Where was the blue tsunami in Florida? It was more like a blue puddle. Who to blame?

News and commentary from the Sunshine State for all Americans

Illustration by Tropic Press and Google

By J.C. Bruce

Tropic Press

So, a blue tsunami splashes ashore all over America, but Florida, with all its miles of coastline, barely gets a high tide? Not even a king tide, at that?

What was that about?

Pundits, politicos, and partisans have no shortage of questions and theories. Let’s look at a couple of the talking points, then lay it out for further conversation.

Democrats were so close. David Jolly lost to Byron Donalds in the governor’s race by a little more than a percentage point. Angie Nixon was close, too, in her quest to become Florida’s next U.S. senator. The statewide officeholder races and several congressional races also seem like they could have gone the Democrats’ way.

Close but no Cuban cigar. How come?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the national election results “an extinction-level event for Republicans.”

He added:

"To call it a wave, I don't think would be fully accurate. It's the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States, blue states, red states, everything in between. And the one state that was able to hold the line and withstand that is right here in the free state of Florida.”

But did Republicans, despite DeSantis’ chest-thumping, really hold the line, or did national Democrats and their fundraising machinery foolishly cede the state to Republicans?

Ask Nikki Fried, the state Democratic Party chair, and she points a finger at the national party and campaign organizations that could have—and should have—come to the rescue:

“Since the August primary, our coordinated campaign has knocked on more than 1.2 million doors and made 5.25 million calls to voters across Florida. That work helped drive a nearly 20-point swing toward Democrats statewide compared to the 2022 midterms, with Democratic turnout surpassing even 2018 levels.

“We did all of this without major national investment in Florida. Volunteers, candidates, county parties, and partners across this state worked with us to build the infrastructure, organized in communities, and delivered measurable progress with limited resources. Imagine what we could accomplish with the national support and investment this state deserves. Florida is winnable, and tonight’s results prove that writing us off is a mistake no one should make again.”

Money doesn’t always buy success in politics, of course. Just ask Elon Musk how he’s feeling today about the hundreds of millions of dollars he threw into Ken Paxton’s race for the Senate in Texas, only to have a blue stampede trample him into the dust.

But I’ve fielded more than a few calls and read comments from readers complaining about the lopsided number of Republican TV ads versus those for Democratic candidates.

Where was the media presence?

Well, that’s one thing money buys.

As independent journalist Jason Garcia reported on election eve:

The biggest corporate contributor to Florida’s political parties was, by a wide margin, NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida’s largest electric utility, Florida Power & Light.

NextEra stuffed more than $7.3 million into the parties in the run-up to the Nov. 3 general election — and all but $50,000 of it went to the Republicans.

And that’s just one example of big energy, big real estate, big construction, big ag, and other special interests opening their wallets to Republicans. Even a company called Doodie Calls, which got $90 million from taxpayers for Alligator Alcatraz portable toilets, shelled out $575,000 to Byron Donalds.

And, of course, these donors will expect a return on that investment, which should keep reporters and good-government advocates very busy for a long time to come. And don’t hold your nose waiting for any investigation into Alligator Alcatraz sanitation expenditures.

Would more money from national Democratic organizations have made a difference? Some political consultants interviewed by the Miami Herald say, yes, especially in regard to a couple of close South Florida congressional races:

“They missed the boat. They didn’t have anyone down here. They didn’t understand the nuance, and they didn’t talk to people who knew the nuances,” Democratic political consultant Jeff Garcia said of national Democrats.

Alex Howard, a Democratic political consultant who led former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s locally successful presidential campaign in Miami-Dade, said that in hindsight $1.5 million in canvassing spending could have flipped either race — with a more realistic spend being $3 million to $5 million for a more comfortable margin.

Garcia guessed as little as $500,000 in each race would have done the trick.

But there’s more to the story than money.

For instance, Florida has 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats. That, alone, was a huge disadvantage Democrats had to overcome.

It’s worth stepping back a moment, though, to consider how Republicans achieved that advantage. It is, in fact, a fairly recent phenomenon.

Check out this chart from the Florida Secretary of State’s office:

I would direct your attention to the year 2020, just six years ago. At that time, Florida had more registered Democrats than Republicans. By 2021, the numbers favored the G.O.P., but they were still tight. But you can track the relentless erosion ever since.

This was happening in broad daylight. Sure, some of that can be attributed to demographic changes with new voters moving into the state. But it also reflects an aggressive purge of voters who haven't voted in recent elections, a disproportionate number of them registered by Democrats.

Another factor, according to political strategist Fergie Reid Jr., founder of the 90 for 90 voter registration project: The Florida Democratic Party, around the same time those declines began, diverted its focus from voter registration to emphasizing that Democrats should vote by mail.

That has been highly successful, of course, but has it come at the cost of registering voters? Has that switch in focus hampered the party? Reid thinks so.

Whether that is a determinative factor or not, what is indisputable is that voter registration numbers falling off a cliff is a calamity that’s been playing out in plain sight for years. The Democratic Party has seen this train wreck unfolding. Where have they been?

Even the most avid partisan would have to concede that any competently run organization losing members at this pace would have leaped into action to staunch the defections. But the numbers clearly show that didn't happen.

Who to blame? Not national organizations. That responsibility clearly rests with the state party and trickles down to county party leaders.

Nikki Fried may be right that the cavalry didn’t come to their aid. But one reason Florida Democrats needed rescuing in the first place was because of these numbers.

This, too, requires some soul-searching.

One final thought:

It was not all doom and gloom for Democrats. They busted the Legislature’s Republican supermajority in the House by adding at least 15 new members, which was huge.

One reason was that the party and independent volunteers worked for months to sign up and support candidates, ensuring Republicans could not show up on ballots unopposed. That forced competition across the state, which also meant Republicans had to divert campaign funds to defend seats that otherwise would have gone uncontested.

In the end, Democrats had more uncontested seats than Republicans. That’s a model for the future. And a great deal of credit for that belongs to volunteers working outside of the party apparatus. Something else to evaluate.

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