'Don’t sleep on Florida': Miami Dems confident their state is in play for Harris

In 2020, Democratic now-President Joe Biden defied conventional wisdom when he picked up 306 electoral votes despite losing Florida. Many Democratic strategists had come to view Florida as a must-win state for presidential candidates, yet Biden's path to a decisive victory included the Rust Belt "blue wall" — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — along with flipping Arizona and Georgia.

After Gov. Ron DeSantis' 19 percent reelection victory in 2022, Democrats grew increasingly pessimistic about Florida. And the seven swing states where Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign has been campaigning aggressively include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.

But Democrats in Miami-Dade Country, according to the Miami Herald, are saying that Harris' campaign shouldn't dismiss Florida as a lost cause — a theme being echoed by Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Jaime Harrison.

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At the Blue Gala event in Miami on Saturday, September 21, Harrison told the crowd of Democrats, "Don't sleep on Florida."

The Herald's Max Greenwood reports, "Bringing in the top brass of the Miami-Dade, state and national parties, the gala was framed as a pep rally for Democrats, who are hoping to head off a possible electoral drubbing in Florida in November. Democrats need to run up big margins in Miami-Dade in order to have a shot at winning both the presidency and statewide office, but that has proved increasingly difficult in recent years — most notably in 2022, when both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio won the county."

Greenwood adds, "With just over six weeks to go before Election Day, party leaders on Saturday rallied around the hope that the electoral rout they suffered two years ago was an anomaly born out of internal dysfunction and low voter turnout. This year, they vowed, will be different."

According to Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party is enjoying a "rebuilding" after a period of disappointments.

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Fried said of the September 21 gathering, "You see a sold-out crowd, you have the chairman of the DNC who's here as our keynote speaker. You have (elected officials) that are here, leaning back into the local party, understanding that we can do all of this great work across the rest of the state. But if Miami-Dade doesn’t produce the numbers and show once again that Miami is a stronghold for Democrats, it doesn't matter what happens in the rest of the state."

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Read the Miami Herald's full article at this link (subscription required).