By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Members of Florida’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention threw their support Monday to Vice President Kamala Harris, a day after President Joe Biden dropped his re-election campaign.
As part of a rapidly moving effort to coalesce support behind the vice president, a group of Florida party leaders held a call with reporters to back Harris’ bid to become president and pointed to increased enthusiasm they hope translates down the ballot.
“It is the Republicans’ dream to sit back and watch us fight each other and create chaos,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat who chairs the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party. “But we don’t have to show them chaos. We can show them unity, and we can show them strength.”
Biden, 81, faced growing pressure to leave the race after a poor showing June 27 during a debate with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
After Biden’s announcement Sunday that he was dropping out and supporting Harris, Democrats across the country scrambled to declare a new allegiance and avoid a potentially chaotic, brokered convention next month in Chicago.
The Florida Democratic Party said in a news release Monday that 236 members of the state’s delegation to the convention had made the switch to Harris. The state has a 254-member voting delegation.
Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said the speed of support for Harris isn’t surprising, as talks have been underway for “a hard couple of weeks.”
“With Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket for president, I know that everything is possible at this moment,” Fried said. “Florida is in play. Florida is winnable, not just at the top of the ticket, but certainly down ballot.”
Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, expressed hope that enthusiasm for Harris can help break the Republican supermajority in the state House. She cited issues such as abortion rights that Democrats hope will attract swing voters and cited a special-election win this year by Rep. Tom Keen, D-Orlando, in Central Florida’s House District 35.
“With abortion access being one of the top issues, it matters to have someone at the top of the ticket who is a trusted voice on that issue,” Driskell said.
Driskell said Democrats were able to get many independent voters to support Keen by talking about issues that the voters cared about, “namely abortion access and property insurance. So, having someone at the top of the ticket like Vice President Harris, who’s a trusted voice on abortion access and is a trusted voice on affordability issues, that makes all the difference in some of these races.”
But Republicans quickly pivoted their opposition from Biden to Harris.
Gov. Ron DeSantis described Harris, a former California attorney general and U.S. senator, as “too vacuous, too liberal and too unaccomplished for the voters,” while calling the effort to replace Biden with Harris as “just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power highlighted a poll showing Harris down 10 points in Florida to Trump and said, “We are going to win and win big.”
While not running for a second term, Biden can remain in the White House until January, when a new president takes office. Several Florida Republicans, however, called for him to step down as president.
“Today’s (Sunday’s) Biden announcement reminds us that the Democrat Party is run by elites, who are obsessed with power and indifferent to the very democracy they lecture us about,” House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, tweeted on X. “If Biden is too feeble to run for President, then how can he remain President?”
Biden’s announcement Sunday freed up Florida delegates to vote for any candidates of their choosing as convention bylaws allow pledged delegates to change their votes due to extenuating circumstances.
The Democratic delegation includes 29 party leaders and elected officials, 30 automatic delegates, 146 district level delegates, 49 at-large delegates and 19 alternates.
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@ DeepStatePropagandist … a fail on every retort, and a sad attempt at projection to be sure. But nice try, Saul.
1. Hamas isn’t progressive… but progressives are Pro-Hamas… got it… lol
2. Age isn’t keeping him from being elected, his disastrous policies were. So, your “Save Democracy” elites staged a coup against their own President, spat on your voters who picked him, and installed a feckless descendent of slave owners as they new puppet.
3. If – as you assert – that most “black people” in America were slave owners… then who pays and gets the reparations your party clamors for?
Your anti-democratic party elites picked the Clod Squad Queen and feckless descendent of slave owners in order to clean the party of the communist radicals that have taken over, in hopes of returning to a more rational and moderate platform. She’s toast… by design.
@DavidB –
“I’m guessing that you just loved the fact that you had ZERO impact of Horrible’s crowning as the Dem’s Presidential candidate, and all other potential candidates were elbowed out of contention?”
I do not subscribe to a cult of personality. I subscribe to policy positions I am directionally aligned with, and that is going to be Democratic all day long. It would have been better if Biden had dropped out a year ago, but I’m not all bunged up about it. It’s all about beating Trump.
” You remember she’s done NOTHING as VP, right?”
No VPs ever do anything. What did Pence do? Or Biden as VP? I guess I’d have to admit Dick Cheney getting into Iraq was doing ‘something’, but I wouldn’t count it as a positive.
@Edward Lyle –
“DeepStatePropagandist is the classic Pro-Hamas Progressive and Democrat Failures’ apologist.”
I swear I sometimes think you are a plant to make conservatives look like idiots. Amazing. Also, Hamas isn’t progressive?
“It wasn’t The Dementia Patients’ age that was the problem”
Yes it was. That was the problem that was going to keep him from being elected.
” It was his – and now the descendent of slave owners, Harris’”
It’s so funny that this is now the conservative’s take. Yeah. She was a descendant from slave owners. So are most black people in America. So what? What’s the angle here, seriously? Let me see if I got this right, the party that steadfastly argues against tearing down Confederate statues thinks that the observable reality that someones great great grandparents were slave owners is a problem because ? I don’t get it?
“She done before she even got to spew her first speech of standard and scripted lies.”
Have you ever tried to fact check a Trump speech? LOL.
DeepStatePropagandist is the classic Pro-Hamas Progressive and Democrat Failures’ apologist.
Try as you will, sport… It wasn’t The Dementia Patients’ age that was the problem. It was his – and now the descendent of slave owners, Harris’ – Anti-America and Antisemitic policies of destruction that was and still is the problem. Your new dingbat candidate has already failed on two major fronts… to wit…
1. Once the Democrat Party ignored their voters, tossed Democracy in the trash, and appointed their new puppet… she should have immediately and publicly called for Cheatle to be FIRED, and NOT let her resign with the standard taxpayer funded golden parachute retirement package.
2. Aligning herself with the Antisemitic Pro-Hamas Progressives and snubbing our most trusted and long-standing “Democratic” ally.
She done before she even got to spew her first speech of standard and scripted lies.
@DeepStateProvacateur I’m guessing that you just loved the fact that you had ZERO impact of Horrible’s crowning as the Dem’s Presidential candidate, and all other potential candidates were elbowed out of contention?
You do remember she dropped out of contention for POTUS in the 2000 race after, what, the first or second round of primaries, right? You remember she’s done NOTHING as VP, right?
Utter and complete failure.
I don’t understand what you people are so upset about?
People are allowed to quit jobs. People are allowed to quit relationships. People are allowed to quit social clubs. People are allowed to stop doing anything, at any time, if they feel like it. That’s kind of an important part of the ‘pursuit of happiness’, isn’t it?
Do you think Biden should have been mandated, by the government, to stay in the race? Even if it was illegal for him to drop out, couldn’t he just claim immunity from the action, as dropping out was an official act of the Presidency?
By the way, Trump is now the oldest candidate to running for President and the picture of him falling asleep at his own convention was hilarious. JD Vance is on record calling Trump a sexual deviant and racist. Good times.
Too bad high skrewels don’t teach Critical Thinking 101, and all those who flunked had to register as Democrats…
@ Commonsense… 100% spot-on. The Democrat Party IS the true existential threat to Democracy. They’ve just made it unquestionably clear to their voters that the Democrat Party Elites couldn’t give a rat’s behind about them. They pulled a classic bait-n-switch right in their faces, with a dingbat that couldn’t garner 2% in any Primary and dropped out after she was smacked down by Tulsi. Donors and elites rule the Democrat Party, and you Democrat voters can go pound sand… lmao at these commie clowns.
“You vill vote for who vee say… or zare vill be conseqvences”
We are entering dangerous times in U.S. political history. If Harris is chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate, it will be the first time the voters were NOT given an opportunity to select their candidate of choice. At the Democrat Convention the delegates (about 4,000 of them also not selected by the voters) will make that choice for all the millions of voters throughout the county.
Many Democrats should be quite upset that they were deprived of their right to vote for a candidate they think would make the best President.
I would like to see Biden Resign as President so Harris can step in and show the World what she will do………….. The Voters need to know.
Will she honor the Deal and Debate Trump in September?