By Jim Turner
(©2024 The News Service of Florida. All rights reserved; see terms.)
TALLAHASSEE — Members of Florida’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention threw their support Monday to Vice President Kamala Harris, a day after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election campaign.
As part of a rapidly moving effort to coalesce support behind the vice president, a group of Florida party leaders held a call with reporters to back Harris’ bid to become president and pointed to increased enthusiasm they hope translates down the ballot.
“It is the Republicans’ dream to sit back and watch us fight each other and create chaos,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat who chairs the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party. “But we don’t have to show them chaos. We can show them unity, and we can show them strength.”
Biden, 81, faced growing pressure to leave the race after a poor showing June 27 during a debate with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
After Biden’s announcement Sunday that he was dropping out and supporting Harris, Democrats across the country scrambled to declare a new allegiance and avoid a potentially chaotic, brokered convention next month in Chicago.
The Florida Democratic Party said in a news release Monday that 236 members of the state’s delegation to the convention had made the switch to Harris. The state has a 254-member voting delegation.
Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said the speed of support for Harris isn’t surprising, as talks have been underway for “a hard couple of weeks.”
“With Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket for president, I know that everything is possible at this moment,” Fried said. “Florida is in play. Florida is winnable, not just at the top of the ticket, but certainly down ballot.”
Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, expressed hope that enthusiasm for Harris can help break the Republican supermajority in the state House. She cited issues such as abortion rights that Democrats hope will attract swing voters and cited a special-election win this year by Rep. Tom Keen, D-Orlando, in Central Florida’s House District 35.
“With abortion access being one of the top issues, it matters to have someone at the top of the ticket who is a trusted voice on that issue,” Driskell said.
Driskell said Democrats were able to get many independent voters to support Keen by talking about issues that the voters cared about, “namely abortion access and property insurance. So, having someone at the top of the ticket like Vice President Harris, who’s a trusted voice on abortion access and is a trusted voice on affordability issues, that makes all the difference in some of these races.”
But Republicans quickly pivoted their opposition from Biden to Harris.
Gov. Ron DeSantis described Harris, a former California attorney general and U.S. senator, as “too vacuous, too liberal and too unaccomplished for the voters,” while calling the effort to replace Biden with Harris as “just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power highlighted a poll showing Harris down 10 points in Florida to Trump and said, “We are going to win and win big.”
While not running for a second term, Biden can remain in the White House until January, when a new president takes office. Several Florida Republicans, however, called for him to step down as president.
“Today’s (Sunday’s) Biden announcement reminds us that the Democrat Party is run by elites, who are obsessed with power and indifferent to the very democracy they lecture us about,” House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, tweeted on X. “If Biden is too feeble to run for President, then how can he remain President?”
Biden’s announcement Sunday freed up Florida delegates to vote for any candidates of their choosing as convention bylaws allow pledged delegates to change their votes due to extenuating circumstances.
The Democratic delegation includes 29 party leaders and elected officials, 30 automatic delegates, 146 district level delegates, 49 at-large delegates and 19 alternates.
