The Dem Brand in Key Counties

(Note:  This is a memo I wrote recently, posted on Substack, that lays out the findings from a research project I've been working on)

Why did we spend three weeks listening to voters in 21 counties in battleground states? 

We need a clearer path - not just for 2026, but for 2032. 

Of all the things keeping me up at night, the national demographic changes that will significantly change the national political map in 2032 are at the top.

Projections of a 12-15 seat shift from blue and “blue wall” states to a series of southern states that Trump won in 2024 has the potential to radically change the landscape. Not only will winning the White House require winning states like NC, GA, and AZ on a more regular basis, the pathway to majorities in Congress will require winning seats with GOP majorities drawing the Congressional lines.

Moreover, any chance we have of winning a majority in the US Senate will require us to do something we have not done since 2018: Win a Senate seat in a state that Joe Biden lost in 2020.

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Expanding our coalition of a party isn’t just a nice talking point - it is a mathematical requirement for survival, and understanding how we navigate this challenge over the next few years is key to being prepared for it.

Over the last month, Unite the Country, working with Elizabeth Sena from GQR Research, has been surveying voters in twenty-one counties spread across the ten states that have been considered battleground states during all or some of the last four Presidential elections.

Most of the counties we chose are places that have gone a bit sideways for Democrats over the last four cycles, however, they are not monolithic. For example, the sample includes traditional base counties like Wayne County, Michigan and Cuyahoga County, Ohio, along with swing counties, like Bucks County, PA, and Hillsborough County, FL. We also included a number of fast-growing red counties that are only getting redder, places like Pinal County, AZ, and Cherokee County, GA.

The goal of this research is simple: to understand the state of the brand of both political parties across a wide sample of key counties, to learn what advantages Republicans might have in places that are trending more GOP, and to test a number of the theories out there for how Democrats move forward.

Over 25% of the counties we included were in states President Obama won twice but have gone for Trump three cycles in a row – with increased margins. Adding voices from FL, IA, and OH was important because we need to understand why these communities have trended away from us at warp speed if we hope to win back some elements of voters we have lost.

The new Democratic national coalition that gets us back above 50% will look different than the last one, but the math question remains the same: It is hard to see us winning without increasing our appeal beyond the voters who supported Harris in 2024.

This poll is not about quick fixes, nor is it designed to dump on Democrats, rather, the goal here is a sober assessment from the types of communities where we need to do better – not just to succeed in 2026 and 2028, but where winning will be imperative in the world that we will see in just six years.

TOPLINES:

While every attempt was made to balance the sample inside each of the counties, there is not a super easy baseline for this audience.

With that caveat, the 2024 Presidential vote for these twenty-one counties was:

Trump 49. Harris 49.

Current State of Play

Trump Approval: Approve: 46% Disapprove: 54%

JD Vance Approve: 45% Disapprove: 52%

Republican Party: Approve: 42% Disapprove: 55%

Democratic Party: Approve: 36% Disapprove: 61%

We also tested a number of Democratic office holders, representing the spectrum of the party. They are ordered by their net favorable (with full fav/unfav in parenthesis) Keep in mind, these are not national numbers - these are their ratings in a sample of key counties in key states.

Andy Beshear: +5 (23:18)

Mark Kelly: +3 (36:33)

Pete Buttigieg: +1 (42:41)

Bernie Sanders: -2 (46:48)

Gretchen Whitmer: -3 (34:37)

Alexandra Ocasio Cortez: -11 (39:50)

In terms of the 26 and 28 ballot, we looked at generic numbers, and find a battleground very similar to the electorate in 2024.

2026 Congressional: Democratic: 46% Republican: 45%

2028 Presidential: Democratic: 46% Republican: 45%

The Research

 This research has a tremendous amount of data but boil it down to its essence: While there are issues that Democrats hold edges on, the GOP holds the issue advantage on the issues that are currently driving the vote – and perhaps more importantly, are seen more favorably among the character traits voters want to see in a party or candidate.

When we asked voters in both parties to rate which party they trusted on a variety of issues, and traits, Democrats led on a number of fronts including Protecting Social Security and Medicare (+15), Reducing the cost of health care (+9), and standing up against corporations (+11).

Republicans hold an edge on a broader set of issues, and namely, traits. The GOP holds an edge on “Will Improve the Economy” (+6), “represents my views on the immigration issue” (+10) and “will protect America from foreign enemies” (+19).  Which boils down to one key point. While voters are more likely to use the word “extreme” to define Republicans (GOP +7), they give their party a 33-point edge when asked which party is “strong” and by 39-points, say Democrats are “weak” compared to the GOP.

Views of the Two Parties Individually

The above plays out when we ask all voters to respond to the same list of character traits and respond which five, they think of when looking at Republicans or Democrats.

For Democrats, four of the top five responses were negative. Top of the list was “woke” followed by “corrupt,” “weak,” and “out of touch.” The only positive in the top five “fight for democracy” was driven entirely by Democrats. It is important to note that these traits are not just being driven by partisan Republican responses. Among people of color under the age of 50 – a key demographic going forward for both parties, the words “woke,” “corrupt,” “weak,” “divisive,” and “elitist,” were all in the top six.

Before the Republicans reading this get too excited, the top five words chosen to describe the GOP: “corrupt,” “racist,” “bullies,” “conservative,” and “out of touch.”

We also asked voters they wanted to see in an ideal political party. The phrases that popped are not surprising: “common sense,” “competent,” “trustworthy,” “fighting for working families,” and “fighting for the middle class.”

Comparing the two parties, more than twice as many voters ranked “common sense” as a trait they would ascribe to the GOP than they did Democrats – and twice as many did the same with the word competent. In a world where most voters have few kind things to say about either party, the fact where voters ascribe these traits more to the GOP is a challenge. This also lines up with focus groups in Macomb County earlier in the year, where voters felt Democrats were more interested in social issues than the economic issues driving the voters’ concerns.

Carving Out a Pathway Forward

At their core, campaigns are math problems – and for Democrats, outside of some very blue pockets, our available coalition does not add up to 50%. Not only is this an issue to elect a President and win statewide elections, but it is increasingly an issue to win a majority in Congress.

And this is the problem that looks really ugly in 2032, when we will have to win more seats, in states we currently lose more often than win, in districts drawn by the GOP.

We cannot start working on this problem soon enough.

The goal of the poll was both to shine a light on the issues in key counties, and to illuminate a pathway forward.

To the second goal, we undertook a series of messaging exercises. Voters read a number of statements, both positive and negative about the party, and were asked to rate them. At the same time, they were asked to highlight which part of each statement helped drive their view, either positively, or negatively.

Voters moved back to Democrats on frames around embracing change - highlighting terms like “new generation of leaders,” and “fighting to revive the American dream,” while “taking on the corruption of Washington.” and economic populism, drawn to phrases like "working people pay the most taxes, and spend more on health care” and “we need to be the party of working Americans.”

Other issue ideas that were highlighted included: a party that fights for “providing tax cuts for working families instead of the wealthy,” and “believes that those who work with their hands deserve the same shot at the middle class as anyone else.”

The frame that did not work as well: contrasting GOP extremism or Democratic wokeism. Voters did not care because these issues are already baked into their minds. What they did highlight however was “The Democratic Party needs to become a moderate party again who can represent the common-sense majority of Americans who believe in the values of hard work, accountability and compassion.”

Putting this Research in Play

It is extremely hard to condense this survey into a five-page memo. The pollster’s deck is fifty pages, and the cross tabs themselves run more than 1,000 pages deep.

That being said the findings here are not complicated:

● The political mood in these battleground counties has not changed much, and the 2024 election, which was very close in these twenty-one counties is very close looking ahead to 2026.

● The GOP maintains an edge on economic and immigration issues, though Trump is seeing some negative impact on his economic messaging from the chaos of the trade wars.

● Fair or unfair, voters have decided that Democrats are woke, weak, and out of touch. And while they do not like Republicans much better, among the traits they do care about, the GOP has an edge.

● When we leaned into messaging about new leaders, fighting for working voters, leaning into common sense values, tax cuts for the middle class, and reviving the American Dream – moderate voters, younger voters and particularly, younger voters of color come racing back to our corner.

It is important to remember, this is not a poll of all voters. These are voters from a sample of counties that are key to Democratic success. By nature, the politics in these counties will be more competitive than the nation-at-large. At the same time, getting it right here is critical to any long-term success.

The issues we have highlighted, and the solutions for going forward are not a quick fix. In sixteen of the twenty-one counties we polled, the electorate has been moving away from Democrats for 12 years - and that will not turn around on a dime, nor are we likely to see real movement until we have a nominee.

But there are real lessons, particularly for candidates who want to run in competitive and lean red areas – and for statewide candidates looking to reduce GOP margins in lean GOP areas:

● Be the change agent - be strong in calling out the Washington BS, offer a different vision. To this end, I wish Democrats in Congress had offered a robust alternative vision for the Trump OBBB. There is a hunger for something other than just opposing Trump.

● Lean into American values. Do not be afraid to lean into the American Dream - offer a substantive vision that is rooted in common-sense ideas that will provide real impact to voters. Don’t just remind them whose side you are on - show them.

At the same time, there is a roadmap here for starting to invest in suburban and exurban communities where Congressional seats are going to be in play in a few years. The real upside of the poll - voters' views of Democrats after messaging moved most significantly in sunbelt states, including Florida, which is likely to have 3-4 new Congressional seats in 2032. There is an opportunity to support down ballot candidates in these areas seeing robust growth and build a real farm team looking forward to 2032.

Thank you for taking the time. I look forward to sharing more from this project.

Dear FL Dems: The Open Primary Idea is a Worthy One

Dear Florida Democrats:

I understand that the Florida Democratic Party is considering a rule change to allow unaffiliated (independent) voters to vote in Democratic primaries.

I’ve read a number of legitimate concerns about and opposition to this proposal from people whose views I do trust.  Those include concerns that NPA voters would dilute the voting power of the Democratic base, and that it would hurt the chances of progressives in primaries.  For one, I don't think the evidence shows these concerns to be rooted in the data, and moreover, I think there a number of other reasons why this proposal deserves consideration.  So with that, let me offer a number of reasons why I would encourage you to support this proposal.

1. We Can’t Win Without Independents

This is purely a math problem.  Under the current voter registration make-up of Florida, a Democrat in a statewide race would need to win about 60% of the unaffiliated vote to have a reasonable shot to win.   And Republicans hold a voter registration edge in nearly every battleground-type Congressional or Legislative race.  Outside of a handful of base communities, there is not a world where just “firing up the base” gets us to a win.  We need independents in the coalition.

I have a lot of opinions about how we got here, but those really aren’t relevant at this point.   The math is very clear:  we simply can not win without a strong share of the independent vote.

2.  Independent registration is growing - particularly among groups traditionally considered part of the Democratic base.

Among Black voters, the share of those who are registered Independent has risen from 17% to 22% in 5 years.  Among Hispanics, the independent share has risen from to 38% - and Independents now make up a plurality of Hispanic voters. 

And increasingly, younger voters are choosing to register without a political affiliation.

If we look at the voters who we have seen Democrats struggle with:  Black voters, Hispanic voters, and younger voters, for example, they are increasingly registering independent, which means that our traditional Democratic outreach around primaries isn’t reaching these voters.  In fact, our traditional Democratic outreach during primaries is talking to a smaller, and often older segment of the election each cycle.  If we want to win back pieces of this electorate that we have lost, why wouldn’t we encourage them to participate in our primaries – and force our candidates to have a longer conversation with them?

Moreover, if we want to win these voters over to our partisan corner, wouldn’t allowing them to have a say in our primaries be a good way to open the door to joining our party?

 3. Florida is one of the few states with a true closed primary system

Other than the rare instance where the only candidates in the race are from one party, and there are no write-in candidates, every partisan primary is closed to independents.  Only 9 other systems are as closed as we are when it comes to primaries.  The vast majority of states are open primary states, or at least allow their political parties to decide whether or not to allow unaffiliated voters to vote.  

While I do respect the concerns of Democrats about opening up the primary, if the parade of horribles predicted by some was actually likely to play out at the Florida ballot box, we’d see it play out in other states.  

4. We’ve had several open primaries without incident or interference from the other side.

In the 2020, 2022, and 2024 election cycles, there have been a total of 15 primaries where only Democrats qualified, meaning all voters (including Republicans) were able to vote in the primary.  While I wouldn’t dispute that in a race or two, the open primary gave a candidate an edge, I would be hard pressed to find a single one where the outcome would have definitely been different had only Democrats been allowed to vote.  In fact, a few of the most progressive members of the legislature were elected in open primaries.  

On the other hand, each of those races had higher vote totals than the races where only Democrats voted.  That is something we should all support. 

5.   Seriously, WTF do we have to lose?

What are we protecting by not opening our primaries?  Democrats have never had fewer members in the legislature, or a smaller share of the Congressional delegation.   While I have not counted it, I suspect we are also at, or near an all-time low when it comes to county commissioners as well.  It is not like we have some partisan hegemony to protect.

 But if we open the primaries, candidates who want to win are going to have to talk to more voters, will have to organize more broadly, and will have to learn to communicate to a broader segment of the electorate.  

And for me, that is the main point: If we are going to chip away at the deficit we find ourselves in as a party, we have to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate.  This isn’t a question of the ideological alignment of the party, rather it is one of simple math.

Moreover, the criticism of the party these days is that it is too insular, not open enough to change, not willing to accept new leaders into its fold, and not willing to be bold.  Giving the roughly 4 million unaffiliated voters in Florida a voice in our party does just that:  it opens a door to new leaders, it forces us to listen to a broader reach of voters, and it creates space for those voters to join our team.

Again, I genuinely respect the concerns of those who oppose this change.  But in this instance, I just disagree. I see no evidence in the Florida history or from other states that the concerns folks have about this have played out in real world experiments. 

And given the current state of the party, if now isn’t the time to try something different, then when? I appreciate Chair Fried bringing this propsoal forward, and I hope folks will support it. 

Thanks for hearing me out.

Steve Schale

(Just to remind folks, I do not work for the party, do not advise the party, have not worked for the party since 2009, and did not have a word of input into this proposal.  This is simply my opinion)

Can an Independent Candidacy Win in Florida in 2026?

2026 will one again be a wild ride in Florida, as we face an open race for the Governorship, and thanks to John Morgan and/or Jason Pizzo, for Florida’s first time, we might have a legitimate third-party effort.

I am not breaking any news here – long time followers of mine know I’ve always been intrigued by the possibility of a third-party candidacy.  At a very conceptual level, there is no doubt voters are open to the idea, and having sat in two days of focus groups since the 2024 election, I do believe voters want less rank partisanship and more action on core issues that impact their lives and their wallets.

But thinking about a third-party candidacy in concept, and building a pathway for one to win, especially in a state like Florida, are two entirely different conversations.

OG readers of my blog may remember that one of my first ever pieces was an analysis of then Governor Charlie Crist’s independent bid for the United States Senate in 2010.  In that piece, a piece I wrote to think through my own curiosity about the race, I argued that despite Crist’s near universal, and largely positive name recognition, his odds of winning were low, given the partisan voting habits of Florida voters.   You can read those two 2010 pieces here if you are interested (Sorry Charlie, and More on Crist's Steep Climb).

It is fair to say I took a lot of shit at the time from certain corners of the political punditocracy for those pieces, but history proved those models to be correct.  Any way you slice it, for a third party candidacy to succeed, you are asking a significant share of partisans to dump their habits and vote for something different. Moreover, you likely need one of the two party nominees to have the bottom fall out, since any independent candidate will be required to take a position or two (or 20) that will make them unacceptable to a broad reach of the other side. Any successful third party candidate will likely need their vote goal based in one of the two parties. 

John Morgan’s toying with a candidacy already had me thinking it was time to update that 2010 piece, but now that widely talked about 2026 candidate State Senator Jason Pizzo has decided to become an independent, now is as good of a time as any.  If you haven't heard Morgan talk about his potential run with Florida Man Chuck Todd, it is very much worth your time:  https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-chuck-toddcast-220098/episodes/im-controversial-john-morgan-t-235284933

What does a 2026 Path to Victory Look like?

Couple of caveats to begin.

This isn’t what I think will happen.  I am sure some dude banging away on a 2013 Dell desktop computer from his mother’s basement is going to tweet “that moron Schale just said he thinks X…” after reading this – and to be clear, what I will write below are just numbers off an excel spreadsheet that lay out what would have to happen.   This is a model, not a prediction.

I also have no beef with either John Morgan or Jason Pizzo.  I am not writing this to shit on either one of their potential candidacies. In fact, I like them both personally, and I appreciate both have tried to carve a path towards the median voter.  I would be intrigued by either one of them running (though I think both have a hard road).

I do not have a candidate in this race (the other rumor I heard this week), nor am I looking for one.  I started this exercise because someone asked me the other day what I thought it would take for Pizzo to win as a Democrat.

And finally, I love the Travis Hunter pick.  Absolutely love it, and you should too.  We’ve screwed up so many drafts that I appreciate the Jaguars being aggressive. 

So, let’s start with some assumptions.

Today there are about 14.1 million registered voters.  In terms of assumptions, I am going to assume that this number won’t change much between now and 2026.   I think this is reasonable for a few reasons:  between 2020 and 2022, the total number of registered voters was nearly identical – and between 2022 and 2024, the total number declined.  

Maybe it goes up a few hundred thousand – maybe it goes down, but 14.1 million voters is a decent place to start for this exercise.

Let’s peg voter turnout at 55%.   52.5% is the average of the last seven but given that the state has increased the speed at which voters are removed from the active rolls, a larger share of the active voter roll are likely voters.

Let’s also assume some of the partisan national mood favors Dems a little – so at that 55%, we can assume Republican turnout is down a bit (let’s say 65% compared to 67% in 2022), and thanks to Trump, Democrats are up (58% from 51%).  We’ll keep NPA at the 38% that it was in 2022.

Let’s also assume the Jaguars beat the Colts in Jacksonville in 2025…something that’s happened every year since the middle of Barack Obama’s presidency…

But I digress. 

Assuming the current partisan make-up holds steady – GOP with a +9% registration edge (apropos of nothing, would note that when I left the Florida Democratic Party payroll, the Dem advantage was like +4.5% and we held 14 more seats in the State House, but alas, I again digress), the final electorate would look something like this?

Total voters:  7,795,136

GOP:  3,663,251 (47% of voters)

DEM:  2,566,435 (33% of voters)

NPA:   1,565.450 (20% of voters)

Now we can quibble about this, but mostly if you want to quibble, rather than being insufferable on twitter, I invite you to make your own excel spreadsheet and voter model…

Back to the exercise.

Since I first thought about this in terms of what a Democratic Jason Pizzo would have to do to win…let’s look at one possible scenario (note, I said possible, not plausible):

In a two-party race, Pizzo would need 16% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats, and 60% of NPA voters to win by a very narrow margin that is similar to DeSantis’ margin in 2018. 

Now, let’s throw Morgan or Pizzo in the race.

In this scenario, let’s look at race between a Republican Byron Donalds, endorsed by President Trump.  A Democratic David Jolly, and either Morgan or Pizzo.

(Yes, I know Donalds might not be the nominee.  Yes, I know someone other than Jolly might run.   You can call it Trevor Lawrence vs Blake Bortles.  Whatever.  Stop taking this stuff so seriously!)

If you assume that a Democrat with the kind of profile of Jolly, even with Morgan or Pizzo in the race, is going to win 50% of Democrats, and 20% of independents, that alone gets Jolly to just over 20% of the statewide vote, meaning the statewide win goal lands just under 40%.

How would Morgan or Pizzo get to that win?

They would need to win more than a quarter of Republicans – in this model, 27% to be exact (assuming that 2% vote for Jolly – which is probably a low assumption).   

And they would need to win ¾ of the remaining NPA voters – 60% overall.  

A win would look like this:

Republicans:  71% Donalds, 2% Jolly, 27% Pizzo/Morgan

Democrats:  5% Donalds, 50% Jolly, 45% Pizzo/Morgan

NPA:  20% Donalds, 20% Jolly, 60% Pizzo/Morgan

Which would lead to an outcome:

Pizzo/Morgan:  39.6%

Donalds:  39%

Jolly: 21.4%

 In fairness, there are a lot of assumptions baked into all of this that are probably a reach.   If the GOP increases its voter registration advantage, a third party would need a larger share of that (and same if by miracle my side got its shit fully together).   Would a Trump backed Republican – even if Trump’s numbers continue to slide – get less than 80% of a GOP midterm base?  That is hard to imagine.

Are independents, who tend to have partisan voting habits, likely to break by 60% for an NPA candidate?  Or more than half of Democrats bailing on a plausible Democratic candidate?  A lot has to happen for either to occur.

Moreover, can someone stake out a position that appeals to 30% of Republicans that doesn’t anger a big enough chunk of Democrats to make the math hard?  Or vice versa?  Can Gabe Davis play an entire NFL game without a stupid drop?  These are all difficult questions to gauge.

Furthermore, neither John Morgan nor Jason Pizzo starts with the profile of Crist.  Governor Crist started the 2010 general with the strongest positive name ID in the field.  While Morgan has strong statewide name ID, he doesn’t carry early 2010 Crist numbers.  And Pizzo, while well-regarded in Tallahassee, is largely unknown statewide.

I get the argument some of my center-left (and center-right) friends make that this might be the best pathway in the short term. But one rule of politics that holds firm:  the best way to predict future voting behavior is to know past voting behavior and given the partisan loyalty that exists among partisan voters.  

But then again, this is Florida.  And we've seen the unpredicted happen in America on a seemingly quite precedented frequency of late. I am a skeptic for sure, but it would be fun to watch. 

Two Old Hacks

I appreciate fellow old hack Reed Galen inviting me on his podcast. I think combined between us, we’ve been involved in someway in the last seven Presidential elections. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing!

We had a good conversation about some of the lessons learned in 2024, how SuperPAC world should organize itself going forward, what’s happened here in Florida, the challenges posed by the 2030 census, and a bit of my dream to build a Marshall Plan like effort (more on this to come) to elect Democratic Mayors over the next 5-10 years. 

You can check it out here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-home-front/id1765927918

As always, I appreciate you reading and listening.   Happy Masters Saturday!  

Lighting Campaign Money on Fire -- the story of Florida's two Congressional special elections.

Let's talk about the two Congressional races last night in Florida. 

I am not a moral victory guy.  Elections are win/lose propositions.  

Several reporters asked me what I thought we should take from the two Florida Congressional races, and truthfully, I don’t think much. There is no doubt some Trump backlash played into the margin, and in both cases, there were unique local circumstances that impacted Republicans more than Democrats. 

But in the end, neither race was all that close - notwithstanding a massive amount of money spent in both. And by a lot of money, I suspect when we see the final FEC reports, the total amount between the two races will fall between $20 and 25 million.

What did we get for that? 

Some kind of moral victory?   A participation trophy? 

As national reporters and pundits were lauding the meaning of Florida’s results, the texts from my friends in Florida were almost all identical: frustration.  Fellow Florida hack Chris Mitchell opined on this last weekend, calling out the fundraising tactics and focus on the race. Another buddy said to a group of us: “we need the same enthusiasm around doing the things that matter like voter reg as we do when random R +30 districts comes “online.” I expressed this frustration last week when I called the efforts in Florida “pouring money down a rabbit hole.” 

If I had to take a wild guess, the total spending in FL 1 and FL 6 was 3-4x what the Florida Democratic Party has raised for voter registration and organizing over the last decade. And that’s not a knock on the FDP — while we see donors more than happy to throw a few bucks at trying to beat Marjorie Taylor Greene, no one wants to give to boring, rote organizing efforts.

This isn't an issue unique to Florida. Most state parties deal with this problem — especially state parties in states that do not have a Democratic Governor actively raising money to support party infrastucture. As my good friend Sam Cornale, who was the ED of the DNC for many years has often said to me: we can see where there is no real and permanent state party apparatus in election results. 

Not to be Debbie Downer, but for the good news that can be read out of some of the specials, there are also data points that do not paint as rosy of a picture. Here is one to give you pause: In the four states that were battlegrounds in 2024 that allow voters to register with a political party (not every state does), we’ve lost ground to the Republicans in every single one: 

Arizona. Nevada. North Carolina. Pennsylvania.

All have gone the wrong way

These aren’t new trends. All four states (plus Florida) have seen real erosion over the last five years. In Pennsylvania alone, more than 50,000 more Dems have switched to the GOP since January 1, 2024 than GOP to Democrats. And overall in Pennsylvania, Democrats have seen a 666,000 vote advantage in 2020 erode to roughly 175,000 today. 

And don’t get me started on Florida. As a Democratic friend of mine said to me tonight, if Democrats had raised half of that money for infrastructure in 2017, Bill Nelson would have remained in the US Senate, and Dems probably would have won the Governorship.

The truth is we are really good at getting grassroots donors jazzed up about things that are tangible — and often unachievable. Take the 2020 Senate races: Three of the 5 most expensive races that year were places that Democrats lost by 8, 10, and 19. Or as we just saw here in Florida. 

But we suck at is creating interest in long term investments - organizing, research, registration, candidate recruitment, etc. — the stuff that really matters, but doesn’t come with an emotional connection.

(One place that has really done this: Wisconsin. And it showed last night)

A lot of it is incentive structure. In today’s era of online fundraising, the digital fundraising consultants live off anger, fear, and misplaced hope. Democrats today want a silver bullet - and I get it. If I thought my $25 dollars could change the trajectory of politics, heck yeah I am chipping in, so I don’t blame activists for wanting to do something tangible to fight back. But as to the incentive structure, in today’s world, the more money that is raised, the more money the people who place the fundraising ads make. 

And unfortunately in these two recent races, while plenty of national voices decided to take the opportunity to show they were out there “fighting” in places like FL-1 and FL-6, there weren't enough voices saying: “hey now, let’s be real about these races.” 

In the same breath, getting people fired up to fund a volunteer capacity building program, or a swing-district registration effort isn’t nearly a much fun. You aren’t gonna “stick it to Trump” or “show Elon” or whatever the next ad says by giving $10 bucks to a voter registration effort in Seminole County, FL or Macomb County, MI, or $25 bucks to pay for some focus groups to better understand what is happening with Hispanics in a place like Pima County, Arizona.

But truthfully, those things are so much more important than whether we lose FL 6 by 14 points or 17 points. Those thing create real infrastructure. Those things train the next generation of operatives and identify future leaders. Those things create the conditions to win races. The problem is, they don’t come with the immediate result of an election, don’t have an easy audience, nor do they make people in the business any real money. 

I used to tell our kids on the campaigns that we can only control what we can control. We can’t change the mood of the day, but we can control what we do to each day to build a better campaign. More than ever, we need to take that approach how we think about funding longer-term organizing. 

I don’t know what they answer is, but we need to real conversation about figuring it out. Yes, some good stuff happened tonight. Yes, Republicans in Florida underperformed. Yes, the Wisconsin win was resounding and positive. And yes, at the same time, Democrats continue to lose ground in places we have to win, in part because the investment isn’t there. 

The one upside of Florida - we saw donors want to get engaged. That enthusiasm, even if driven by unreasonable hope, is a good thing. Now, if we can just now figure out how to channel it to truly productive efforts…

I stand with Judy Mount

Dear Florida Democrats:

I looked to the back of the church, and she was smiling.  Judy Mount pulled it off -- she had tricked me.

Judy, my dearest of friends, had invited me to come to church with her.  I was honored and of course I said yes.

But what she didn’t tell me was that coming to church meant I was going to be speaking to 100 AME ministers and deacons from all across North Florida.  She was smart enough to know my nerves as a 20-something kid would have been enough for me to find a way out. 

I immediately followed the Bishop, who had given a rousing sermon, and I rambled until I got an Amen, then settled in.  She had set me up -- and she knew I would be OK.  I was OK.  I grew up that day, as she knew I would. 

Judy Mount. 

In a week or so, you will select Florida’s delegates to serve on the Democratic National Committee.  There are a lot of great choices, a lot of people I like a lot.  

But one stands above the rest -- the one I hope will be on every single ballot:  Judy Mount.

Now, I recognize there is a better than average chance you already know Judy.  

We all know she’s a committed and loyal Democrat.  

We all know she’s answered the call whenever asked, even once stepping into Chair the party in a moment of crisis -- in the process becoming the first African American to ever serve as Florida Democratic Party Chair.  

We all know how much time she spends mentoring young leaders through the internship program she manages in the Florida Capitol.  And well, if you don’t know about the Boots and Blues event she puts on every year in her county, well, that’s on you.

But I want to take a second to tell you about the Judy I know – the Judy who has been my friend for almost 25  years, the Judy who I’ve relied on for counsel and support throughout my career, and the Judy who is now family to me.

When I first met Judy, she was a part-time assistant working for a committee in the Florida House of Representatives.  Our offices were next door. Judy decided we were going to be friends.  

Soon thereafter, Judy and I both moved to the House Democratic Office – me working for a member who was rising through leadership, and Judy as the office’s new administrative assistant (she's now risen to the role of Deputy Staff Director).

For about 4 years, we worked together every day.  There are three things you learn about Judy when you work with her:  

First, Judy treats every human she meets, from the person picking up the office garbage, to the Presidentof the United States, with the same level of grace and dignity.  To Judy, your decency as a human always matters more than your title.

Secondly, she suffers no fools. At a time as a party when we need leaders who are going to tell it straight, that is Judy Mount.

Finally, because of the first two, she’s as respected as anyone who works in that building.   Spend an hour in Judy’s office, and you’ll see visitors ranging from interns, to legislators of both parties, to folks on the maintenance staff.   They come to seek her advice, and just to earn her grace. 

But the thing I admire the most about her:  Judy just does the work.  

In the Democratic office, she’s organized a model leadership program for young interns, and she not only guides them when they are under her leadership, she mentors them as they move into their life.  At the party level, Judy is always there,  organizing volunteers, recruiting candidates, and raising money. 

Moreover, Judy does the work where the work is hard.  Judy works in a rural, very Republican part of the state.  But she doesn’t let that discourage her.  She just works harder. 

And in my case, she made sure I did the work too.  

Back to that church story.   In the parking lot, I said “Judy, with all due respect, WTF?”

She said “Steve, you did great. One day it will make sense. Trust me.”

Judy really encouraged me in 2008 to work for the Obama campaign, so when I got hired to run then-Senator Obama’s campaign in Florida in 2008, Judy was one of my first calls.  When I expressed some nervousness, she quickly stops me:  “Steve, you got this.  we got this.  Remember when I took you to church?  I wanted you to make sure you had done the work – those ministers will do anything to help you, and I wanted you to know you could do anything after getting through that talk.”  And she was right.

I’ve been around this party to know there are a lot of people who are nothing but talk.  They just want to serve on the DNC to go to the parties, and have the title.  That’s not Judy Mount.  Judy is going to the DNC to do the work – and I know she will use the platform for one reason – and one reason only – to fight to make sure Florida gets its share of national donor attention.

Judy is no longer my friend - she is my family.  To this day, there isn't a day that I walk in the Capitol that I don't stop to get her perspective on this or that.  She’s been there for me through three successful Presidential campaigns.  And now that we face some of our toughest challenges, you can count on her to be there for us.

I will always support Judy Mount.  I strongly urge you to do the same.

Sincerely.

Steve Schale

2032 and The End of The Blue Wall

For as long as I’ve worked in politics, my party’s path to the White House has included three basic imperatives: Win Wisconsin, Win Michigan, and Win Pennsylvania. 

The states have come to stand for “The Blue Wall,” and for good reason. The basic math of the current alignment is simple: a competitive Democrat is going to start at 226 electoral votes. Add these three states - and their combined 44 electoral votes, which prior to 2024, had gone Democratic in every election since 1992 - save one, 2016, and Democrats reach the magic electoral number to win the Presidency: 270. 

The Blue Wall crumbled in 2016, only to be rebuilt by Joe Biden in 2020, only to fall again in 2024 - and after four more years of Trump, I wouldn’t be surprised to see if bounce back again in 28.

But absent some massive and unforeseen shift in population trends over the next six years, 2028 will be the last election that math works. Starting in the 2032 election, the “Blue Wall” will guarantee a path of 255-260, but no more. To win the White House on any consistent basis after 2032, my party will have to start winning in states where we aren’t winning. 

It is both a huge challenge — and a massive opportunity. I’ll explain this all in a bit. But first the math.

The 2030 Census

The most recent census projections show a continued shifting of Americans from cold weather climates to warmer ones, as well as a halting of growth in California. Those shifts will mean that electoral votes will shift from states that typically vote Democratic at the Presidential level to states that typically vote Republican.

According to the last analysis by The American Redistricting Project, states that make up the classic Blue Wall map will lose 11 Congressional seats, and states that make up a classic GOP map will gain 11. More bluntly, the current path to 270 will be a path to 259.

Obviously, these are just projections, but shifts from this projection are just as likely to benefit Republicans as they are Democrats. In fact, the next seat mostly likely to fall is another from California, which based on the 2024 projections, would inure to the benefit of North Carolina. 

And even if Nevada falls back in the blue tent, the math remains short. We will have to win somewhere else.

The 2032 Core Democratic Map

For arguments sake, let’s assume two things: the core Democratic map loses the 11 electoral votes as projected by the American Redistricting Project, and Nebraska’s Republican legislature eventually returns the state a winner-take-all, the Democratic path to the White House will look something like this.

Core States:  California, 51; Colorado, 10; Connecticut, 7; DC, 3; Delaware, 3; Hawaii, 4; Illinois, 18; Maine* 3; Maryland, 10; Massachusetts, 11;Minnesota, 9; New Hampshire, 4; New Jersey, 14; New Mexico, 5; New York, 26; Oregon, 7; Rhode Island, 3; Vermont, 3; Virginia 13; Washington, 12: 216

Blue Wall: Michigan, 14; Pennsylvania, 18; Wisconsin, 9: 41

Total: 257. 

(*Maine has four electoral votes, but because they allocate 2 by congressional district, only 3 of their electoral votes can be considered base)

The 2032 Expansion Map

The road to 270 after the next census will mean winning at least one state that my party more often than not loses in Presidential races. The one exception is Nevada. More on this later.

First the states:

Arizona (won in 1996 & 2020): 12 electoral votes

Florida (won in 1996, 2008, and 2012): 34 electoral votes

Georgia (won in 1992 & 2020): 16 electoral votes

Nevada (won 92, 96, 08, 12, 16, and 20): 6 electoral votes

North Carolina (won 2008): 16 electoral votes

Texas (no wins since 1976): 44 electoral votes

Nevada is on this list for two reasons: One, winning it alone won’t fix the math problem. Secondly, given the challenges my party is having with Hispanic voters, there is no guarantee it will bounce back without a lot of work.

I am sure people will question the inclusion of Texas and Florida on here, to which I would make two points. First, 2032 is eight years away. The whole point of this exercise to begin a conversation about what we need do as a party to prepare for a new reality when it comes to the map. Secondly, these two states combined account for 84 electoral votes, or 31% of the total needed to win the White House. Forcing the other side to work for that chunk of votes makes sense.

More on this later. 

The Challenges of the New Map

The “Blue Wall” states have voted the same way in every election going back to 1992, because in many ways, they are very similar. All three have much smaller non-white populations than the rest of the battleground maps. All three have similar college attainment rates. 

But as similar as all three are to each other, they are quite different from the states in the 2032 expansion map, which are all substantially more diverse. The chart below shows the share of non-white vote from the 2024 exits in each state. 

And specific to arguably the biggest strategic imperative facing Democrats looking forward: getting right with Hispanic voters, in four of the six states, the Hispanic vote share is 18% or higher, and in all six, Democratic support among Hispanics dropped. 

The bad news: the trend lines are bad. The good news: if you know the problem, the problem can be fixed.

Building The Road Forward

I write this piece simply to shine a light.

As I said in the piece I wrote for Bulwark last month, the one thing we can count on is Trump will overreach. First, he is Trump, and history shows he can’t help himself, and secondly, every President over-reads their own mandate. The question isn’t if those things will happen, but how we will use them to re-center our own argument to voters. 

The 2024 election didn’t happen in a vacuum. For example, the cracks in our Hispanic support were seen pretty clearly in 2020, and the trend lines with non-college white voters have been heading downward since 2012. But just like after 2004, when many Republicans thought they would govern for a generation, or after 2012, when Democrats (and many Republicans) thought demographic trends would render Republicans a minor party, the only truism of modern politics is nothing is permanent. 

And this to me is the opportunity for the next DNC Chairman - to put a marker down in how we build towards 2032. Starting with that as the end point will lead to 3 very important outcomes:

• It will force us to understand and reckon with what has happened to our support in non-white communities - and getting this right not only helps us win in these states, but it will help us find our voice with these voters nationally - including in our own base states that we saw trend Republican in 2024.

• By investing in these states in a robust way now, we are also setting ourselves up to be more competitive down the ballot. The shifting of electoral votes will also lead to a shifting of Congressional seats, meaning our ability to win a majority in the US House of Representatives will require winning more seats in states like Texas and Florida - which is one of the key reasons to invest there, even if the statewide races remain uphill.

• Giving ourselves eight years in these states allows us to build creative plans, to test new strategies, to engage new voices, and build real and permanent partisan infrastructure — something that is relatively non-existent in many of these states.

There are other states besides the six listed above worthy of consideration. I could make an argument that in an 8-year play, we should look at states like Alaska, Kansas, Mississippi, and South Carolina (and others). The truth is if we want to be in a place to win majorities in the Senate and House, we have to broaden the map in a fairly robust way. If we only win Senate seats in states that we win at the Presidential level, we will never win another majority. 

The good news is there are people who are succeeding in all of these places, and we should learn from them. There are plenty of people winning down the ballot, whose strategies we should listen to, and learn from. For example, I would love to start a series of conversations with blue success stories in red communities — guys like Zeb Smathers, the mayor of Canton in rural Western North Carolina, and my old friend Gwen Graham, who is one of the last Democratic candidates to beat a Republican Congressional incumbent a non-urban southern district. There are lessons from their success. There are also smart operatives that we can and should invest in, and community leaders we can engage. We should listen to people who are winning. 

Being in a position where there is no President to defend, and no Congressional majority to maintain, we have a unique opportunity as a party to do something we rarely, if ever do, and that’s look down the road. And that’s exactly what we should do.

Day 1.

We made it America, again.

And for the 6th straight national contest, America enters Election Day in the race for the White House immediately after a loss by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

For the record, in Presidential elections immediately after a Jaguars loss, the Democrats have won 3, and the Republicans have won 2, telling us only that the Jaguars are a miserable franchise to be a fan of.

Like being a Jaguars fan, I am not sure why I keep writing these things, other than it is clear now that I have passed the latest significant age marker in life, misery is something I enjoy.  

This piece is going to cover a decent amount of ground.   I am going to talk a bit about Florida, and where things are.  I am also going to hit a bit on the race outside of Florida.  And lastly, I am going to ask something of each of you -- a thing I am also going to be asking of myself.

So let's get going.

FLORIDA.

This is the fifth Presidential election cycle that I have been a part of.  Two with President Obama (08/12) -- one when then Vice President Biden considered running for President (16)  -- one with then VIce President Biden, and then standing up his primary SuperPAC (20), and this one with the same SuperPAC supporting first him, and now Vice President Harris (24).  By the way, this is a career path that is not recommended by medical professionals, or golf teachers.  

Truly, no human should work that many of these things.

But it is the first of my now 8th Presidential elections as a hack that my state hasn't been front and center.

And honestly, I hate it - not because of the partisan shifts in my state -- no, I hate it because I am a competitive hack, and this is my state, and it is weird to not be on the field on my home turf. 

So with that, where do things stand?

In total, about 8.1 million Floridians  have voted.  This breaks down as:

Vote by Mail:  2,834,299

Early In Person:  5,353,093

Republicans have a total vote advantage of:   845,099

And in total, the electorate as of Monday morning looks like:

Republican:  3,538,877 (43.2%)

Democratic: 2,693,778 (32.9%)

NPA/Minor: 1,954,737 (23.9%)

By the way, it s was always going to look like this.  Republicans have a 1.1 voter advantage in registration. If my side had focused on registering voters for the last decade it might not look like this - but alas, here is where we are.  If you are curious about this, feel free to read this blog post I wrote in 2015 (if you think you are picking up a tone in my voice, yolu are).

Who is left to vote?  Republicans have about 170,000 more voters who have voted in 3 of the last 3 elections left to vote than Democrats - Democrats have about 190,000 more voters who have either no voting history or have voted in 1 or 2 of the last 3 generals.  In other words, regardless of whether tomorrow is "Republican" or just kind of a wash (as so many more republicans have moved from EDay to Early voters this cycle), Republicans will enter, and will finish Election Day with a sizable lead.  

The electorate is about 55% female, and in terms of ethnic make-up, is less diverse than the voter respiration numbers.  Right now, the electorate is about 11.2% African American (12.8% of registration), 16.5% Hispanic (18.5% of registration), and about 65% white (61% of registration).  As is typical in Florida, the African American and Hispanic vote has picked up as we get closer to Election Day. I wouldn't be surprised to see both of these groups pick up more on Election Day. 

If you are a Democrat, there are some bright spots - turnout overall is pretty decent, especially considering this is a cycle without the kind of ground operation seen in recent Presidentials.  Dems in Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm are running ahead of Democrats statewide in terms of turnout, and for down ballot races.

But in general, if you are looking for signs of a shocking outcome on Tuesday, these are not the hallmarks of such an outcome.

To give sense of what kinds of math would be needed to see a Dem lead at this moment:

Dems would need to be winning Dems about 95-5, losing Republicans about 88-12, and winning NPA voters by 57-43 to have a lead in actual votes going into tomorrow.  It is just a math question. 

Is this doable?

Well, lets say this, my professional golf friend Mark Baldwin once hit driver -> 2-iron to 3 feet and made eagle on a 657 yard par 5...in competition.  Odds of me doing that?

Now, I do think the electorate will grow tomorrow - maybe by as much as 3.5-4 million voters, and as such, while the GOP raw vote will grow, the GOP lead in share of the vote will decrease some - so the actual margins of GOP and NPA voters needed to win if you are Harris will come down.  But, optimistically, it will still need to be in the range of winning 5-6 points more Republicans than Trump wins among Democrats -- and winning NPA's by a dozen or more. 

But as I said in an earlier piece, as a Democrat, I've always had a realistic approach to this cycle and seen it more about organizing.  The Harris path to the WH was never going to run through Florida.  I do think it is likely the Dems will have some down ballot successes, which is a building block for the future.  And as I said in another earlier piece, win or lose, my side has to look to broaden its coalition, as our map shrinks a bit going into the next census.   If we can succeed at broadening the coalition (and I do think Harris took some important steps), states like Florida will look more competitive in the future.

And honestly, both sides should want Florida on the map.  It is just good for the state -- and good for issues important to the state. 

One of the interesting things to watch in this election will be NPA voters.  If we go back over the last fifteen years, there has been a distinct trend, particularly among younger voters, to register without a party affiliation (much as their is a cultural trend away from traditional means of association among younger people).  For example, the largest political party in Florida with voters under 50 is NPA.  The reality - the entire Republican edge in Florida is built on voters over 50  -- which is both daunting as a Democrat, since older voters vote -- and an opportunity.

To flag the daunting side:  today, 44% of all registered voters in Florida are under 50, but as of people who have already voted, only 34% of the votes come from voters under 50.   To drive this home further, Republicans have about a 70K voter advantage among voters under 50 -- and a nearly 750,000 vote advantage among voters over 50.

But I do think there are real opportunities for Democrats.  For example, when it is all said and done, the share of NPA votes that will come from voters under 50 will approach 50%.  This is also where my frustration about the decisions to move from partisan voter registration efforts, as we saw during the Obama and Clinton campaigns - to non-partisan voter registration efforts run through C4 groups really is seen.  I have written volumes on this if anyone cares. 

Before I move on, one last note of personal privilege.  Want to say thanks to my friend Mitch Emerson for all he does.  Mitch was an organizer on our campaign in 2008, and by the time he had gotten to Florida, had helped in many states.  After the election, he stayed involved, and Mitch was a big reason (in reasons both known to many -- and known only to a few...) the votes needed to pass the Affordable Care Act came out of Florida (for which he got to go to the White House and meet President Obama). He's moved to Orlando to raise his kids, become an important part of that community, and this year, came out of Presidential campaign retirement to run the organizing effort for Harris in Florida, and with no where near the resources he had in the olden days, really built some remarkable volunteer numbers.  

Organizers in both parties are the lifeblood of campaigns.  Guys like me who talk to reporters, or analyze things, have the easy jobs.  The hard jobs out there are those kids in run down old offices, with refrigerators full of 2 week old food, functioning on some bad mix of caffeine, tobacco, and alcohol, working 16 hours a day while having volunteers yelling because they are out of yard signs.  These elections - meaning the very exercise of democracy - runs on their backs.  They are the special teams specialists on football teams that rarely are known, but who make the plays to win games.   To this day, I still get emotional when I think about the kids who had my back in Florida in 08 - kids who are now 40 living ordinary American lives, but in that moment, did something extraordinary.   If this is the last one of these I write, I wanted to take a second to thank Mitch -- and to thank the thousands of people like Mitch around the country who are doing the work.  

So all you glorious FOs out there, you all will always have my respect. 

Enough on that.

Tuesday and Beyond. 

I don't know if Harris will win.  it does feel, both in "vibes" and in data, that she has some momentum  The enthusiasm among women is real, and while yes, GOP has a real edge among men - as long as women continue to turn out in the numbers they currently are, the gender gap could well be the defining chapter of this race.  But the atmospherics are brutal.  

In July or August, I would have definitely said I would rather be Trump - today, I don't know.  Maybe I'm too close to it.  

But this remains an electorate that has seen 2 consecutive - and now maybe 3 - decided by 100,000 voters in 3 states.  

As Nate Cohn at the New York Times has shown in a few pieces he's written, if the polls are off a little way -- either off as they were in 2020, or off as they were in 2022, this thing could be an electoral college landslide - either way.  And there is a chance the polling is off both ways - both missing Trump voters and missing women who are showing up for Harris.  Honestly, I have seen evidence of both in polling projects I have been a part of.   Increasingly, there are real questions about just how much you can trust the battleground numbers in public polling - particularly with the increasing numbers of low-cost, internet-only polls that have flooded the public marketplace  (and we all know how much I love public polls).

While admittedly I probably wasn't the best student of history, I do have a degree in it, and the unique thing about Trump is he has hardened the American electorate in ways I am not sure we have ever seen in Presidential politics.  Take PA for example - in my other side of work, I have been a part of at least a dozen PA research projects in the last 5 years.  With the exception of immediately following the June debate, I don't think the margin in the state has moved more than 6 points (+3 either way), regardless of whether it was Biden or Harris -- or 2020 or 2024.  

Or take WI, a state as a Democrat I do feel cautiously decent about - only 2,000 total votes separate all the votes cast in the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections.   That's right:  2,000.    Talk about locked in coalitions.

As a Democrat working in a Republican town, it is fascinating to see how this plays out within my own circle.

The race isn't exactly a coin flip, but it isn't far from it.  Most of my Republican friends think it is inconceivable that Harris could win, and same when I go hang out with members of the home team when it comes to Trump.

It is why so many don't want to accept an outcome they don't like - because it is an outcome that is unimaginable, as everything in their own life is telling them one thing.  Since the first votes cast in our young nation, the entire enterprise has depended on the loser validating it, and when people only accept an outcome they believe to be true, well, I don't have to tell anyone how dangerous this is.   

So this is where we get to the point where I make my ask.  

Like most people who do this, I got into this game because I believed with all of my heart I could change the world, and nearly 30 years later, I genuinely still believe this.  I stay in the game, even as my hair gets more gray and my body more tired, because I have enjoyed, to paraphrase the words of Teddy Roosevelt, the pressure of the arena, the devotion to worthy causes, and both the triumph of high achievements -- and those daring failures.   As my good friend and fellow hack Rich Davis once said, you don’t get that working in a bank. 

One of my better friends in this business – and in this life, is an old George W. Bush hack (hack of course is an honorific) named Kirk Pepper.   I was born in the Chicago area, Kirk in rural Mississippi.   Kirk likes to shoot things – I like to play golf (and neither of us do this as much as we wish we could!).  He grew up in Republican politics, me in Democratic circles.  But none of that matters as he is, and will always be my brother.  

I remember one night, probably after a few glasses of wine or whiskey (or both), Kirk says, “you know all of us hacks do the same thing, and we have a responsibility to each other, even as our principals fight.”  To this day, he is oft to remind me that among us hacks, there has to be honor that exists among thieves.  

I do believe, as President Eisenhower said, that the profession of politics, while complicated, is a noble one. But man, I hate what it has become – and hate might not be a strong enough word.  If we – and by we, I mean those of us who work in the public space, aren’t leading by example, then why would we expect anyone else to be better?   If we call each other names, demean each other in unfair ways, turn each other into straw men, and shit on or diminish the institutions that we work in, then why would John Q Activist do anything different? 

And I am not meaning we don’t fight over stuff we believe in or to get mad about injustice – we absolutely should.  We’d be dishonoring the men and women who died for this place if we didn’t vigorously stand up for what we believe in.  But at the same time, did those men and women die so we can call each other shit bags, or suggest that even the most minor of disagreements are rooted in something more sinister or evil?  I sure as hell don’t think that kid who signed up to storm the beaches at Normandy thought the guy next to him on that landing craft was out to destroy America, simply because they might have had different political beliefs or a different voter history.

We all have agency over our own voices.   We must expect more of ourselves, and of each other.  And we must expect more out of our public officials – and those in the public space generally.   No, this doesn’t mean the competition of ideas can’t be rough and heated – of course it will be and should be.  And no, it doesn’t mean campaigns shouldn’t be spirited, and emotional, or that we have to adhere to some arbitrary Marquess de Queensberry Rules of Engagement.  But it does mean there is a line – a line we all must be mindful of.  We can all do something to lower the temperature.  We can and should still believe that basic honor can exist among thieves. 

Whether to choose to listen more than we talk… to seek out people whose shoes are different than ours or to hide in our own ideological safe spaces…to strive for common ground instead of purity…to attack actual problems instead of erecting straw men…to question policy judgements first before immediately ascribing personal malice…to accept the better angels in our midst instead of being suspicious of each other…to rise above our worst fears or give platform to them--- these are all choices - choices we individually control in our own lives. I have no more ability to control Donald Trump or anyone else any more than I do to force the Jaguars to fire Doug Pederson, or Gabe Davis to catch a ball that hits him squarly in the hands in the endzone at a critical moment in a football game.  but I do have control over my own voice.  

None of us alone have the power to change national head-winds. None of us can change the words that come out of national figures.  None of us can control what anyone else says and does.  But that doesn't mean we are powerless.

I have traveled enough around the developing world to see America through the eyes of those who see us, in the words of President Reagan as that shining city on a hill, or in the words of President Biden, as an idea more than a place – an idea where opportunity lives.  If you are of means, it is a perspective every American -- especially those of us in the arena, should get.

I remember standing on a porch, drinking a beer with a politician in Namibia as the sun was setting over the African sky, when he says, "you know how lucky you are?  You Americans get to argue about ideological stuff. In my country, we argue about who gets water."  And it is true.  We are privileged to have the debates that we have. 

The thing I love about America is just an aspiration, a work in progress, a canvas that succeeding generations add to, and a place whose story is never fully written.  It is a place where in the battle between optimism and anger -- maybe not on every day, but over the course of time, optimism has always won. If we lose that, we lose that thing that makes us great.

I believe in my heart that America's best days are ahead.  It is the promise of each generation to the next. And that promise isn't a political one - it is far deeper than politics - it is at its core, the very cloth that holds the whole enterprise together. Whether this generation continues the promise - well, that is on each of us.  

Go vote. 

Thanks as always for reading along.  

PS - If you see Shad Khan, please tell him to fire Trent and Doug.  Today. 

Everything (almost) you ever wanted to know about Florida, but were afraid to ask, V. 2024

To:    The Dwindling and Tired Masses

From: Steve Schale, Florida Man and biennial Florida Sherpa

Re:   Florida 2024

Date:  Who knows. 

Well here we go again, the second cycle in a row I said I wouldn’t do this, but here we are. To be honest, I was hoping the Jaguars would be good, and I would be too distracted. But alas, the Jaguars are the Jaguars,

I started writing this piece two weeks (OK, now four weeks) ago, but then a hurricane – and another hurricane – and then jury duty all intervened.  

Honestly, I started to shelve the thing all together, but as long time readers of this occasional blog know, writing is how I think through issues, and since I wanted to get my head around Florida – as it stands today – frankly, how it got here, and what my party would need to do to win, I decided to take this on.

If you are reading this because you are a Democrat hoping there is some special tonic in here, you will probably be disappointed.  This doesn’t mean I am not intrigued by the state as a Dem, but not entirely for immediate reasons.  For my Republican friends, yes, I write these things from the perspective of a Democrat, but I genuinely try to play it straight.  Just as y’alls brains are wired to think about how a Republican wins, mine thinks about the math from a Democratic perspective.  

I’ve been pretty consistent for 2 years in saying that while yes, Florida has gotten more Republican, I think there is a lot more evidence showing 2022 as an outlier than as a trend.  I've also been consistent in saying while I thought Florida was part of the map, it wasn't likely to central to either side's path to victory, and I’ve said I think Florida is more of a 2026 or 2028 play – though I think 2024 is important for organizing.  

So with that in mind, I wrote this piece from the perspective of how electorally Florida changed from Obama 08 to Trump 20, and what that means -- particularly for my camp, on pathway to victory.

I think this is still an important topic, even if the 2024 question isn't as interesting as cycles past, for both parties, as neither side can adequately plan for elections in the future without understanding the past.  

So with that, let’s just dive in. 

FLORIDA AS A MIRROR

As I have said in previous pieces, my view on Florida has evolved. I used to argue Florida was some kind of a microcosm of the nation, but over time, I've come to see it as something different, more of a reflection of the politics, the culture, and the attitudes of the places where people come from than a microcosm of anything.

 Before I started writing this, I re-read our 2008 Obama campaign plan for Florida, since so much about how I think about winning Florida was cemented in those days. In the preamble to that plan, I wrote: 

“The state’s character is defined by the transient nature of its people.  Most people in Florida are from somewhere else, and depending on where that someplace else is can often define the political trade winds of a region... the result is a politics defined not by a statewide identity, but instead by regional niches.”

Former Governor/Senator Graham used to talk about this phenomenon by using the example of the mythical retired couple from Cincinnati, who moved here after saving up their whole life.  They came here because it was warm, and had no income tax, but their friends, interests, and at some level, their politics, never left Cincinnati, or as he would say “they might live here now, but they still take the Cincinnati paper.”  

(Personal note:  This is the first election cycle for me since 2004 that I won’t be on the phone regularly with Bob Graham, and it just won’t be the same.  I miss his voice, his wisdom, and his counsel - even if he always managed to time his calls when I was in the grocery store.  I think part of my exhaustion of this cycle is frankly, I miss talking to (or mostly listening to) Bob)

I say this in every one of these pieces I write, but Florida isn’t a state, not in the sense of most places.  Most states have an archetype - the steelworker of Pennsylvania, the rancher in Kansas, the Texan, New Yorker, Bostonian, Californian – etc.  You get it.

But what about Florida?

In her most recent album, Taylor Swift describes Florida as a place you go to forget, a place you go to bury secrets, and a place you use up for your own purposes - and truthfully, she’s not far off.  Florida has been more of a destination than it is a community for most of the last several hundred years.   And Florida Man, the oft-mocked caricature of our state, is really a collection of all the characters from everywhere else.  (Yes America, you too are Florida Man).

On average, around 60% of the residents of a given state are native-born to the state they call home, but Florida is very different:  Of the 23 million people who live here, only about a third were born here.  The only state in the nation with a lower native-born population is Nevada.  Of the remaining two-thirds who found their way here, about a third - or somewhere between 20-22 percent of all Floridians, were born in a foreign land.  Our commonality is our border – and not much else.

In fact, there are 50 countries who have more than 10,000 foreign-born residents living in Florida.  To give a sense of scale, there are 7K more Florida residents born in South Korea (22K) than there are residents of the state’s oldest city, St. Augustine (15K) – and South Koreans are only the 28th largest foreign born population. 

One other comparison:  the 20th largest foreign-born population, Vietnam, has about 54,000 Florida residents, roughly compared to the population of the first city in Florida to fail as a city,  Pensacola.

(I always want to know if certain people read these!)  

Back during the Obama years, that mirror reflected back directly into the coalition that he built to win:  core Democrats, immigrants, African American and Caribbean voters, suburban women, and a large share of blue collar, non-college midwestern white voters. Because Florida over indexes on a lot of these groups, his coalition fit very well into Florida. 

But parts of that mix is today the challenge my side faces.

The issue facing Dems this cycle in Florida, isn’t alone the COVID-migration into Florida, the voter registration trends, or any of the things that seem to be the simplistic media pundit industrial complex likes to lean into. 

Rather, from my perspective, the problem in Florida right now is the Democratic coalition nationally has evolved, and the areas where Democrats are struggling - at least as compared to the Obama coalition, and that is acutely problematic for my side here.  

 Just to put an emphasis on this, the GOP has added about 370k more newly registered voters than the Dems since Jan 1, 2021 out of about 2.5 million new voters.  That isn’t insignificant – but that number doesn't come anywhere near explaining the  whole story of Florida's current political lot.

For example, there is little argument that Democrats are not doing as well with Hispanic voters as we were during the Obama and even Clinton years.  We can argue whether it is a lot or little, but the numbers are what the numbers are. Moreover, Florida Hispanics have always been a bit more GOP-leaning than other states. What is the fastest growing segment of the Florida electorate?  Hispanics.  

To put some numbers on it.  Let's say nationally, Democrats do 5 points worse with Hispanics than a a few years ago, meaning say you go from winning Hispanics in FL 55-45 to splitting them 50-50.   The net impact on your margin, at a minimum, is 200,000 voters.   Finding 200,000 votes in Florida might be harder than Trevor Lawrence trying to find a receiver who can catch a ball that lands in his hands or bounces off his facemask.  

We can do the same thing with non-college educated white voters, and even Black men, especially Caribbean voters (though with the recent messaging from the Trump campaign, this may bounce back to my side).  These things add up to a lot more people than the internal migration - in the same way that Republican gains with white voters in 2016 added up to way more votes than any gains that my party assumed would come from Hurricane Maria migrants from Puerto Rico. 

 The argument I tend to make to donors and anyone who will listen:  we need to fix the coalition to strengthen our national hand – and by making gains with the coalition, we will improve Florida overnight.

There is another thing I struggle with in this cycle:  how to model the state.    It isn’t just that Florida’s registration has gotten more Republican -  it is that the state has changed how it accounts for active and inactive voters.   

Despite the state’s growth since 2020, there are nearly a million FEWER “active” voters on the rolls today than there were at election time in either 2020 or 2022, as several million voters now occupy space on the state’s “inactive” voter list – voters who can still vote, but just aren’t listed in the public numbers.

On the active rolls, Republicans have a 7% advantage in registration, but including the inactive voter lists, that margin is under 4%.  

And this is where it gets tricky.  We know Florida’s population is up about 1.5 million since 2020.  And we know that in 2020, about 1.6 million more people voted for President than voted in 2016.   So let’s say conservatively, 750,000 more people vote in 2024 – based on the active rolls, that would be an 85% voter turnout.  

And that’s not gonna happen.  So we know some segment of that inactive list is going to show up.  And we know the inactives are disproportionately Dem and NPA voters - so where that turnout model falls can be tricky to figure.  

Then there is the whole question of how much either side is really going to invest - how much will turnout be impacted by that - and how much will the amendments impact things.

 Not to mention the question of whether Doug Pederson will even make it to Election Day before he’s fired.

If your head is spinning, imagine mine…

In the past, I have written really in depth sections on each media market - this year, this piece will be tighter.

For those interested, here are the 2020 and 2022 versions.   This year, I am going to approach it more as a hypothetical question – what would need to happen for a Harris win (one of you republicans can write the GOP one). 

 For the sake of finishing this, I am going to spend a decent amount of time on four regions:  North Florida, Tampa, Orlando, and Miami – and while I will touch on West Palm and Fort Myers, I will honestly never finish this piece if I do much more than give them a passing glance.   Blame the aforementioned hurricanes and jury duty. 

Quick refresher - I break the state down by media markets, and for the purposes of this, group some of them for ease and length reasons.  I get the limitations of thinking about Florida this way, and I get some of the groupings – IE, the Waffle House corridor, groups together very different markets.  If you have issues with this, I welcome  you to start your own blog 🙂. 

THE WAFFLE HOUSE CORRIDOR

Florida is nearly 400 miles wide at its widest point, but visitors to Florida who enter the state at one of its westernmost points, Perdido Key, only have to travel 315 feet into Florida to find the first Waffle House. 

if you choose to come by sea, when you land in Jacksonville Beach - just south of the first Thanksgiving in America -- some 60 years before the pilgrims decided to force future generations to eat dry turkey and dried bread following their "feast" at the pebble-sized "Plymouth Rock", and just north of where the Germans landed in 1942 (yes, the Germans landed in North Florida - try out the ole google) - you will find one just ¼ mile from the inland.

And yes, this is the one Trevor Lawrence goes to. You'll find him there after we beat your team in the playoffs.

Over these 400 miles, one will find more than 90 Waffle Houses, anchored by Pensacola on the west – home to some 19 of these glorious 24 hour diners that Anthony Bourdain once called “beacon of hope and salvation...safety and nourishment” for “the hungry, the lost, the seriously hammered all across the South,” to Jacksonville, home to another 17.   And surrounding these fine establishments, some 18% of the likely statewide vote. 

Side note:  you want to know when Florida Man takes a hurricane very seriously?  When the Waffle House clsoes. 

The old saying about Florida is to go south, you go north, and in most ways, this still holds.  This part of Florida is the original Florida.  Go back to statehood, and at that time,  97% of the population lived in this region, which explains why the state capitol is located so far from the current population center (how it remained in Tallahassee in the 70’s a whole other – and frankly, amazing story).

But the old way of thinking about North Florida isn’t as clear cut as it used to be.  Take Duval County – the gritty, aging, town that reeked of a paper mill of my youth, is now ranked as one of the top places for young professionals in the country, and home to one of the nation’s hottest job markets. And as Florida growth has started to level off, Jacksonville is one of the few Florida towns that remain in the top 25 in the nation for move-ins.

That being said, the region does still have a lot of “throwback” Florida characteristics.  Much of the Gulf Coast coast between Panama City and the Big Bend looks and feels like it did decades ago.   Drive US-90 – and not I-10 from Pensacola to Jacksonville, or drive any of the 2 lane highways through the southern counties in these markets, and you will find places where time has seemingly stopped, communities completely missed by the prosperity that has hit Florida over the last three decades or so.  

Florida has 67 counties, and just over half of the counties in Florida are in the Waffle House corridor. Most of these counties are small, rural, and feel very different than the modern view of "Florida."

Of these Democrats will win 3 - maybe 4 or 5 on a really good night:  Alachua and Leon, two classic southern college/government towns; Gadsden, the only county in the state with a majority African American population; and potentially Duval, home to Jacksonville – a town that is getting more metropolitan, and as such likely more Democratic – though Duval isn’t quite as solidly “Bluval” as some of my Democratic friends like to think.   DUUUUVAL. 

Nor is it home to a competent football franchise.  

(Mr. Khan, if you are reading this, on behalf of one fan who is a former NEZ season ticket holder and who has spent thirty loyal years on the Jaguars’ shitwagon, please fire Trent Baalke, and bring in a coaching staff that isn’t going to further ruin Trevor.  Thank you.) 

In 2016, President Trump carried the region by 20 points – or 350,000 votes.  What is interesting - for as much as the media makes of the area as the reason for Trump’s strength in the state, the reality is the raw vote margin Republicans carry out of North Florida has been pretty consistent, going back even to 2008.  

In 2020, President Biden cut the Trump margin to 16 points – or some 330,000 votes.  Despite losing Florida by 3 points, Biden’s 41% in North Florida nearly matched President Obama’s 42% in 2008 – a year my side won by 3 points.   Interestingly enough, the top 8 counties where Biden improved, as ranked by how much he cut the Trump margins from 2016, are all in North Florida.  

What does a Democrat need to do to win here (again, keep in mind, these aren’t predictions, they are vote goals if I was running a campaign trying to get to 50%+1 in FL in 2024)?  

The statewide share of vote from these markets dropped from 18.5 to 18% from 2016 to 2020 - so assume it settles in somewhere between 17.8 and 18 in 2024, a night where Harris/DMP was really in the game would see them hit 42%, which would put the vote margin at a number similar to 2016 - around (or in this case, just north of), 350,000.  Anything south of this and the math gets hard. 

TAMPA

“We win here, we win Florida.  We win Florida, we win the White House”  – Tampa section of the preamble to the 2008 Obama campaign plan.

In 2004, President Bush, when winning Florida by 5, carried an 8.1% margin in the Tampa media market.  In a market that made up just under a quarter of the statewide vote, roughly 40% of Bush’s margin came out of this one media market.   

Winning in 2008 required flipping the script there – and we did, narrowly carrying the market in 2008 and narrowly losing it in 2012 – both times with margins that largely took away the GOP math to winning Florida. 

Fast forward to 2020 – President Trump, in winning Florida by 3 points, carried the same 8.1% margin in the Tampa media market that Bush did - and in this cycle, earned nearly 60% of his final statewide margin in this one market.  

In just 12 years, all of the gains made by President Obama in 2008 in the Tampa media market had reverted back to the Bush 2008 margins.  For Democrats, it really doesn’t matter what happens elsewhere if my side loses the Tampa market by 8 points.

If a wealthy person said to me “Hey Schale - I am going to give you a ton of money to research what Democrats need to do to address the parts of the coalition we we’ve lost in the last decade” - I would start in the Tampa media market.  Let’s break down why.

For the sake of this exercise – and hang with me, there will be a point to this), let’s compare the high water marks for both parties in the last four Presidentials in Florida:  Obama 2008, and Trump 2020.

If we just look at the change in the vote margins (Obama +236K and Trump +372K), the margin shift to Republicans is roughly 610K votes. 

About 85% of the change happened in four media markets:  Fort Myers, Orlando, West Palm, and Tampa.  Tampa, Orlando, and West Palm can account each for about 15-16% of the total change - but Tampa stands out.  Nearly 40% of the total margin shift from Obama 08 to Trump 20 happened here.  

There are two things that stand out about the market:  It has a larger share of white voters than any other major market in Florida (Tampa 69%, Orlando 61%, Miami 29%) – and it is home to massive exurban counties that have a lower than the statewide average college attainment rate.  

Much has been written about my party’s struggles with working class white voters in rural areas of the Midwest – but to see how it plays out on a large scale, one only look at the 4 exurban counties north of Tampa, one east, and one south:

Pasco (North of Hillsborough):    

2008: McCain 51, Obama 48.  (McCain +7,687)

2020:  Trump: 59. Biden 39 (Trump +60,548)

Hernando (North of Pasco): 

2008: McCain: 51, Obama: 48 (McCain +3,135)

2020:  Trump: 65, Biden: 34 (Trump +32,393)

Polk (East of Hillsborough)

2008:  McCain: 53, Obama: 47 (McCain +15,013)

2020:  Trump 57, Biden 42 (Trump +49,537)

Manatee (South of Hillsborough)

2008:  McCain 53, Obama 46 (McCain +10,687)

2020:  Trump:  58, Biden 41 (Trump +34,821)

Another way of looking at this - the Republican margin increased by 141,227 votes in just these four counties.  That is more votes than both Obama in 12, or Trump in 16 carried Florida.   Nearly a quarter of the entire margin change between Obama 08 and Trump 20 is in these four counties that add up to about 8.5% of the statewide vote.  

And yes, growth does play a factor here, but for my Democratic friends, it can’t all be explained away by growth.  Take Hernando County for example:  Joe Biden received 4,000 fewer votes than Barack Obama – despite 21,000 more ballots cast in 2020 than 2008, despite the growth in the county.

But if you wear my jersey, there is a bigger blinking light here than just growth:  all four counties have college attainment rates lower than the statewide average – and three of the four have a larger non-Hispanic white population than the state average.  And where has my party struggled?  White voters without a college degree.

There’s a lot of revisionist history about Barack Obama, particularly on the left, but here is one thing often forgotten:  Obama understood how to get to the mind of the median voter - at the time, much to the frustration of some of my friends on the left, but it got to a win in Tampa, which led to a win in Florida, and a win nationally.

Win Tampa.  Win Florida.

In 2020, Biden earned 44.5% of the vote in the market, losing Tampa by 8.1%

A win number for Harris/DMP is going to need to be in the range of 49%.

Figure out how to do that, and the national election won’t even be close.

ORLANDO

Back in 2008, I was on a bus tour across Florida with then Senator Joe Biden, and Senator Bill Nelson, led by legendary Democratic advance guy, the "GOAT" of motorcade advance, Western Tennessee’s famous “Motorcade Tim Sneed” (If you have ever been on one of Tim's trips, you know this is true) 

We were working our way through secondary county targets – Pasco → Marion → Volusia → Brevard → St. Lucie (take note of these places, young Democrats – we will return to a recurring theme here), and eventually end up in West Palm and Broward.  And as America now knows, when you are on a bus tour with Joe Biden, you are going to get ice cream.

So we found a Kilwins between Ocala and Daytona, in the downtown area of The Villages.  Sitting behind Motorcade, complete with his ubiquitous Stetson hat, I lean forward and say “Tim, this is one of the strangest places you will ever visit.” 

Sure, Schale, he glances back at me, as he dons his hat and quickly follows Biden and Nelson into the ice cream shop.

In the 45 minutes or so we were there, like drawn to a bat signal, they came from everywhere.  Golf carts, driven by men in golf shirts and blazers, or women in casual fall attire.  Before we knew it, the motorcade was surrounded – ok, not literally surrounded – but we kind of pinned in by golf carts until the police could clear a route out for us.  What started out as about a dozen people in the ice cream shop turned into what seemed like a sea of thousands, just curious to see what the commotion was all about.  

As Motorcade gives a tip of the hat to signal the all clear for us to move on down the road, he slides back in the van and said, “Schale - pretty sure I’ve never seen that before.”

When people think about the evolution of Florida politics, and its Republican trend, the stories often start and end with The Villages, and honestly, who can blame my national media friends.  This theme park for Midwestern retirees is easy fodder – golf courses, and golf cart dance troupes, a population that looks like it walked out of a Brooks Brothers ad, and of course, the legend of its STD rates (which is a legend more than fact).

Sure Schale, my DC friends will say, it is all The Villages.

But is it?

The Orlando market is the third largest, as well as the fastest growing market in the state.  More than likely, sometime in my lifetime, it will surpass both Miami and Tampa in terms of population.   The region, once known as Mosquito County (for reasons obvious to anyone outside in the afternoon), has a lot of space to grow - and growing it is.

That growth here is both rapid, and dynamic.  The one-time oldest, and whitest media market in Florida is today one of the youngest, and the second most diverse.

You don’t have to go back too far to an era when the Orlando metro area was home to some of the most Republican counties in the state – whereas today, it makes up the core of the Democratic base in Florida.  And exurban Orlando  - places like Brevard, Volusia, and Marion counties were home to Democratic luminaries like Bill Nelson and Karen Thurman.  Today they are universally Republican.  

Barack Obama was the first Democrat statewide to really take advantage of the demographic shifts in the Orlando metro area.  For example, in Orange County (Orlando), he took a county that split between Bush and Kerry and won it by 20 points.  in doing so, he changed the map for Democrats in Florida -- as all of the sudden there was this new pot of votes in Central Florida, a pot of votes that a lot of my Republican friends thought would change the math of Florida forever.

The Orlando market is basically two regions.   Metro Orlando, and everything else.  Metro Orlando would be Seminole, Orange, and Osceola counties (from north to south), with the rest of the market having a more exurban flair, starting with Sumter County to the north and east of Orlando, and working like a crescent around Orlando through Marion, Lake, Flagler, Volusia, and south to Brevard Counties.

To be very simplistic, Democrats live in the urban counties, Republicans in the exurban ones.  For example, between 2008 and 2020, the share of the total Republican vote in the market that comes from the six exurban counties has grown from 60% to 63%, while Democrats have seen the share of their total vote that comes from the urban areas grow from 50-55% over the same time.

From the Democratic perspective, this means that for every vote our candidates received in the Orlando market in 2008, 50% of the votes came from the urban counties, and 50% from the exurban ones – and today, that is 55 and 45% respectively.

“But Schale, of course that is what is happening – all the growth is in places like The Villages, right?”

Well, here’s what's interesting – the urban core is actually growing faster than the exurban core.  In 2008, 55% of all of the votes in the Orlando market came from the exurban counties, a number that dropped to 53.5% in 2020.

So if the market is getting more urban – and Democrats are doing better in the urban areas, how did the market go from Obama +1 to Trump +3 in 12 years.

If you read the Tampa section, this won’t take long…

There is another way to look at the Orlando market.   Counties where more than ⅓ of adults have a college degree (Sumter - which is a decent chunk of The Villages, Orange, and Seminole), and the other six counties.

Between 2008 and 2020, the Democratic nominee has seen their vote share grow from 54% (+9) in the higher educational attainment counties to 56% (+12) - meaning in real numbers, President Biden carried these counties by roughly 56,000 more votes than President Obama.

But in the other six counties - President Trump carried these six counties by 155,000 more votes than John McCain – even though these six counties as a proportion of the market, are a smaller share than they were in 2008.

There are two places here I want to highlight:  Volusia County, and Osceola County – Volusia for reasons that are obvious to longtime readers, Osceola for reasons that might not be.

If anyone read Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen’s book "Shattered" about the 2016 Trump/Clinton race, you might remember a chunk of a chapter featuring your erstwhile blog author, who was following the election returns in a bar in Orlando with a visiting group of Turkish political hacks.  Early returns in Florida looked good for Clinton, in part because some big counties dumped their early and absentee returns quickly, but I wanted to see more, and one of my computer tabs was locked on Volusia County.  

Volusia is basically Daytona Beach and surrounding areas.  Home of NASCAR, it was for many years a swing, if not leaning Democratic county.  It had a blue collar workforce, as well as a sizable African-American population – and a growing Puerto Rican one.  Obama had woven together that coalition in 2008 to deliver a narrow win.  But when I hit refresh on Election Night 2016, the bottom had fallen out.  Trump wasn’t just going to win Volusia - he was going to absolutely crush Clinton there – and if he was cruising there, he was probably doing so in similar places in a state like Pennsylvania.   The book recalls the warning flare calls I made that night, as I pounded another IPA or two.

Good memories.  Good times. 

In 12 years, Volusia went from a county that Obama won by 6, to one Trump won by 12.  Of that aforementioned 155,000 vote gain in the counties with a college attainment rate of less than 33%, roughly 60,000 of it came from Volusia alone - a single county change that wiped out all of the gains in Orlando area counties where more than 1/3rd of the population has a college degree.   To kick this horse one more time - another way of looking at it, 1 in every 10 votes Republican gained between 2008 and 2020 came from Volusia, a county that will make up about 2.7% of the total statewide vote this year.  

That’s what happens when your brand craters.

It is also important to look at Osceola County, in part because I think it is an important warning flare for my side.  

Osceola County is one of the fastest growing counties in America, and is also one of the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the nation.   The 2000 census found the county was roughly 29% Hispanic.  Today, that number is 56%. If you bought into the demographics are destiny argument, Osceola should be delivering margins for Democrats that far outpace even President Obama’s 19 point margin in 2008.

Yet from 2008 to 2020, the margin for Democrats fell from 19% to 14%.   I have plenty of opinions on why for another time, but increasingly there is evidence that the same challenges my party is having with non-college whites is spilling over to non-college Hispanics.  A recent Pew study pointed to this fact, finding that Hispanic voters with a HS degree were supporting Harris by a 14 point margin, while Hispanics with a college degree were supporting her by 22 points.

And Osceola?  Its college attainment rate is about 1 in 4.  

Want to win Florida in the future my Democratic friends – we have to first fix the challenges we have with Hispanic voters.  Want to fix that?  Start in Osceola.

Trump won the market by 3 points in 2020, roughly 51-48.   For Harris or DMP to have a winning night, a win in the market is critical.  I’d want to see 51% to make the statewide math work.

(And much love to you, Motorcade.  Miss seeing you this cycle brother.) 

MIAMI

Early in my career, I ran the State House Democratic caucus in Florida, and I became obsessed by one of my goals:  electing a Cuban Democrat to represent the district that reached from Miami Beach to Little Havana.

My boss at the time, Dan Gelber, thought this was nuts, but the data suggested otherwise.  Finally, he had an idea:  Luis Garcia.

Luis was a retired firefighter who had served on the Miami Beach City Council.  A fiery guy by nature, Luis had another thing going for him:  He had triedm unsuccessfully to sign up for the Bay of Pigs when he was like 14 by putting risers in his shoes.  His opponent, a mild-mannered Republican from an elite Cuban family, so for once as a Democrat, there was no way Luis was going to be out anti-Castroed. His life gave him permission to talk to voters that would often turn off Democrats just from the label. 

Luis ran an smart race – calling out the corruption in Miami, talking about lowering taxes and property insurance rates, carving out a smart position on immigration, all while avoiding social issues and reminding voters of his core conviction, proven by life, that he though Castro was a SOB.   On Election Night, Luis became the first Cuban Democrat to represent Little Havana in the Florida Legislature.

Two years later, then Senator Obama followed a similar playbook in Dade.  He leaned into his own story, the son of an African, in many ways, he himself a first-generation American living the dream every immigrant has for their children.  He recognized people came here to seek safety and opportunity.  And he sure as hell didn’t wax on poetically about European style socialism, or suggest reducing funding for law enforcement among voters who largely came here to escape socialist autocracies where they often feared for their own personal safety.

Nor did he duck the question when asked if he was a socialist.  

Nor did he drop the “n” from Latin and add an “x” to describe a group of people that has never used that word to describe themselves.

That screaming sound you hear coming from the words on the screen?  Yup, that’s me.

I love Miami – and by Miami, I mean both Dade and Broward.  Ok, I hate the traffic, and the fact that time is a construct that no one actually believes in.   But I love the culture, the people, the food, and the vibe.  

Dade County on its own is arguably the most diverse place on the planet.  

Over 50% of the population is foreign born, and between 85-90% of the population would be considered ethnic minorities in the US – and within that population is a kaleidoscope of nations and cultures.  

If New York was the beacon for immigrants from the old world, it is today Miami who lifts her lamp to those huddled masses yearning to be free from the dictatorships in new one.  And it isn’t just Hispanics and Caribbeans, you can find a corner of Miami that is home to populations from every corner of the world.  She truly is a global capital for those who live to her south.  Honestly, if I had ever had a chance to work for a Governor, that is the portfolio I wanted – how do we make Miami truly the Singapore of Latin America.  

The diversity of Miami is rapidly spilling northward,  Broward County, the one-time “Sixth Borough of New York,” looks almost nothing like it did during the heyday of political condo commandos ike Amadeo “Trinchi” Trinchitella.  

From the 2020 census to the 2020 census, the share of Broward made up by ethnic minorities increased from 42% to 67%.  The “Del Boca Vista” of Seinfeld-fame is now more likely to be home to thousands of middle class, 2nd generation Hispanic families than it is to folks who look like George Costanza’s parents. 

As Miami got younger, more diverse, and more metropolitan, it also got more Democratic.  Our 2008 vote goals in Miami seemed absurd to many, but we reached them - and even more in 2012, before Hillary Clinton set a new bar in 2016:  winning the county by nearly 30 points, and setting a margin that if Democrats could have gotten a few other things right in the state, could have provided a base for statewide wins.

But then, my side – in the parlance of political hackdom, did some really stupid dumb shit, and that dumb shit has been acutely felt in Southeast Florida.

Just how bad?

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade by 29 points, and Broward by 35 points.  The result:  a 580,000 vote margin out of the two big SE Florida counties.

These are numbers that blew away what Obama did either time.

In 2020, Donald Trump cut those margins to 30 points in Broward, and 7 in Dade.   The result, Joe Biden’s vote margin was just under 370,000.

What if Biden could have maintained the Clinton margins (yes, I know Clinton’s were historic, but just play along with me for a minute)?  With the population growth, Biden 2020 with the Clinton margins would have won Broward and Miami-Dade by 675,000 votes.  The difference between that and what he got?  Nearly the entire Trump statewide margin of victory.

I could write papers on this (and depending on what happens in November, I might).  I also might need counseling, to be honest.

What do Harris and DMP need to do?

They probably need to at a minimum split the difference between Clinton and Biden - 61% as a floor, to get enough votes to give themselves a chance statewide.  This means winning Dade with Obama 08-type margins.  

The other markets

Again, this isn’t a prediction, this is a model (and ok, maybe a prayer that some young hacks on my side might use it as road map going forward)

West Palm Beach:  Biden got 52% of the market.  Realistically, Harris would need to get around 54% to win.   Want to get to 54%.  Figure out how to win St. Lucie and the rest will fall in place. 

Fort Myers:  Biden got 38% in 2020, and I think 39% would be a reasonable goal.  I do think this is a market that if Democrats are going to have success in Florida in the future that we need to find ways for improvement. 

Landing this plane. 

When I started writing this, I didn’t plan on it taking this long, or being this long.   If you read to the end, I am truly grateful.

And honestly, I don’t know if this one I wrote for you all, or for myself.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say, as a Democrat, that the last few cycles have been frustrating.  As I said in a piece I wrote last summer, it is hard to spend your career building something, only to see it – partially by circumstances, but at least in a small part, by decisions, get ripped back to the studs.  

I wish I still had the memo I wrote to some party leaders in 2004, immediately following my side's double digit defeat in the 2002 Governor’s race, followed by a 5-point loss in the Presidential, because I could have just cut and pasted that into my blog, and changed the date.   The line in that memo – a line I also used with reporters in those days:  “we can’t win if all we do is bleed out in red parts of the state.”

That is still true today.   My side won’t win here anytime soon unless we fix that.  Again. 

At my core, I am a median voter guy.  For me, elections only have one purpose: winning them – and if you want to win them, you have to figure out where the median voter lies and meet them there - both physically, and politically. .  And it doesn’t matter where you want the median voter to be - it only matters where they are. 

In Florida, the median voter is a retired accountant from Cicero, IL  living in Sarasota.  He was a consistent Republican voter in Illinois, but  thinks Republicans have lost their way, though he doesn’t trust Democrats to not raise his  taxes.  She’s the 45 year old Cuban mother that couldn’t tell her Dad she voted for Obama, who goes to church every week and is worried both about her health care, and about her kid’s safety going to and from the bus stop.  Or the 28 year old Puerto Rican, who came to Osceola when her parents moved there when she was 7, and who has no idea how she’s going to afford to make it as the cost of everything in Florida increases all the time.   Or the 22 year old African American man from West Palm, first in his family to go to college, and now wondering if the world is going to give him a fair shot at this thing called the American Dream.  They live in places we won in 2008, but don't win now.  It is really that simple

Win those voters, and win elections.  

This is a weird election for me.  Florida has been at the center of the political universe my entire career, until this year.  I kind of feel like Ricky Bobby in “Talladega Nights” saying “I don’t know what to do with my hands" this cycle. 

Truthfully, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat – if you are a Floridian, you should want Florida to be in play.   When Florida matters to the Presidency, Florida issues matter to those who run for – and who are elected President.  Period.

Can Democrats win here this cycle?  Well, can the Jaguars make the playoffs?  I mean, Blake Bortles did take my team to the precipice of the Super Bowl (Myles Jack was not down, full stop), and as thus, the math says it is possible.  As Senator Blutarsky once reminded us, it was not actually over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor (sorry, I had to bring that German invasion thing in for a landing).

But here’s the larger deal for my side:  After the 2030 census, the blue wall will likely be no more, meaning the math and map will change.  Those changes are going to force us to play in states we don’t win that often - and survival means we will have to modify our approach to some voters – just as Obama did after my party lost 2 national elections in a row – and just like Trump did after his did the same.  Every election cycle is a reset button.

And in the end, if I know one thing to be true, Florida may stray from time to time, but more often than not, Florida will, in the end, Florida.   

After all, as Taylor Swift said about La Florida, she is one hell of a drug.

Thanks again for reading. 

The Political Courage of the Parkland Moment

Like all good Florida political hacks, I was closely watching the returns from a high profile primary in Northeast Florida on Tuesday night, though the thing I was curious about something different.  Would a deeply conservative district give a vote of confidence to a legislator who took a big risk and did the right thing...

I remember exactly where I was when I saw the news.  It was February 14, 2018, and Margaret Good had just won a special election to the Florida House the night before in Sarasota, throwing a bit of a shock into the Florida political atmosphere, and I had been talking to Chuck Todd at NBC who wanted to interview her for his afternoon show.  Sitting in the coffee shop on the 10th floor of the Capitol to text her manager what they needed to do for the interview, the person next to me on the couch tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the TV.

Shooting.  Parkland, Florida.  A high school.  Valentine's Day.   And bad.  Really bad.

 By the end of the day, we knew just how bad.  

14 school kids were murdered. 

3 school personnel were murdered.  

17 more were wounded.  

The worst school shooting in Florida history. 

Like most, I just wanted to vomit.  As is often the response in these moments, I wanted to do something, but felt utterly helpless in the moment.  

I’ve never really known how to talk about the next few weeks.  My role in what happened between February 14th and March 9th of that year was relatively minor, advising the parents as the legislature worked towards passing landmark school safety legislation to honor those whose lives were cut short on that day.   It was a hard three weeks.  I drank a lot, I cried a lot, I prayed a lot, and I hardly slept.  But what I went through was nothing compared to the grief those parents carried in those halls.  

My involvement started when a friend called to ask if I could talk to some students who were coming to Tallahassee about how to deal with the media – and continued when another friend asked if I would talk with one of the fathers, Max Schachter, whose son Alex was murdered that day, as he prepared to testify before a legislative committee that was looking into how Florida could respond.  

This led to me taking on the self-described role of sherpa for the families who were working on passing legislation to change the laws around school safety, which consisted of helping them get from place to place, writing statements, dealing with the media, and gathering political intelligence.  Thankfully, my other clients saw the purpose in this, and largely let me focus on the families instead of their work – and after narrow/bipartisan votes in both the House and the Senate, Governor Scott signed the law into effect on March 9th. 

There are real heroes in this story.   Governor Scott put his shoulder into it.  As I have told many a reporter on thie subject - sure, as a Democrat, I have plenty of disagreements with Rick Scott political philosophy, but the Parkland bill never happens without him, and you will never see me do anything but praise his work during that period.

The Senate President, Bill Galvano, toured the school and said we were going to do something.   The House Speaker, Richard Corcoran, made sure the votes were there to pass it.   Now Congressman Jared Moskowitz, then in the State House, lobbied hard to make the bill more bipartisan.  In the Senate, any single vote could have changed the outcome – and there, three Senate Democrats broke with their caucus, Lauren Book, Bill Montford, and Kevin Rader – joining Rob Bradley, a now retired Republican Senator from the Jacksonville area in a district Trump won by 35 points, to provide the deciding votes to pass it.   

Many others did the hard work of quietly lobbying their colleagues, and counting votes.  In my view, everyone who voted yes showed courage. 

More importantly, every parent of a lost child stood together, united in grief, but united in turning their grief into purpose.  These 17 parents, from every possible ideological background, supported a common mission.   They understood that if any single one of them opposed the bill, it almost surely would have failed.   Their unity sent a clear message:  if we can all agree to this, so can you – even if this is politically a hard vote.

That is the point I want to write about today.

There was real peril in this vote.  Most of the yes votes came from members who represented very safe partisan districts, meaning their threats came from the edges of their party, not from the middle.  This was a middle-ground bill, a bipartisan product cobbled together, and was loudly opposed by the edges of both parties.  A yes vote meant members who supported the bill were going to have to go to meetings and defend their actions.   A yes vote meant they were going to see this vote again – and not in a good way.  A yes vote was a truly defining moment in their career.

A lot of strategists on both sides urged a no vote just on the politics – and others thought a no vote would require everyone to come back to the table and negotiate something different.  Many Democrats who wanted an assault-weapons ban told me they were voting no because they thought - frankly wrongly - if the bill died, there would be a renegotiated version where they could get a ban.  

But that wasn’t how this was ever going to work.  In the end, members were going to get a choice:  this bill, and a green or red button.  Was it perfect?  No.  Was it good?  In my view, yes.  If the bill died, the moment would have been lost.  

For me, it was simple.  The bill had to pass.  It had to pass for those kids who wanted to honor their lost friends.  It had to pass for the parents who had experienced the worst days of their lives.   And it had to pass for everyone who had said “do something” after one of these horrible tragedies.

The vote was going to be close, and while many legislators I respect couldn’t get there, fortunately, 67 Members of the Florida House, and 20 Members of the State Senate, found a way to yes.  Every single one of those 87 could have justified a no vote.  

The Republicans who voted yes voted for increased waiting periods on gun sales, and a higher age limit to purchase a gun, as well as a red flag law.   Democrats who voted yes voted to allow school personnel to carry guns in their school – and voted yes even though most thought the gun restrictions weren’t strong enough.   In each of the respective party bases, these provisions were deeply unpopular.

The men and women who cast that vote understood the risk. They knew it could cost them their career. They knew they were angering core supporters.  They knew it was against their own self-interest.  But they knew doing something for those families was more important than their own ambition.  They rose to the moment, and took the hard vote, knowing it could be the last hard vote they ever take.  

But they didn’t care about those things.  They cared about doing the right thing.

And for the first four years after the bill’s passage, their courage was rewarded.  Not a single legislator who voted for that bill lost their seat after being attacked for their vote.  Not one.

 But this summer, it looked like there was a chance that could change.

One of those yes votes came from a freshman legislator from Ormond Beach, Tom Leek, and six years later, Leek was in the fight of his political life:  a bruising primary to serve his community in the State Senate.  

The race Leek was in was historic.  More than 15 million dollars was spent in the race - a number that would have made this State Senate race the 3rd most expensive congressional race in the country this year.  The ads were tough on both sides, and many of those ads attacking Leek  came after him for his vote on the Parkland bill.

This was a very conservative district, and Leek, very much an iron-clad conservative, had over the years voted for some bipartisan initiatives, including the Parkland bill.   If he lost, I feared, so would the political will to do anything like that again in the near future.  

Millions were spent casting Leek as a bad Republican, and a “liberal” for his vote on that bill. Attack ads, direct mail pieces, and internet ads pointed over and over and over again to that vote.   But on Tuesday night, in a district that many – me included - worried would punish Leek for his courage, instead rejected those attacks.    The remarkable streak continued – every single member who voted yes in the early days of March 2018 had successfully overcome political attacks on that vote, and prevailed.    Every.  Single.  One.

In fairness, the Parkland vote certainly wasn’t the only issue in this race (even if for me, it arguably was), and Leek won for a lot of reasons.  But have no doubt:  one of the central arguments against Leek was his vote on the Parkland bill, and have no doubt, his opponents were counting on that Parkland vote being a reason people rejected him.   And in the end, voters chose to support Leek – even if they didn’t love his vote on that issue.  

Six years after that remarkable moment in the legislature – the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Act remains a model – a model for school safety – a model for bipartisanship – and a model for how to do big things in tough moments.   And that law is a model because guys like Tom Leek took the hard vote – the vote that he probably knew he’d see in a mail piece or TV ad one day – and he took the vote anyways.  

And because folks like Tom Leek set aside conventional political wisdom and took the hard vote, 17 parents and countless others who loved those who were killed can look back and know there was at least a measure of meaning to those whose lives were violently cut short inside Building 12 at the corner of Holmberg Rd and Coral Springs Drive.  

For that, I remain proud as hell that voters continue to reward those in public office who showed the political courage hit the green button to pass the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act of 2018, and that is something we should celebrate this week.   

And God willing, we will only see more of it. 

(CS/HB 7026, 2018, final vote)