With last year’s stinging defeats still fresh in memory, many of the members of the Florida Democratic party we met at the Leadership Blue were questioning their ability to deliver a major Democratic victory in 2020.
“We need a viable Democratic Party that can win statewide elections in this state,” announced Sean Shaw, the 2018 Democratic nominee for attorney general, as he announced the findings of the “Path to Power” commission, at the party’s annual Leadership Blue event in Orlando.
The Path to Power report laid out the areas that the Dems had fallen short, including outreach to core constituencies, a lack of candidates running in deep Red districts, and a voter registration problem. While registered Democrats are still more numerous in Florida than registered Republicans, the Republicans have narrowed that gap to about 200,000. The Florida Dem’s solution is simple: Register 200,000 more Democrats. Their plan for 2019 is to spend $2.8 million to register voters and to educate existing voters so that they can better understand the voting system.
Swing Left volunteers in Greater Boston will help register Florida voters by sending voter registration by mail letters and by traveling to Florida to register voters in person. Stay tuned!