trump to Harris show the former president with an 8-point lead, both according to RealClearPolitics.

Miami-Dade County Democratic Rep. Ashley Gantt said on the call that while she often hears that Florida is now a red state, “Florida is an apathetic state above all and anything else. People are not voting. And so, when I say that I mean we have to tap on the shoulders of the people that we love and even the people we don’t love, and we have to tell them, ‘Hey, I need you to get into this election. To get engaged. To actually filling out your ballot and returning it or going to early voting or whatever.'”

Low turnout

Democratic voter turnout was down significantly in the 2022 midterm election, leading Ron DeSantis to win his re-election bid by 19 points and Marco Rubio another term in the U.S. Senate by 16 points.

Matthew Isbell, a data consultant who primarily works with Democratic candidates, reported that Republicans outpaced Democrats in turnout in 2022 by nearly 15 percentage points. That election was the first held in Florida history in which Republicans led in voter registration (a margin that the GOP has increased this year to nearly 1 million voters, according to the state Division of Elections website as of July 12).

Speaking of filling out one’s ballot, Thursday is the last day that voters intending to vote in the Aug. 20 primary can request a vote-by-mail ballot. Early voting began in several Florida counties earlier this week, and all 67 counties will have polling stations open to vote this Saturday.