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NewEnglandMinnesotan's avatar

What's happening with Florida next year? Are Dems gonna try and contest races there? I'm mainly curious about Governor, Senator, and House, but I'd be interested to hear about other races too.

On one hand I recognize that Florida is no longer a swing/purple state anymore. But also that hasn't stopped Dems in the past few cycles from trying, and it seems like 2026 could be the most effective year to try and contest races? DeSantis can't run for a third term so the governorship is open, and Ashley Moody has never been elected to the senate seat and doesn't have the tenure Rubio would have had.

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Anonymous's avatar

my guess is Jason Pizzo left the party to run for Governor or Senate as an independent.

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NewEnglandMinnesotan's avatar

Sure but what are Dems doing? I just find it odd that we’ve had some high profile candidates in the past few cycles — especially for senate in Demings and Mucarsel Powell — as well as spent a bunch of money on a house special, but now I haven’t heard really any talk about the state for 2026

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Wolfpack Dem's avatar

My uneducated guess is that people eventually get tired of lighting money on fire.

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michaelflutist's avatar

Is there much evidence to support that guess?

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Wolfpack Dem's avatar

Admittedly, no. A fairer take would be that people are in "wait and see" mode, and will ramp up depending on how bad the national environment gets (and whether it also spreads to "Cletus" areas).

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Ron Britney's avatar

What are the Dems in Florida doing? Idk about the rest of Florida but here in Palm Beach County the Democratic Executive Committee could be imploding next week. There is a resolution proposing to split the DEC in two and purge all committee men and women over 69 from their positions. If this passes you can kiss PBC goodbye and Florida with it.

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Zero Cool's avatar

It's very early right now and the actual gubernatorial primary won't be held until August 18th of next year. No doubt there will be multiple candidates running although it's pretty obvious Charlie Crist won't be one of them as Democrats aren't going to want a gubernatorial candidate. Crist lost two such elections, including one back in 2014 where Crist narrowly lost to Rick Scott when he was Governor and the other with facing Ron DeSantis back in 2022, a much harder opponent than Scott.

Yes, Ashley Moody is considerably less known that Marco Rubio was before he became Secretary of State. She's likely still going to win the Senate special election although it's a question of how much. Noting that both Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Val Demmings (two high profile Democrats) have not been able to narrow down the voting percentage margins in their respective races, it's going to be a challenge for any respective Democratic Senate Candidate next year.

The biggest problem Democrats face in Florida is turning out the base. Independents and moderates they can be more creative with as far as outreach but Democrats have seen low turnout in key races.

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