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Florida Democrats are elated by what they call the recent resurgence of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in the Sunshine State, raising questions about whether Florida is on track to regain its longstanding status as an electoral battleground.
But Republicans and even some Democrats remain skeptical about Harris’ chances of defeating Donald Trump in Florida in November, citing a years-long shift in the state’s political makeup and the growing ranks of Republican voters. While the state’s Democratic leaders argue that the GOP’s dominance has been vastly exaggerated, many veterans of Florida politics say Democrats still have a lot of work to do to get Florida back in the game.
“I don’t believe Florida is in the running until Democrats actually win a statewide campaign in Florida,” said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster who worked on former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign in the state. “We’ve seen for years that Democrats in Florida come very close and still fall short and in the process spend millions of dollars to try to achieve a seemingly impossible goal.”
Top Democratic officials in Florida say their optimism is justified. A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released this week found Harris trailing the former president by 5 percentage points — a narrower margin than many previous polls, and one that fell within the study’s margin of error. Another poll from Florida Atlantic University’s Political Communication and Public Opinion Research Lab found Trump ahead of Harris by just 3 percentage points.
Florida Democratic officials and Harris’ campaign have also announced a wave of new volunteers who have signed up to help the vice president in his White House bid since she replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket. Nearly 22,000 Floridians have signed up to volunteer in the past month, according to data reviewed by the Herald.
Leading Florida Democrats told the Miami Herald they plan to lobby donors and national Democratic leaders at the party’s national convention in Chicago next week to take another look at Florida. They argue that the recent uptick in momentum for Harris’ candidacy has opened the way to a win in the state.
“My message will be clear when it comes to Florida: People here are eager to get involved, but we have to make sure Democrats give them the tools they need and the resources they need to succeed,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones, chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party.
Amandi said it’s not impossible for Harris to win Florida in November, but he argued that campaign money would be better spent in states like Georgia and North Carolina, where polls show a much closer battle between Harris and Trump.
“All I’m saying is that the Harris campaign should not spend a single dollar or a single hour of the candidates’ time on the battleground to win Florida,” Amandi said.
Florida is a tempting target for Democrats. A win in the state in November would almost certainly give Harris the White House, given how much Republicans rely on Florida for votes. Former President Barack Obama also won the state twice — first in 2008 and again in 2012 — and Democrats have longed for that success for years.
But Democrats now also face a tougher political playing field in Florida than they did the last time Obama was on the ballot. The latest figures from the Florida Division of Elections show that Republicans have about 1 million more active registered voters in the state than Democrats.
Democrats argue that the numbers are misleading because they don’t include hundreds of thousands of inactive Democratic voters who are still eligible to vote in November. However, when inactive voters are included in registration totals, Republicans still have a lead of about 700,000 over Democrats.
Florida state Rep. Alex Rizo, chairman of the Miami-Dade Republican Party, acknowledged that Harris has had a “honeymoon” period since emerging as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, but said the GOP’s voter registration advantage alone makes Florida a long shot for Democrats.
“Of course there’s excitement on the Democratic side when it comes to a new candidate. I think we’ve seen that,” Rizo said. “That honeymoon period is there, but it goes by very quickly and I don’t think it’s going to go very far in Florida. The Republican Party just got a million more voters than the Democratic Party. That’s never happened in the history of Florida.”
Of course, Harris doesn’t necessarily need to win Florida to win the White House in November. Biden lost the Sunshine State to Trump in 2020, but ultimately emerged victorious after sweeping a handful of key swing states, including Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Harris appears to be taking a similar approach to the 2024 race. Her campaign is spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising in seven swing states, but has yet to buy a major TV or radio ad in Florida.
Trump’s campaign also hasn’t spent much money in Florida this year, believing the former president is already in a solid position to win the state and its 30 electoral votes. He has held occasional campaign rallies in his adopted home state, including one in Doral last month, and held court at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, but his campaign and affiliated groups have poured more resources into battleground states like Pennsylvania and Georgia.
Amandi, the Democratic pollster, said winning the presidential race in Florida should not be the end goal for Democrats this year. Instead, he urged the party to focus on getting Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, across the finish line in November.
“The only thing that matters in this election if you want Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to get elected is not winning Florida. It’s about them getting 270 electoral votes. Period,” Amandi said. “If that happens to include Florida, great. But if it doesn’t, it’s still a reason to celebrate. Then the Democrats can work on making Florida competitive again in 2026.”
