I think within the next two election cycles (National and Mid-term) Gen Z will reshape Florida.

[Samrob]

We, Dems, should begin right now setting the stage. Every in-humane move by DeSantis needs to get maximum attention across the nation but especially within FL communities. Dems need to be seen as challenging the cruelty but also displaying real help for asylum seekers that are transported without plans by DeSantis for their safety and well-being. The recipient blue cities need to be given re-programmed funds from the red-states that transport them (this would include TX and others) for housing and medical services until regular asylum processes are completed for those transported. All that the Dems are doing to counter these nasty moves by Abbott and DeSantis should be given very visible and constant attention by the media. Biden needs to include remarks about how Dems are countering these nasty moves by GOP Governors.

We probably will not control the initiation of funding for this in the House, but during any conference actions, the Senate should attach amendments that shift funds for these services that are required by the cities receiving these transported asylum seekers. If it can't or won't be done by Congress, Blue state governors should be making very vocal comments about what the red-state governors are doing.

Grab this narrative, Dems, and shape it for yourselves.

[Better Days Ahoy]

1. Thank you! Now THIS is a post-election post worthy of DU

Positive - Progressive - Forward-looking - Motivating - Executable
Well done, Samrob!
More of this, please.
And less of the other "But ...." crap I'm reading.

[secondwind]

2. What a great post, and from one of our newer members, bravo!!

[HAB911]

3. Man, I hope so

[OrlandoDem2]

4. If I told you that the 18-29 age bracket was 11% of the Florida electorate and voted DeSantis 49-44%

would you still maintain your assertion in the title of your post?

I’m despondent over how red Florida has become. The state Democratic Party is lame, weak, ineffective, and made up of grifters who don’t really care about winning. The sooner people realize this the better. However, even with a change of leadership this state has a long way to go before becoming purple again.

DeSantis and Rick Scott will BOTH be on the ballot in 2024. Both have won multiple statewide elections. DeSantis flipped Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Hillsborough counties - all urban counties where Dems have put their political eggs into one basket.

I hate to break it to you but that is the calculus based on the current situation here. Democrats have lost 24 out of 26 statewide gubernatorial and cabinet races.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. I hope to keep exposing the utter failure of the Florida Democratic Party so that maybe, just maybe, we can collectively shame it into action and change.

[OrlandoDem2]

6. Here are some facts about Florida elections and the Democrats

https://thefloridasqueeze.com/2022/11/11/florida-democrats-need-to-take-a-deep-breathe-and-assess-whats-gone-wrong-instead-of-rearranging-the-titanics-deck-chairs-yet-again/


The Florida Democratic Party is going through it’s usual even year, mid-November hand-wringing and once again instead of taking a deep breathe and assessing the situation from a longer-term perspective, we have the usual band-aid solutions.

Here are some quick thoughts on this:

Every time Democrats have been beaten badly or their has been internal dissent and quickly changed Chairs (2002, 2012 and 2020), the next cycle has actually gone as badly if not worse for the party.

Hillsborough and Miami-Dade Counties are now arguably the most GOP-friendly large urban counties in the entire country. How this happened is because Democrats in Florida, unlike other states have fundamentally misread the electorate in suburban areas. The bleed is not just about Hispanics as has been represented. but people of all races and economic status.

Democrats at the state level, complete abandonment of medium-sized counties and the failure of local DEC’s to properly organize precinct-by-precinct in these counties has led them to look more like rural counties in 2022 than urban counties, as they did in 2012. It’s not that the places have changed culturally, it’s that the Democrats have disengaged.

Palm Beach County which flipped in this election cycle, has become a county where Democrats have become chaotic, decentralized and focused on besting one another in primaries. Democrats in the county are more and more dependent on money from polluters, FPL and big business making them distant from the increasing white-working class electorate in the county.
Democrats have basically lost Pinellas County despite having better candidate quality there than in other parts of the state.

Broward County is very much now in the GOP’s sights. We’re seeing bleed in the county not only among Latino’s, but among Haitian-Americans and Jamaican-Americans also. I would expect Broward to trend further toward the GOP in future cycles at this rate. Much like Palm Beach, as Jewish-Americans become a smaller % of the general electorate, the area becomes more GOP-friendly. Basically every other demographic group in Broward and Palm Beach outside African-Americans (note I said African-American, not “black”) and Jewish-Americans are now trending heavily toward the GOP.

In Orange County, the Democrats failure to embrace populist economic messaging is turning off progressives who besides being highly-motivated to support Anna Eskamani, are increasingly feeling distant from the Democratic Party. Many Democrats felt no need to campaign on rent stabilization in the county and statewide, despite it having overwhelming support among people of all demographic groups and party affiliations.

Democrats have blown Duval County through disorganization and pointless in-fighting. With Jacksonville City Council elections around the corner, further blowing up the state party may not be smart until after these elections are done. It is critical Democrats do well in March in Duval.

[OrlandoDem2]

7. And some more facts about the failures of the FDP.

I hope everyone on DU reads this. Knowing the facts about how pathetic the FDP leadership is might be the only way to hold the organization accountable to
voters like myself and the rest of America. The only hope we have to change Florida is to start with the facts about the Democratic Party in Florida.

With Tuesday’s clean sweep, the GOP has now won 24 of the last 26 races for governor and cabinet.

The GOP will have either 84 or 85 State House seats. If its 85, it breaks the record for the party when it held 84 seats after the 2004 election.

Ron DeSantis victory margin was the largest ever for a GOPer running for governor in the history of the state.

Much has been made of Miami-Dade’s shift to the right, and it can now be argued Miami-Dade is the most GOP large urban county in the country. But even more damaging to Democrats is the shift we saw in Miami-Dade which was attributable to Latinos, we now have also seen in heavily Hispanic Osceola County. And we are now seeing it in every major urban county in the state. Every urban county, including heavily Democratic, Orange and Broward have shifted AT LEAST 12 POINTS TOWARD THE GOP at the top of the ballot since 2018.

Palm Beach County supported a GOP nominee for Governor for the first time since 1986.

The GOP has now won the last three races in the state for US Senate, the first time that has EVER happened.
Charlie Crist carrying just five counties is the least by a Democratic nominee EVER.

Crist’s % of the vote was the least for a Democratic nominee for Governor since 1916. It is the lowest % ever for a Democrat in a race between just two major party candidates (in 1916, the GOP nominee did even worse than the Democratic nominee as Sidney Catts, a registered Democrat who was elected Governor on Prohibition ticket).

The Democrats are down to only 12 State Senate seats for the second time in history.

Meanwhile, outside Florida it was a good night for the Democrats. That reality should finally force wholesale change in not only party leadership but HOW the party operates.

[Samrob]

13. DeSantis is too Trumpian for the nation. FL loves him, they are stuck with him.

He has a mess on his hands. As soon as other states stop putting up with his bullshit and refuse to vote for the bailouts he has enjoyed from the rest of us he will look different to FL He is forever LINKED to Trump and Trumpism. In a few more months that label will also be linked to high crimes, corruption, anti-democracy, fascism, and meanness. Most of the old people there are wealthy and selfish but their progeny is just waiting for them to pass on. They are Gen Z with a passion and tired of being fearful about their future.

[msfiddlestix]

9. Wonder why national leadership hasn't been on the case...

a very baffling situation, what you describe seems extremely difficult to overcome as well as puzzling how it and whyt?

Florida is regarded as a "key" state in Electora College races. I think it's worth 21 points?

During the 2020 returns on election night, it was the counting of florida returns that brought on a literal panic attack.

[Samrob]

11. Remember, it's how people make you feel that ultimately sticks with us. And nature has a way. Wait

[Sky Jewels]

12. Yeah, I sadly think Florida is lost for a long time to come.

But, hopefully we can work on some other places that will render it not as important.

[Mariana]

17. The 18-29 year old voters went for Crist, 55-43.

The poster who said they favored De Santis is full of shit.

[Sky Jewels]

19. Right. But until they make up a much larger percentage of voters,

it seems like Florida will be dominated by right wingers born before 1975. And I gather more of them are moving there all the time because the state has gotten the reputation of being a Magat paradise.

Or maybe by some miracle there will be a massive reform of the state Democratic Party structure and organization that can turn it all around ... who knows. Stranger things have happened.

[Mariana]

20. That's not likely to happen in Florida any time soon, if ever.

There are an awful lot of old people moving there, and most old people vote Republican.

[OrlandoDem2]

23. Not according to a Wall Street Journal exit poll. I have a screen shot but don't know

how to post it. Otherwise it’s behind a paywall.

[Rstrstx]

15. CNN exit poll does not show that

The 18-29s voted for Christ 55-43. There’s a lot of information in the data, it’s interesting to compare with TX, which is mimicking FL in some ways (e.g. percentage of white voters and how they voted, Biden approval rating) but not others (Latino vote, a stronger correlation between age and voting habits in TX). Unsurprisingly in both states the governors’ approval ratings closely corresponded with the actual election results.

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/florida/governor/0

Contrast that with the AZ governor’s race where whites only went for Lake by 1, Latinos went for Hobbs by 4 (!) and Senator Kelly actually won the white vote by 1 and won Latinos by 17. The under 30 crowd is also more strongly Democratic in AZ than TX and much more so than FL. Of course candidate quality might have had something to do with that but AZ is consistently showing signs you’d expect to see in a true swing state.

[OrlandoDem2]

24. Wall Street Journal exit poll.

[Mariana]

16. If you told me that, I would ask you for your source.

Here are mine:

NBC and CNN say the 18-29 age bracket went for Crist 55-43.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-elections/florida-governor-results

https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/florida/governor/0

[hlthe2b]

5. I sure hope so. A really good start with their new Congressman.

He's going to be mighty lonely in the Fl delegation for a while though.

[In It to Win It]

8. Hope so because we need it... bad

[dembotoz]

10. perhaps the border wall should be moved

to exclude florida.


before we approve hurricane aid for them....and i know we will. we always do because we are not assholes....we might wonder out loud if florida would approve such aid for us.

I am just done with that state

[Mariana]

14. I was visiting someone in The Villages recently.

They're putting up new houses by the tens of thousands, and Boomers are flocking to buy them. There are lots of other retirement communities that are also growing like weeds. I don't know of Gen Z coming of age (half of them are still ineligible to vote) will be able to overcome the flood of old Republican voters pouring into the state.

[LymphocyteLover]

18. Please be so!!! LFG!

[JI7]

21. One big problem with Florida are the people moving there from other states

It's a lot of right wingers that want no taxes or regulations and are gun nuts. And they register to vote in that state.

But demographics are changing nationally. The younger generations are majority non white. I know there are Latino right wingers but we will see how the younger ones are as they get older.

Young people leaving might be an issue also. Especially educated ones that get good job offers in research institutions and tech industry in other states .

[Tree Lady]

22. My neighbors, family with two teachers

Are moving to Florida this summer, they spent the last two summers there.

They are both progressive.