Demings’ entry into the race gives former Rep. David Jolly a formidable challenger for the Democratic nomination.
By Gary Fineout and Kimberly Leonard
(Source: Politico)
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings has made his bid for Florida governor official.
Demings opened a campaign account for governor Friday, a necessary first step to starting a campaign for the office currently held by Gov. Ron DeSantis. POLITICO reported last week that Demings was expected to announce his candidacy at a rally scheduled Thursday in Orlando.
Demings is a well-known central Florida Democrat political figure who also spent several decades in law enforcement, including nine years as Orange County sheriff. He is married to Val Demings, a former member of Congress who was on Joe Biden’s short list for vice president. She also mounted an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate against Marco Rubio.
His decision to enter the race means this could be the first time in Florida’s history that both parties have Black nominees running for governor. Rep. Byron Donalds, the GOP candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump, is the frontrunner on the Republican side.
The mayor hails from one of the remaining heavily blue counties in the state. In recent months, Republicans have accused Orange County of fiscal mismanagement and have tried to paint it as overly welcoming to undocumented immigrants. In one high-profile showdown this summer, Demings initially stood up to DeSantis over a contract to help with transporting undocumented immigrants to detention facilities. But he backed down amid concerns the governor might remove him from office, as he has done to liberal prosecutors in the state.
Demings did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The opening of his campaign account was first reported by the Orlando Sentinel.
Republicans were quick to zing Demings with news of his entry into the race. Ryan Smith, chief strategist for the Donalds campaign, contended Demings’ “entire campaign will be about fighting President Trump and his policies that are making Florida safer and stronger. Jerry Demings is weak. He’s woke. And he’s wrong for Florida.”
Demings’ entry into the race gives former Rep. David Jolly a formidable challenger for the Democratic nomination. Jolly, a former Republican who split from the GOP and became a fervent critic of Trump, has been campaigning for months and lined up endorsements from many Democratic officials.
Jolly’s campaign announced Monday he is adding state Sen. Tina Polsky and attorney and lobbyist Sean Pittman as campaign co-chairs, along with several others who will act as campaign advisers — including Rev. R.B. Holmes, a prominent Tallahassee pastor who leads Bethel Missionary Baptist Church.
While some Democrats, including Jolly, are concerned about a divisive, drawn-out primary, others have said they’re worried Jolly’s candidacy might fail to motivate the party’s base and drag down Democrats running in downballot races. Black voters, in particular, have lagged in voter participation in recent years, though 13 percent of Black Floridians are active registered voters. They tend to make up just under one-third of voters who reliably vote for Democrats.
One of Demings’ key staffers is expected to be Dylan Doody, who spent nearly two years as executive director of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee and worked on campaigns in Minnesota, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Jerry Demings has never run for statewide office before. This summer, he quietly self-published a memoir and leadership guide that shared some of his experiences in office. It also contained rebukes of people who try to whitewash history or publicly say they’re Christians while “privately promoting agendas that dishonor Christ.”
Demings is the first Black Democrat to run for governor since Andrew Gillum’s failed bid against DeSantis in 2018, though his positions are far more centrist. He first revealed to POLITICO in an interview this summer that he was considering a run for governor, and said at the time the parties had grown too polarized.
“The divide is too great,” he said. “It’s not healthy.”
