How Incompetent Do You Have To Be To Keep Losing To Florida Republicans? Let's Take A Look

 

How does the FDP keep losing to this batch of dogshit?

On Friday, Florida reported 5,245 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the already horrific state total to 832,625-- 38,767 cases per million Floridians. 52 more Floridians died from the infection on Friday-- so all told 17,016 Floridians who have been killed on the alter of Republican ideology. So far. It's probably going to get much, much worse.

You may have noticed-- Florida is a mess. And it's not just that Trump won and that 2 Democratic congresswomen in solidly blue districts in Miami-Dade-- one D+5 and one D+6-- were defeated by Republicans. The Florida Democratic Party, which some time this cycle sank below the Ohio Democratic Party to become the worst state party anywhere in America, failed up and down the ballot. Some attribute it to incompetence; some attribute it to venality and self-serving. I can't see how anyone could make the case it is anything other than the toxic combination which has laid the party so low.

Aside from losing to Trump, they managed to lose every single attempt to flip a seat in Congress, in the state House and in the state Senate. Although, to be honest, "attempt" applies they actually tried to accomplish something. Did they, though?

Trump won the state 5,646,949 (51.2%) to 5,269,926 (47.8%). As of August 31, Florida's party registration looked like this:

• Democrats: 5,203,795
• Republicans: 5,020,199
• independents: 3,653,046

Two problems come to mind. Did the FDP turn out their voters? Did the FDP fail to persuade voters with no party affiliation that Biden was the better-- or at least the less badd-- candidate? In 2016 Hillary also took 47.8% of the vote-- so the exact percentage Biden took-- while Trump increased his percentage from 49.1% to 51.2%.

Of Florida's 67 counties, Biden won 12, an increase of 3 over the 9 Hillary won. These were the 12 Biden counties with their 2020 numbers followed by their 2016 numbers:

• Alachua- Biden: 89,527 (62.7%); Hillary: 75,370 (59.0%)
• Broward- Biden: 617,689 (64.8%); Hillary: 546,956 (66.5%)
• Miami-Dade- Biden: 617,289 (53.4%); Hillary: 623,006 (63.7%)
• Duval- Biden: 251,952 (51.2%); Hillary: 210,061 (49.0%)
• Gadsden- Biden: 16,139 (67.9%); Hillary: 14,994 (67.9%)
• Hillsborough- Biden: 374,714 (52.7%); Hillary: 306,422 (51.5%)
• Leon- Biden: 103,364 (63.5%); Hillary: 91,936 (60.5%)
• Orange- Biden: 394,602 (61.0%); Hillary: 329,579 (60.4%)
• Osceola- Biden: 97,157 (56.4%); Hillary: 85,287 (60.9%)
• Palm Beach- Biden: 432,117 (56.1%); Hillary: 371,411 (56.5%)
• Pinellas- Biden: 277,191 (49.4%); Hillary: 233,327 (47.5%)
• Seminole- Biden: 132,213 (50.8%); Hillary: 105,611 (47.1%)

South Florida-- the heart of the FDP-- was the problem. The big 3-- Palm Beach Broward and Miami-Dade-- all under-performed, and in Miami-Dade's case, drastically so. While Democrat performance increased in most of the counties, it really fell apart in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. Trump increased his Palm Beach vote from 270,762 (41.2%) in 2016 to 333,927 (43.3%) and in Miami-Dade from 333,666 (34.1%) in 2016 to 532,460 (46.1%). Why? Why so different, for example, in Alachua County where Democratic performance increased so smartly?

The FDP seems to have missed the class in Politics 101 where they teach you that if you don't play, you don't win. They backed avery narrow subset of mostly mediocre candidates and left most of the state to the Republicans, uncontested. When Janelle Christensen of the Florida Environmental Caucus and Fergie Reid of 90For90 stepped in to recruit candidates for every legislative district the FDP flipped out (in a bad way, in some cases extremely negatively and in others just deciding to ignore the candidates altogether).

Janelle Christensen of the state Environmental Caucus, who is being boosted for the state party job now, reiterated that "Running candidates EVERYWHERE, even in red districts, did not have the overwhelming results that I would have liked. However, we did see marked improvement in Democratic turnout in historically red districts. Collier county, for example, had over 90% of the registered Democrats show up to vote. Lee county and Sumnter also were very impressive. If historically blue counties had shown up in the way they did for Clinton, we would have seen the impact. It seems that we had the Trump Administration scared that he would lose his 'home state'... and we forced them to spend a lot of time and money here in Florida. If that means he lost margins elsewhere, even in other states like Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, then it was worth the effort. Please note, many of our candidates had a budget of about $10,000... and their Republican opponents spent one million in several of the state House races. That says they were scared."

In Alachua County, congressional candidate Adam Christensen was basically ignored by the FDP and the DCCC. His exciting, super-active grassroots campaign generated so much heat that Alachua and his whole district came into play. He didn't win but he did better than any Democrat ever had previously in the district and forced Trump to campaign there three times, three times that he could have been campaigning in Arizona, Georgia or Pennsylvania.

What Christensen accomplished was spectacular for this election cycle. "We ran as close to a perfect race as we could have in a +9 R district in Florida," he told me this morning. "We turned out over 80% of Democrats in Alachua, Clay, and Marion County (The 3 most populous counties in our district). We outperformed the average Democratic candidate in Florida by nearly 7% in one of the most heavily Republican counties in the state (Clay County). We also flipped nearly 8% of Republicans in Clay. On top of that we raised $225,000 completely grassroots. Our average donation was less than $23. We made over 120,000 calls, knocked on 10,000 doors in Clay County and successfully proved a new model for running in rural/Republican areas in Florida."

But that isn't all Christensen and his team accomplished. He also tested the standard Democrat data (NGP Van) and found that nearly 80% of it was wrong in Republican areas. "We bought Republican data for Clay to test it out and found that it was almost 3x more effective. It appears that the reason Democrats got absolutely crushed in Florida is because Republicans could spend $1 to $3 Democrats spent and get the same effect. The Florida Democratic Party also breached their contract with us a week before the election by refusing to release Republican data to us for us to send final persuasion messages. No amount of money or organizing can overcome that. By laying this groundwork we set the stage for 2022 when redistricting happens and a new congressional seat is drawn through Gainesville towards Tampa. We also did all of this without the help of the party or DCCC."

 

In their Wednesday election analysis of Florida, the NY Times, noted that most of the counties in Florida swung further right, "allowing him to win the state with a margin that is nearly three times what he had four years ago." They also identified Miami-Dade as the big problem, Biden underperforming in many precincts with a majority Hispanic population, particularly those in the Cuban-American communities of Miami-Dade County, which supported overwhelmingly. "The surge among Cuban-American voters boosted Mr. Trump’s vote totals in the county, where he picked up nearly 200,000 more votes than four years ago."

One of those districts was the one where Bob Lynch was running in, trying to oust GOP power-monger Dan Perez, a politician the FDP isn't interested in ousting.

The FDP should have been focused like a laser on flipping the state Senate-- thereby stopping the GOP from gerrymandering Florida for the next decade. They only needed to slip 3 seats. Instead, they targeted two, giving up in advance. The obvious district they should have contested was SD-20 (Hillsborough, Pasco and Polk counties) where Kathy Lewis had run well before and where the FDP had tried to recruit Alex Sink, who declined. When she declined, racists inside the FDP, decided an African-American candidate like Lewis couldn't win the district and they abandoned it. The biggest part of the district is in Hillsborough County and Lewis won there 63,094 to 58,024. She needed FDP help in red-leaning Pasco and Polk counties. They refused.

The FDP spent over a million dollars on Patricia Sigman's campaign in Seminole and Volusia counties and on the campaign of lobbyist Javier Fernandez in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. They spent zero on Kathy Lewis' race. The results:

• Patricia Sigman- 47.6%
• Kathy Lewis- 45.16%
• Javier Fernandez- 42.79%

I'd also like to mention another state Senate candidate Blue America backed besides Lewis-- progressive Katherine Norman, who ran against the chairman of the Florida RepublicanParty, Joe Gruters, who the FDP didn't want to anger. They refused to help Norman in any way and she wound up getting far more votes-- 131,313-- than Fernandez's 95,088 and nearly as many as Sigman's 133,630. What is wrong with these people?

Many things-- and we'll save that for another day (literally)-- and just say that they need to be removed and replaced, for the sake of Florida and the sake of the whole country. This state is too important to leave to a gaggle of small-minded, corrupt incompetents.

Fergie Reid noted that "Trump visited Florida several times late in the 2020 campaign cycle, holding rallies in, The Villages, Pensacola, Fort Myers, Sanford, Jacksonville, Tampa, Ocala and Miami-Dade. A 'strong' GOP incumbent probably wouldn’t spend so much time in a state like Florida unless his campaign and his state managers considered it imperative. Trump was not in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, or Nevada during these visits to Florida. The rallies helped motivate an overwhelming voter turnout of his GOP supporters, leading to a great election night of victories for Florida Republicans."

He said that "Republicans are now in complete control of Florida’s horrendous COVID outbreak and response strategies, (such as they are). They’re celebrating their awesome governing situation. The GOP is dominant in Florida, and they’re providing their 29 electoral college votes to Donald J. Trump, who will soon be moving his family’s traveling grift show to Palm Beach Co.’s Mar-a-Lago, where he will no doubt take over control of the Florida Republican/Trump Party. 'Winning !!!...?????' Ask Joe Gruters, Chris Sprowls, Ron DeSantis and Wilton Simpson how that’s working out for them several months from now.

Meanwhile, Reid explained, "Grassroots rank and file Democrats in Florida owe a great debt of gratitude to the 83 Democratic candidates who challenged Republican-held seats this year. None of these challengers won their contests; many received zero help from the state party apparatus; however, their 'party building' candidacies, in some of the most Republican districts on the map, will pay dividends for years to come if the new Florida Democratic Party leadership takes proper advantage. Many thanks to these heroic, awesome Democrats."