Photo via Kamala Harris/X
“This is a time for Democrats to be united, to be energized and to be moving forward,” state party Chair Nikki Fried declared on a Zoom call on Monday.
A spokesperson for the Florida Democratic Party said that, as of noon Monday, 236 of the state’s 245 delegates previously pledged to support Joe Biden instead supported Harris, whom Biden endorsed on Sunday after he announced he would not run for re-election in November.
That delegate count includes all eight members of Florida’s Democratic congressional delegation. (You can read that letter here.)
Biden’s announcement came 24 days after his cataclysmic performance in the debate against Donald Trump exposed serious problems with his mental acuity that did not abate in subsequent television interviews. Less than one week after his poor debate performance, top Democrats around the nation began to ask him to stand down.
But none of those calls came from Florida Democrats, who stood firmly behind Biden. It was only on Friday that one member of Florida’s congressional delegation, Tampa Bay area Rep. Kathy Castor, said it was time for the president to “pass the torch.”
The party was beginning to divide among itself as Biden remained steadfast that only he could defeat Trump in November. He stressed that Democratic party voters had “spoken clearly and decisively” because he had received more than 14 million of their votes in state primary elections — in which no serious challengers ever emerged, and the ones who did weren’t allowed to compete in Florida, with the party cancelling the March presidential primary last fall.
‘Fantasy football’
Fried said on the Zoom call said that while there might be some who want to indulge in “fantasy football” type of scenarios with national Democrats competing for the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, most of those names being floated (such as Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, and California’s Gavin Newsom, among many) have already endorsed Harris.
“Everyone’s on board because everyone understands what’s at risk if we go into a contentious convention,” said South Florida Democratic state Sen. Shevrin Jones, who served as a member of the Biden-Harris National Advisory Board. “That’s why we’re seeing this coalescence around the vice-president.”
“I think in general the reason the DNC [Democratic National Committee] members are united behind Vice President Kamala Harris is because it’s time for us to unite,” added Samuel Vilchez Santiago, a member of the DNC and chairman of the Orange County Democratic Party. “We’ve seen over the last three weeks a public in-fighting within the Democratic Party. The president endorsed the vice president, and we are all coming together because this is about two visions for the country, right? Nothing really changed from yesterday to today.”
Democrats ‘should be fuming’
Republicans would agree that nothing has changed except for who’s now topping the Democratic ticket when it comes to the policies they say are unpopular with the American public.
“Democrats across the country should be fuming,” said Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power on X . “Their party failed them. Rather than allowing Americans to have their voices heard, they will be forced to carry whatever puppet they elect behind closed doors. Meanwhile, Republicans are united behind President Trump. It doesn’t matter which empty suit they put forward — we will win.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis weighed in as well. He appeared to be disgusted by what he saw watching network and cable news coverage of the flip from Biden to Harris on Monday morning.
“After pushing Biden out, it was predictable that corporate media would provide hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of glowing coverage to his replacement,” he said on X. “They are trying to do that with Kamala, but it won’t work — she is too vacuous, too liberal, and too unaccomplished for the voters to buy the manufactured narrative.”
The governor was scheduled to hold a press conference in South St. Petersburg on Monday with Education Commissioner Manny Diaz, but approximately 15 minutes before his scheduled 10:30 a.m. appearance, attendees were informed that due to “plane maintenance issues” the event had been cancelled.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Diane Rado for questions: [email protected]. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.
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