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 do think Harris will win.  it does feel, both in "vibes" and in data, the race is breaking her way.  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.

She's also closing as you would want - and I do believe has a vastly superior turnout operation in most of the states where it matters - and I don't think any even halfway biased hack can argue that Trump, at least in his in-person pleas, is closing as they would want.  In July or August, I would have definitely said I would rather be Trump - today, I would rather be Harris.  

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 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 some 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)

What does a Win in Florida look like for Harris?

The Presidential race has reset.  What looked and felt like an uphill slog in a handful of states to get to 270 for President Biden is today a far more wide-open race, where Vice President Harris has multiple pathways to the Presidency.   All seven of the “battleground” states show Harris with a small lead in the polling averages, or the race tied.  

But what about the state that traditionally has been on that list – the next state on that list:  Florida?

The Biden – now Harris operation has a growing team here.  According to public reports, there have been more new volunteer sign-ups for Harris in Florida than any other state in the country, and some polling I’ve seen, both public and private, show her doing better than Biden – both statewide, and in some down ballot races.

With a couple of polls being released, my phone/text/twitter/LinkedIn/pigeon carrier lines of communication have been blowing up, hence this piece.   If you are reading this to get some mystical dose of hopium as a Democrat, or so you can say “Hey Schale thinks gonna turn Florida blue” (no offense, but I really hate that phrase, because it means nothing) or “Schale thinks she’s gonna lose, yeah MAGA,” (another phrase that I can’t wait to be gone from the lexicon), then you might as well stop reading.   That isn’t the goal here.

Nor is it a “How Harris or Trump wins Florida” -- I might later take on as an academic exercise what a roadmap to a win, at least from the numbers perspective, looks like for both campaigns.  However, until I decide to give up sleep for a week to do that piece, I offer these thoughts about how I think about Florida:  

1. Former President Donald Trump must win Florida. 

 Longtime readers of this blog have heard me say this since forever – winning Florida isn’t necessary for Democrats to win for the Presidency – but it is an absolute requirement for Republicans. The last Republican to win the White House without Florida was Calvin Coolidge, hence the title of our 2008 campaign plan was “Win and You Are In” – noting that Florida alone would guarantee a Barack Obama win.  

The underappreciated storyline to what Michael Bloomberg did here in 2020 was the much bigger impact he had outside of Florida because of the way it changed the dynamic in Florida.  He forced President Trump to, in the words of Princess Bride’s immortal Vizzini to fall “victim to one of the classic blunders” – in this case, the most famous of said blunders: “never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

Bloomberg forced a real fight – he made Trump spend money – he made them spend candidate time – and he made them divert money from elsewhere to shore up the fight here, leading to massive television advantages in the closing weeks in the states that flipped from Trump to Biden.

I don’t think we will see that kind of funding again, but everything Harris can do here is a bonus.  If they continue to raise good money to fund an expanded map, keeping the fight here is just smart politics.  Even if the Trump folks are likely to win here in 2024, they can’t risk losing here. 

2.  There is some evidence of Florida reverting to the mean.

I think a lot of people following 2008 and 2012 on my side made assumptions about Florida that were based only in hope – and I think some of my Republican friends are making the same mistake about the 2022 election.

In 2002, Jeb Bush won Florida by nearly 15 points, and 2 years later, George Bush won it by 6 – despite a massive effort from my side on behalf of Kerry.   In the following four years, Democrats won three of the next six statewide races, picked up 10 seats in the Florida House, and a handful in the State Senate and Congress.

Florida has gotten more Republican – anyone who says otherwise isn’t being honest.  I’d argue at least some, if not most of that is due to national trends that play themselves out here.  Republicans have made gains with Hispanics – they have made gains with Black Men – and they have made gains with non-college white voters --- and Florida is home to large, and growing populations of all the above.  But nothing in politics is permanent.

A smart friend noted to me after 2022 that the data showed that Republican turnout in 2022 was 105% of what it was in 2018 – and given the state growth, that is a perfectly reasonable and normal jump.    For Democrats, it was 80% of 2018 – which is, in a technical term, an absolute, effing crater.   Also in 2022, NPA voters functioned like Republicans, in part because of DeSantis campaign, and in part because my side didn’t have one.

We have seen some reversion to the mean this year:  Democrats won the Mayor’s race in Jacksonville – a city that has been very competitive for the last decade in all but one cycle.  Democrats have performed in state house special elections at levels that look more historically normal than 2022.  In both of these cases, not only has turnout been more normal, NPAs, and even moderate Republicans showed up and operated more like Democrats in the polling booth.  And the poll that was released in Miami Dade showing Harris up 15 – if that margin is accurate, that is far closer to historical averages (noting, Dade bumps around a lot) than 2022.  

My point is the above doesn’t mean the state is trending back – or that Harris is somehow going to win – but it does mean that the margins that DeSantis carried in 2022 – or Bush in 2002 – or Bill Nelson in 2012 – are more likely outliers than trends.  It is a perfectly reasonable thing to believe that Florida is currently a lean, or even likely GOP state – without also thinking that top of the ticket margins like DeSantis had here are a permanent fixture.

3.  BUT STEVE, WHAT ABOUT VOTER REGISTRATION???

My views on voter registration are well known – extremely well known.  I got taken off a few Christmas Card lists for a piece I wrote in 2023 about the failures of my side on issues such as voter registration.  I believe that a lot of money has been lit on fire in this state in the name of voter registration by Democratic-aligned efforts, and we have basically zero to show for it.   And I hope the Harris folks are investing in it.

That being said, I do think we need an honest conversation about the current state voter registration numbers.

We all agree Florida has undergone a large growth spurt, right?

So, what if I told you there were 1.1 million fewer active registered voters today than there were in 2020?

At this point in 2020 and 2022, there were approximately 14.5 million registered “active” voters.  

Today that number is 13.4 million.

I put the word “active” in quotation marks, because the state a few years back redefined what it meant to be an active voter, and that change has had a significant impact on voter registration numbers, by moving a ton of voters off the “active” list to the “inactive” list – and those voters are disproportionally Democratic and NPA.

It is kind of like in golf – if I make a 9 on a hole, my handicap might only count 6 of those shots for handicap purposes– and the score will look better there – but it doesn’t change the fact I made a 9.   Think of the current “active” number as handicap adjusted.

But you add back in the nearly 2.6 million voters who are now categorized as “inactive” - the state’s total voter rolls total roughly 16 million, a number that makes a lot more sense when you think about the growth.   And when you add in the inactives, the GOP edge is still large in raw numbers – about 700K, but as a percentage, their lead is 4%.  

Most of these “inactive” voters, and quite likely, a sizable number of them will.    Who among them will?  How many will?  But what we know is 75% of these inactive voters are Dems or NPA voters.  

Again, to be clear, I am not defending the lack of sustained voter registration efforts, nor am I suggesting the state hasn’t gotten more Republican – just that the active numbers don’t tell the same story they did four years ago.  Moreover, on my side, honestly, I hope the Harris campaign and the Florida Democratic Party are using the newfound enthusiasm to register new voters.   If they don’t, it is a missed opportunity. 

 4.  The Real Win is Longer Term. 

The last point - on using this campaign as an organizing tool, is the most important outcome of the Harris investment here.

Democrats have two national looming issues:  

·      Population growth in the south is going to change the electoral college math by the time of the 2032 election.   Right now, the “Clinton states” plus “Blue Wall” gets a Democratic candidate to 275-277 electoral votes (dependent on the congressional districts in NE and ME).   After the 2030 census, it is very likely, if not almost assured, that number will be under 270 – maybe as low as 265.   In other words, my side’s path to the Presidency requires new math:  Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and yes, states like Florida, and even Texas.

·      Neither party can maintain any kind of sustainable majority in the US Senate without growing the map.  If the only places that either party win US Senate races are states that either Trump or Biden won in 2020, the US Senate will be 50-50.  Both parties need to win in places they don’t normally win to secure any kind of real majority in the Senate going forward.  The Democratic map in 2024 is proof positive of this. 

 My side must open new fronts on the political map – and yes, Florida, at 30 electoral votes – and maybe 33 in 2032, is a place we should do it – and here is why:   

 Growth trends in Florida are going to do what they do – sometimes they benefit Republicans, sometimes Democrats.   But the bigger issue for Democrats here is the coalition – our coalition isn’t doing well with the types of voters that we have here in spades. 

For Democrats to win nationally – we must improve with Hispanic voters, we must make more inroads with white voters without a college degree, and we need to rebuild our relationship as a party with Black Men.    The fact that Harris does better with good chunks of these voters is partially why not only does the map look better for her today than it did for President Biden last month – but why Florida looks better.

If we can address these more systemic issues in our coalition generally – something I think is vital for the long term, Florida looks increasingly competitive almost immediately.  To this end, what the Harris campaign can do here with their growing volunteer capacity – as we could do in both 08 and 12, is not only expand the electorate through registration, but expand the coalition by pushing the conversation into communities we traditionally ignore.   

Conclusion

To the folks who keep asking me if Harris can win here, the answer is complicated.    The reality is their math doesn’t run through Florida – so without the kind of spend you need to get to a win, the answer is almost surely no.  

While I think they can help with turnout in certain pockets, I don’t think that the amendments suddenly change the game here.  Every two years it seems there is a new amendment that is going to impact the up-ballot races, and every two years, the people who predict this end up looking around on election day surprised that it didn’t.    

Moreover, for Democrats who want the constitutional amendments to pass, you must embrace the fact that a significant number of voters will vote for these amendments and vote for President Trump.   And that’s OK.   Politics isn’t always black and white as folks on Twitter tend to think it is.

But that doesn’t mean this cycle isn’t important for Dems – and that the Harris effort doesn’t matter.   Back in 2011, one of my 08 teammates called and asked me about taking a senior campaign opportunity in Georgia in the re-elect.  They were concerned that it would be all for not – a waste of time when the campaign eventually deployed resources elsewhere.  My advice was simple:  if you are willing to take it, you have a chance to build something that, down the road, is going to matter.   And it did – eight years later, Georgia elected two Democratic United States Senators, and a Democratic President.

Back in 2006-7, then DNC Chairman Howard Dean sent staff to Florida, at a time when most people had written it off, and the work folks like my dearest of brothers, Nate Jenkins did in those years before 2008 teed us up for success in 2008.  

When folks ask me if I think Florida is a smart play, or whether the campaign should spend elsewhere, I argue that choice is a false one.  What they are doing right now is a smart investment – and honestly, low-cost investment, and as long as money remains good, and they aren’t robbing from the pathways to 270, they can keep a toe in the water here.  My wise stepfather has often counseled me that it isn't necessary to make a decision until you have to make the decision, and right now, the Harris camp has the luxury of continuing to build here.

That is why what Harris is doing is important – like her campaign in general, it is a chance to hit the reset button here – a chance to re-engage in communities we’ve ignored, to create some energy at the local level, a chance to register voters, and to build actual long term political party infrastructure.   For me, as a Democrat, that is a win.  

And when the campaign is over, hopefully donors will step up and fund the continuation of the work.  More than likely, it will take some time to feel the real impact of her investment – and that is OK too.   Rome wasn’t built in a day – and neither was the success we had between 2006 and 2012.

And like the Jacksonville Jaguars making the rare smart decision by locking up Josh Hines-Allen, Evan Engram, Tyson Campbell, and yes, Trevor Lawrence to long term deals, Harris is doing something my side also talks a lot about, but never really does:  investing in the pieces necessary for long term success. 

One Hell of a Drug - A Florida Man looks at Taylor Swift's new song: Florida

It was an early morning.

 My alarm rang at 3:45am for a quick up and back to Tampa.  Barely pulling myself together, I notice a text from my good buddy Mark Baldwin.   It was a song.

This is not unique. Mark and I share music back and forth all the time. What was unique was the text came through at like 1:00am, fairly late for my famously early to bed friend. The title of the song: Florida.  I started to respond: Oh yeah, love that Modest Mouse song.   

The four drive south started like hundreds before it - in the fog on US 319, a quiet and largely abandoned highway at that hour.

 You can beat the heat if you beat the charges too...They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true.  And my friends all smell like weed or little babies...And this city reeks of driving myself crazy

There is no coffee until Perry.  Just me and the deer, who turn the dark road into an obstacle course. 

 Little did you know your home's really only...A town you're just a guest in. So you work your life away just to pay...For a time-share down in Destin

Definitely not Modest Mouse, but I’ll admit, the song bops a bit.  I listen to it again.  And again.   

Florida.  Is one hell of a drug 

Taylor Swift’s new song with Florence Welch.  It is good.  And it feels pretty spot on - especially that line.

I listened to it again, and again.  And once the hour was mostly civil, I sent it to several Florida Men and Florida Women whose opinion I respect.  

“Florida has never been so seen” said a friend.  “Really on the nose,” said another, with someone else calling it the perfect “marriage of Carl Hiassan and Jimmy Buffett.”

 “How the hell did she capture Florida so perfectly good gracious” texted another buddy.  

“Closest I ever felt to being John Meyer” responded yet another, referencing Swift’s song indicting her one-time boy friend.

But did she really, as one friend and observer said, “nail the essence of the place.”

Well, let's examine.

Here’s what Swift herself said about the song:  

“I’m always watching Dateline.  People have these crimes that they commit; where do they immediately skip town and go to? They go to Florida. They try to reinvent themselves, have a new identity, blend in. I think when you go through a heartbreak, there’s a part of you that thinks, ‘I want a new name. I want a new life. I don’t want anyone to know where I’ve been or know me at all.’ And so that was the jumping off point. Where would you go to reinvent yourself and blend in? Florida.”

Since the first Europeans stepped foot here – and at an accelerated pace, since WWII, Florida has been a destination of escape.  Some 2/3rds of Florida residents were not born here – and roughly a quarter weren’t even born in the United States. 

Some, like my parents, came here to escape the cold.   

For many, we are a lifelong aspiration:  warm climate/low tax reward for a life of productive work somewhere cold and gray – for others, it is the Siren Song of the ocean, a tropical life untempered by the challenges of life in the real world - a place of true escape.

And increasingly, our shores are the modern day Ellis Island, the 21st century version of the “sea-washed sunset gate” of the golden door.  In many ways, Florida is that new New Colossus - the first step into a new life in America. 

When Nikole and I went to Alaska in 2009, someone there described the state as a foreign country that just happened to be populated by American citizens.  To some extent, I think you could say the same thing about Florida. 

In fact, for the first couple hundred years of Florida’s colonization, you had to really want to escape it all to come here, because coming here meant battling swamps, snakes, heat, yellow fever, and malaria,   It wasn’t until John Gorrie bought us air conditioning,  Dr. Porter invented mosquito control, and Henry Flagler brought the railroad that Florida was a place any normal person would want to live.  Or at least any sane one.

But like our much colder brethren to the north, despite these advancements, as well as Eisenhower’s interstates, we continue to draw a population looking to slip away from the norms of life that exist in most places. 

Well, me and my ghosts, wе had a hell of a time. Yes, I'm hauntеd, but I'm feeling just fine…no one asks any questions here…

Bob Graham once said to me the key to understanding Florida is not just to know where they came from, but to know why they came here.  Graham would often point to the mythical couple from Cincinnati - they’ve lived here for a decade, although “they still take the Cincinnati paper” and still care about the place they came from, but they chose Florida because they were tired of being cold, didn’t want to pay income taxes and basically to be left alone to enjoy their retirement. 

I used to think of Florida as a microcosm of America - but over time, I realized that was wrong.  Instead, we are a reflection of all of the places people came from, as well as the hopes and dreams of why people came here – the new life they have established here, and maybe the demons they left behind.  

Little did you know...Your home's really only the town you'll get arrested. So you pack your life away just to wait out...The shitstorm back in Texas

Florida is not a place.  Michigan is a place.  Texas is a place.  New York is a place.  Almost every state is a place.  But not Florida.

Most states in America conjure up an archetype —the steel worker in Pennsylvania, the farmer in Iowa, the outdoorsman of Colorado, the gold-covered gambler in Nevada, or just the New Yorker.  

Florida is more of a geographic distinction - an oddly shaped piece of land that captures 22 million or so people from all walks of life under a single flag – but in many ways, that is about all that connects us.   Places like Liberty County and Dade County are so culturally different they might as well be on two separate continents, if not planets.   Even driving across Florida’s famed I-4 corridor, the state can feel very different in just 10 or 20 miles.

Part of this is a function of how people got here.  The old saying in Florida is to go south, you go north.  Midwesterners tended to move down I-75 and end up on the west coast.  East coasters did the same down I-95.   Puerto Ricans flocked to Orlando to fill service jobs, creating a pipeline that continues to reshape the community to this day.  And Miami, well, it's Miami. 

But what do you think of when you think of Florida?

Florida Man. 

No doubt, if Swift got the inspiration from Dateline, she definitely had Florida Man on her mind when writing the lyrics.

But what’s interesting about Florida Man - Florida Man isn’t a uniquely Florida thing.  Keep in mind, as mentioned earlier, most people here came from elsewhere.  Florida Man, more than likely, was your neighbor in Kankakee, IL, or Alpena, Michigan.  He just ended up here.  And that is what we are - what we have largely ever been:  a collection of the other…a collection of the escaped.

Put 22 million or so people inside of a state that still has a fair amount of wilderness, marry it with heat and alcohol, and  there will be ‘interesting’ interactions between wildlife, gators, bears, pythons, etc., and people.  Also, just put 22 million people anywhere, and you are going to have characters – but put 22 million people in a state where people seek to escape – and well, you get the picture.

(*Add to it Florida’s robust public records laws, and everyone will know about said incidents)

I need to forget, so take me to Florida...I've got some regrets, I'll bury them in Florida. Tell me I'm despicable, say it's unforgivable.  

What a crash, what a rush, fuck me up, Florida

If you think about the above and why people come here, the state has a healthy libertarian streak.  The state’s first flag, a ghastly thing that was so ugly it only lasted about 2 hours before the legislature adopted a new flag had a small American flag in the corner, and 5 bars – blue, orange, red, white, and green, was adorned with the words “Let us Alone.”    

It is in the vein that the state has also had more than its fair share of charlatans and scam artists, thieves and felons, frauds, and imposters, quacks and felons.  After all, this is the state where a Russian mobster turned Miami strip club owner conspired with a high end car and boat dealer – introduced to him by the rapper Vanilla Ice – scammed Pablo Escobar into thinking he was buying a Russian sub.  

The line between fact and fiction can be blurry in the Sunshine State.

You can hide here. You can live here.  You can reinvent yourself here.

You can be anonymous here.  You can be a star here. 

You can chase dreams here.  You can hide from nightmares - or find new ones.

People have been burying regrets here since Ponce De Leon landed here in the 1500s.   It is a place where you can start anew.  

No one cares.  

Florida...Is one hell of a drug

I love this state because it is never dull.  It is in a constant state of dynamism - with a population that is both growing, and changing.  Part of the fun of Florida is you can never know it – it never stops long enough to allow one to master it.  It is a storyteller’s dream.

The population evolves and reloads.  Communities in places like Broward that even just two decades ago were nothing but retirees are now home to the adult children of first generation immigrants.   Downtown Tampa, a wasteland just a decade ago, is now one of the robust communities in America.  Jacksonville, the once tough, rusty and gritty city of my youth, is now one of the fastest growing job markets in America, and ranked one of the best places for young professionals to live.  

And the state is only getting more diverse every day, adding to the uniqueness of America’s most unique state.  I do hate how Florida has become a political symbol, and I hope over time that changes - not because of my political affiliation - but because part of what makes this place something is that is a place of dreams, of hope, of refuge, and has been for a long time for americans of all stripes.  As we seemingly lose everything into political corners, I truly hope we don’t lose this. 

Though I suspect like many a Florida fad, this too shall pass. But what won’t are the reasons people keep coming here.  She hasn’t slowed down since the first real post-war booms, and shows no signs of tiring.

Florida, she is, after all, one hell of a drug. 

Me and Bob

Note: I wrote this planning on publishing it on Bob's birthday last year and ended up setting it aside.  I went back to it the night he passed.  

Like all good Florida Men of a certain age, Bob Graham was a ubiquitous figure throughout my life – the Governor and Senator of my childhood, before as serving as the most prominent public figure of my early career.  

But despite his ever presence, other than a quick greeting, I didn’t meet Bob Graham until his time in public life was ending – and mine in the public light was just beginning.

In late 2003, a friend of mine asked me a favor - can we help build a crowd for an announcement that Senator Graham will be making after a workday at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee?   Of course, I said, and off to Lincoln a bunch of us went, to watch Senator Graham finish a day helping rip up the old track to make way for a new one around the football field.   

As we all gathered, Senator Graham climbs out of the tractor he was piloting, walks over, and announces he wasn’t running for re-election.  He was walking away after 38 years in public life, on his own terms.  I walked away sad this guy I admired was leaving office. 

A few weeks later, that same friend calls:  “Senator Graham would like to have lunch with you next week when he’s in town”

Me?  I’m just a lowly 29-year old Democratic press flack.  Why in the hell would Bob Graham want to have lunch with me, I thought, before obviously accepting this invitation.

At the announced time, I wandered over to Po Boys (now Chuck’s Fish) in Tallahassee, walking in as Senator Graham did.  After he spent a good 20 minutes working the room, we sit down – and he starts grilling me:  what were we working on in the legislature – how we were communicating with voters and the press – who were the rising stars he should know – and most importantly, how can he help, all while scribbling in that ever-present notebook – while I am wondering whether he is taking notes about our conversation,  or writing “wasted my time having lunch with a moron today.”

A few weeks later, he called the office - causing quite an internal stir when he asked to talk to me, and once he left office these occasional calls turned into semi-regular conversations on various issues in the state over breakfast at Jacobs in downtown Tallahassee, or coffee at his townhouse just down the street, typically just him and me – and of course the notebook. 

In 2006, he helped me recruit, then supported our candidates for the legislature, and in 2008, when I was offered the job to run then Senator Obama’s campaign in Florida, he was one of the first calls of congratulations – a call that was quickly followed up by a several hour Friday night taco dinner near our office in Ybor City.  

That was one of the few conversations where he did nearly all of the talking.  He laid out very specifically all the reasons he thought previous campaigns in Florida had either won or lost, and gave me invaluable advice on navigating the politics of politics of Florida, as well as advice on leading a team.   It was the kind of counsel you could only get from someone who had won 5 statewide elections.

It is one of my fondest memories of him, in part because it took place in a taco joint – in Ybor City – on a Friday night – with Bob Graham.  And since he hadn't been out of office long, he was still a fairly recognizable face.

Just to set this scene – Bob is in his khakis, some kind of neatly pressed plaid oxford shirt, and a blazer.  Always a blazer.  Meanwhile, I probably looked like I hadn’t slept in three days because I am fairly certain I hadn’t.  

As we enjoyed our tacos, lateish night taco-seekers started coming over to say “holy shit (or some other descriptor) - you are bob graham, followed by fill-in-the blank (you came to my middle school/wrote my dad a note/worked with my mom on a work day/my grandfather loves you).  Seemingly everyone who walked in that night had a story.  It didn’t matter what someone was wearing, what they looked like, or that night, their state of inebriation, Bob took his time with everyone.  Had selfies been a thing in those days, there is no doubt those images would have been memorable! 

Staffing Bob Graham was an absolute nightmare for this exact reason.  When you are staffing a principal, your basic job is to get someone from point A to B then to C as efficiently as possible.  But the problem with Bob - if getting from A to B meant passing 100 people – if 100 people wanted a word with him (and God help you if you met somone he had been on a workday with), he’d take time for all 100 individually – and take down their name, and their address to follow up.  And it didn’t matter who was waiting for him - whoever he was talking to was the most important person in the world. 

Bob was invaluable to us – and to me in 2008, as he was again in 2012.  We talked often about strategy, politics, and the state.  If I didn’t reach out frequently enough, I knew what number would soon pop up on the phone.  He knew the right questions to ask to get me thinking about the right things.  But more importantly to me, he was unfailingly supportive, while at the same time, not being a burden.  If he could say yes to our asks, he did.  And I knew he loved those few moments when he could hop in front of 10 or 20,000 people, where he'd always get a well-deserved folk hero's welcome.  

By the end of the 2012 cycle, I was physically and emotionally spent.  I had worked on 5 consecutive statewide efforts – some years spending more nights away from home than at home, with 2012 being especially taxing.  I needed a break – and announced that I was stepping back from politics to pursue a few things that would allow me to start to have some semblance of a normal life.   

The morning after my announcement, I was out for a run and my phone rang - “Steve, Hi, it's Bob Graham.  I understand you are taking some time away from politics, but I just have one favor:  My daughter Gwen is thinking about running for Congress, it would mean a lot if you weould talk to her, maybe give her some guidance?”

Damn. I knew what this meant.

Yes sir.  Of course.  10 minutes later, still trying to finish my run, Gwen called. I was out of the game for an entire 24 hours.

Over the next decade of Gwen’s campaigns and public service, I got to see Bob in a whole new light:  Bob the supportive father.  He glowed watching her shine.  It was truly something to see.  I’ll come back to this.

There are so many wonderful and at times funny political memories:  traveling with Bob when he was campaigning for others – learning that he had this encyclopedic knowledge of lunch spots around Florida and specifically, who had good specials on what days. Or watching him work a rope line - that for him was more like a reunion with friends from all eras of life.   One time, he spent so long out there I had to had to go fish him away to keep him from being left behind from President Obama's soon to depart motorcade!

Then of course, there are the personal ones:  getting educated at their family farm about the mechanics of cow breeding, in the most antiseptic Bob Graham way ever, to watching him jokingly chew someone out for getting potatoes instead of grits at a breakfast diner known for its grits, to listening to him and Adele tell colorful and often hilarious Jimmy Buffett stories, as we worked on his statement the morning after his friend of 40 years died. 

But for all his strengths, I believe his true super power was his ability to listen.  He may have had a degree from Harvard, but his real education came from the people of Florida, one person at a time.  He wanted to learn, and he believed everyone he came in contact with was someone he could learn from.  

In 2014, during Gwen’s first campaign, we were attacked on something based on a note that Bob had written to Gwen, which we learned the Republicans had dug up in his archives.  The next day, I drove to Gainesville and went through all the same boxes – finding the offending note (which was hardly offending), but also finding in those boxes, a remarkable window into Bob.  

Yes, his Senate papers at UF have memos and notes related to his work, but the vast majority of those papers are his correspondence to and from everyday Floridians.  Go ask for his papers and what you will get are boxes and boxes of boxes of letters.   Letters from Presidents, letters from foreign leaders, but more importantly, letters from people from every walk of life.

People wrote him – or stopped him in public to tell them their hopes, their fears, and their ideas.   He jotted down those interactions in his notebooks, and not only did he write everyone back, every one of those letters, at some level, was personalized,  a genuine acknowledgement that he heard them (though he did often recycle a very Bob Graham line “It was wonderful to see you at XXX.  I am confident if I spent a lifetime at XXX airport/XXX restaurant, I would meet everyone alive”).    He took something from every one of those interactions – and each one molded how he saw his state, his country, and his place in it.    

The last folder I found  included a series of polls from his last race.  On the eve of his fifth statewide race, Florida voters were asked if they thought he was an honest and trustworthy man.  67% said yes – to only 9% who said no.  There isn’t a politician on the planet who could point to those kinds of numbers.  I doubt we will ever see anything like that again, at least in my lifetime.

I saw Bob for the last time about six months ago. To be honest, I was worried I’d wake up to bad news, regretting never having the chance to say thank you.  Thankfully, Mrs. Graham was kind enough to allow me to visit them in Gainesville to say my peace. 

While time had taken its toll, he looked good, and after I thanked him for all he had done for me, like every other conversation we ever had, he started asking me the questions – about politics, about Florida, about my family, and about the work I was doing.  He was as interested and curious as the day we sat down at Po Boys, some 20 years earlier.  His body might have been waning, but his love for this place we call home was as solid as ever, as was his core belief in the promise that an educated citizenry could deliver change.  

I don’t know why Bob showed a fondness towards me, but I am blessed that he did.  He believed that you can find common ground if you to have honest conversations and create the space for agreement (“Steve, campaigns might be run in the red zone, but you have to govern between the 40s” is something he said to me once), that you can disagree without being disagreeable, and that you can succeed in public life by being a decent person.  And he made me better by pushing me to ask harder questions, to take on bigger challenges, and frankly, because I didn’t ever want to disappoint him. 

Gwen always says of her Dad, simply:  “he is just the best.”   And he was.  The best of all of us.  He was unquestionably one of the greatest and most consequential individuals our state has ever seen, but his real legacy was that he was an even better human. 

I knew it was the last time I would see him, and I suspect he did too.  Towards the end of that last conversation, right before I said goodbye, I mentioned that I was starting again to get burned out by politics.  He stopped me. 

Whatever Gwen wants to do, you’ll help her?

Of course sir. 

I am heartbroken for Mrs. Graham.  In addition to being the epitome of grace and class, she was Bob’s fiercest defender and protector.  Her fingerprints on this state are everywhere, and she loved his work as much as he did.  Adele has been nothing but kind to Nikole and I for as long as we have known them.   We are both deeply saddened by his passing, and know how much he meant not just to Adele, but to all of his kids, grandkids, and extended family.

And of course, Gwen, I wish I knew the magic words.  I’ve lost my father, so I get it.  All I can say is I wish for a moment, you could have seen what it was like to stand on our side - next to your Dad, watching him watch you as you shined.  Words can not describe just how proud of you he was.  You are the best reflection of him. 

Godspeed sir.  Thank you for your service.  Thank you for your friendship.

BETH MATUGA Guest Blog: How We (Actually) Won HD35

Steve note: Beth Matuga is the general consultant for the Florida House Democratic Campaign Committee's District 35 special election victory.  More important to me, she a dear friend and is one of my favorite co-members of the rational, results-oriented wing of the Florida Democratic Party.  This is her story - and I am happy to let her borrow my blog to tell it. 

How We (Actually) Won HD35

Preamble

Florida Democrats, I know things are bad and have been for a while. I’ve been at this since 2000, so I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most of it’s been ugly, but there have been bright spots. I’m not hijacking Steve’s blog to tell you about the bad or the ugly. (That’s a book/my retirement plan.) Let’s talk instead about our recent victory in House District 35 and how we actually won this race. Spoiler alert: it was money.

But first, why am I qualified to write about this? Aside from my 23 year prison term working Democratic politics in Florida, I’m currently the general consultant for the Florida House Democratic Campaign Committee, the artist formerly known as House Victory. 

Isn’t our new seal pretty?

For the last 17 years I have also taught graduate courses in political fundraising and campaign finance at FSU in the Master’s of Applied American Politics & Policy program. Teaching has turned out to be fulfilling in a way my political work has not, and I am grateful every day for the opportunity. If you’re a young person reading this, and are interested in working in politics, please reach out!

I spent my thirties working on Florida State Senate races for some incredible leaders, during which time we went from 12 to 17 members, the closest to parity we’ve been in a long while. We’re now back in a super-minority in the Senate - as we are in the House.  Though I am tired and old, I simply can’t sit back and watch us cede a permanent - in both chambers. We can claw our way out of this like we did last decade, but it’s going to take, well, a decade. And it’s going to take doing a lot of things that aren’t glamorous, fun or make folks a ton of money. Sorry.

So the purpose of this blog is to explain a little about how we won HD35 and all the not-fun things it takes to do that five more times in November. Because that’s my job: we have to flip another 5 state House seats (and now defend Tom Keen and our other incumbents) this November in order to end the Republican supermajority in the state House. We can do it, or else I wouldn’t be wasting my time or other people’s money. 

Background

I have very rarely been lucky in this work, but I got really lucky with my current House Democratic Leader, Fentrice Driskell. She’s in charge of the Florida House Democratic Campaign Committee (FHDCC). It’s her responsibility to raise the funds for and organize the political efforts to defend incumbent House Democratic members and grow our numbers out of the superminority. I want to be clear: her job sucks. She not only has to lead a caucus, hold down a day job, run a multi-million dollar political operation, run her own campaign…you get the picture. I’ve worked for about a dozen House and Senate leaders and I’m here to tell you: this is not a job you take for the glamour.

She’s also breaking caucus fundraising records left and right. I’ve been around a long time so I know traditionally how much caucus operations raise. For example, she raised $1 million more during the calendar year 2023 as any previous House caucus operation ever. We’re on track to continue this fundraising and you may say well, isn’t that just a pittance compared to Republicans? Yes. But bear with me.

Mechanics of the Race

To dive right in, the FHDCC - which is not the FDP, not the DECs, not the Tom Keen campaign, not any other outside organizations, though they were all wonderful partners - spent $1.2m on the special election in House District 35. If this isn’t the single largest spend on a Florida State House Democrat in a special election, I don’t know what is.

Because Leader Driskell got an extended leadership term due to the unfortunate departure of the previous leader, she had a golden opportunity: She can build a strong, battle-tested and stable caucus operation with professional staff and durable infrastructure. We were raising money the day after the 2022 election, which, I assure you, was not a walk in the park. I am honored that Leader Driskell asked me to come back to caucus work, and grateful the young, smart, kind kids at the FHDCC put up with this old lady.

Said nice kids and old lady. FHDCC 2024 Cycle Prospectus.

The FHDCC was neutral in a competitive Democratic primary in HD35, but we weren’t doing nothing. Within days of the special election being called, the FHDCC had a voter contact program running in House District 35. We also had an ready-made campaign team for Tom, composed of some of our most well-respected, seasoned Florida political veterans whom I’m proud to call friends. 

…and that’s exactly what it did! FHDCC 2024 Cycle Prospectus.

The goal of the program was to close the vote-by-mail gap that we identified early on.  A few years ago, Republicans passed laws to remove folks from VBM rolls every two years, meaning there would be a ton of Democrats expecting a VBM ballot that would never come.  In a low turnout special election…over the holidays…yikes!

We went from a roughly negative 3 point Democratic disadvantage at the start of the program to, at its height, an 11 point Democratic advantage. This paid program ultimately knocked on more than SIXTY-EIGHT THOUSAND doors. Yes, I said 68,000. That is not a typo. I want to point out some features of this program that are very different (with the exception of my Senate field programs in the last decade, which were similar) from the way Democrats have been doing field operations for the last 10-15 years:

1. It was a PAID canvass. Volunteer field efforts MUST be supplemented by paid, accountable, electorally reliable programs.

2. It was done through the party apparatus of the FHDCC, which means it was a partisan contact program. Unlike non-profit organizations, we can say things to voters like, “I’m a Democrat, and I want you to vote for this Democrat.” This matters. 

3. It was managed in-house, not farmed out to third-party organizations who do not have the same accountability.

4. It was targeted, narrow and discrete in its focus. The program was designed to close a VBM gap on the margins, not flip the entire district by itself. It was part of a holistic campaign that was fully-funded by the FHDCC in all other ways.

5. It is replicable in our targeted districts with appropriate funding.

Internal FHDCC tracking chart of total VBM returns in HD35, January 16, 2024.

And speaking of the rest of the campaign, the FHDCC’s theory of the race hinged on the following:

• Tested, potent, properly sequenced messaging on abortion and property insurance to persuade NPAs 

• VBM and early-vote front-loading of Dem voters to absorb the traditional Republican election-day onslaught (no surprise Rs want to destroy VBM, is it?)

• Parity or close to it on most mass-media communications, especially television

All these things are Very Expensive (Steve added the emphasis - you don't win elections on the cheap), particularly TV.  Because of Leader Driskell’s strong fundraising, and a professional staff who were ready to go, we weren’t caught dead in the water. Unlike most off-years, we were better funded than (I think) anyone thought we were, and (I think) we caught a lot of people by surprise.

And as it turned out, our theory of the campaign was right. NPAs broke HARD for Tom Keen (by some estimates as high as 70% which…woof) and while Republicans had eaten through our VBM and early-vote lead by noon on election day, the NPAs and whatever GOP crossover vote was enough for Tom Keen to prevail by 2.6%. I had personally predicted the margin at 2% but I won’t complain.

So we, the FHDCC, spent about $1.2m and we estimate that the Republicans spent somewhere between $2m and $2.5m. Obviously they don’t share these figures with me so we have to track it on media buys and guesstimates. My friends on the other side are welcome to correct me! In any scenario, we were grossly outspent as usual. But we weren’t obliterated. I’ve been saying this for years: Democrats in Florida can win when being outspent. We can win when being outspent 2:1 or 2.5:1. Our message is better and voters like us if we can afford to communicate. But we CAN’T win being outspent 4:1. All the hoping and trying and praying and wanting won’t change this fact. 

We MUST maintain reasonable parity in paid comms to win races. Hot takes from online commentators attributing this victory to anything other than reasonable spending parity are just wrong. And that misconception is how we got in this fix, guys. We can’t social media our way out of superminorities. We have to raise and spend our way out. (Steve Note:  See Also - Twitter isn't Real Life)

(Additional Steve Note:  I am going to repeat Beth's statement: We can’t social media our way out of superminorities. We have to raise and spend our way out.)

So, yeah, this one seat is great and as usual, success has many fathers. For the FHDCC and Leader Driskell’s efforts, this is proof of concept for our larger mission: breaking the Republican supermajority by flipping 5 more seats. How will we do that? Well, turns out I’m gonna spend my forties in much the same was I spent my thirties:

• Expand our in-house field program to our targeted flip districts. This is also Very Expensive and different from how we having been doing voter contact, but absolutely necessary.

• Defend our incumbents, including Tom Keen!

• Keep our focus narrow, which requires incredible institutional discipline. There ARE such things as unwinnable races, sorry not sorry. We cannot be tempted to expand the goals of this program beyond flipping the 5 seats required to break the supermajority, which is our Prime Directive. When we allow ourselves to indulge in fever dreams, like flipping a chamber in one cycle, we create funding stream fragmentation that prevents us from reaching the spending parity described above, thus endangering the races that are actually winnable. Are you listening, billionaires?

• Just for funsies…HD35 is the NINTH best seat on our map by partisanship. Flipping 5 seats is a clear and reasonable goal.

• Raise a metric shit ton of money. Y’all can do the math. We will need A Lot for the Very Expensive Things. If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s Fentrice Driskell. (And maybe I’ll help a little.) We expect our Republican counterparts to raise $30m - that we can see - in comparison. Fun!

The Big Takeaways

Tom Keen’s victory in HD35 and the FHDCC’s efforts comport with a larger national trend we’ve been tracking in 2023. Back in September, the New York Times pointed out that in 21 of 27 special legislative elections around the country, Democrats have outperformed President Biden by an average of 7 points.

In HD35, the swing from DeSantis in 2022 to Keen was 13 points. Do I think every state legislative seat in Florida will swing by 13 or even 7 points? No. Do I think we will be able to maintain the spending ratio in 5 seats that we broke the bank to achieve in HD35? Probably also no. But NPAs breaking this hard in both HD35 and the less-discussed special election in December in HD118, means that NPAs are fed up and we just proved that if Democrats can communicate with them, we can persuade them and turn them out. 

Messaging

Republicans have also generously handed us a potent and unique combination of pocketbook and social issues that combine into their very own kryptonite: abortion and property insurance. I can scarcely remember a more effective one-two punch for NPAs and some GOP voters. This is, literally, all Democratic candidates in Florida should be talking about from now until November 5. Don’t get clever, Dems. Don’t overthink it. Abortion and property insurance. Say it with me. No, not that. No, also not that. We don’t need a 14-point plan. Abortion and property insurance! 

Impact Research polling memo dated November 28, 2023.

National Atmospherics

One unique feature of special elections is that they are entirely unmoored from the top of the ticket. I am reminded of Margaret Good and Annette Taddeo’s special elections last decade and how those wins and HD35 prove that Florida Democrats can succeed in a vacuum. We have a pulse down here, national donors!

In 2020, the Biden campaign made a strategic decision that they could win the presidency without Florida, and they were right. But the direct consequence of that decision was a catastrophic cratering of turnout in Florida in 2022, and I’m not sure the arithmetic is the same for the Biden campaign in 2024. I am sure my friend Steve Schale is making sure they’re paying attention to these trends, because the Florida electorate is clearly not in the same mindset it was in 2020 and 2022. 

Forced Focus

Another feature of special elections is how everyone in the Democratic ecosystem is forced to focus on one thing. There’s no arguing over which races are priorities or even winnable. This is one reason we had so many helpful partners in this race, and we appreciate each and every one of them. One of our biggest infrastructure challenges as Democrats across the country and Florida in particular (with lots of donors and lots of special interest groups) is the fragmentation of our efforts across different entities and the difficulty it causes with coordination.

It’s no secret that I’m a big supporter of hard-side, partisan electoral efforts and I won’t belabor this point except to say: when everyone is forced to row the boat in the same direction, we all get there faster.

Partisan Voter Contact

Relatedly, we must reinvest in partisan voter contact efforts. Republican voters now outnumber Democrats by 700,000 and there’s no reason to think that figure won’t be 1,000,000 by November. We need Democrats to contact, register, persuade and turnout other Democrats. To fix our Democratic “brand” problem, we must be able to say to a voter at a door, “I’m a Democrat and I want you to be one, too.” Party entities are the only vehicles through which we can legally do this and must be funded to carry out this vital task.

Leadership & Money

Finally, leadership matters! Money matters! Fentrice Driskell has improved the culture of the Hous Democratic Caucus, instituted remarkable infrastructure improvements, stabilized a program in repeated disarray, raised record sums of money and just won a special election no one expected. Her work reshaping Florida has only just begun. I think we have shown a path forward for Democrats in Florida in 2024 and I hope this blog post can help clarify some takeaways. The FHDCC has proved that we can achieve our goal of breaking the Republican supermajority in the House in 2024, and we'd love your support in this effort.

Closing

People frequently ask me why I continue to work in Democratic politics in Florida, and I’m pretty self-aware that these 23 years haven't amounted to much. But this work is important and important to me. People’s lives hang in the balance. Leaving aside that I have no other marketable skills, my will to live is refreshed by wins like HD35, which show a clear picture of how and why Democrats can win in Florida, if only we rededicate ourselves to fundamentals. They are unglamorous, difficult and expensive, but so am I. 

Great thanks to Steve Schale, who has been a stalwart supporter of party efforts, caucus operations and Democrats in general (you may have heard of this guy named Obama?) 

 You can yell at me on Twitter @bethmatuga or email me beth@bethmatuga.com. Thanks for reading!

(NOTE FROM STEVE - YOU SHOULD FOLLOW BETH -- AND YOU SHOULD YELL AT HER!) 

Thank you Lucy

The speaker couldn’t have been more clear:  “If Lucy Morgan calls, take a message, do not talk to her, get off the phone as fast as possible, and call me.”

That was the clear message this then 21-year-old took home from the 1996 Florida Democratic Party’s campaign manager bootcamp –in fact,  it is literally the only thing I remember from those two days.  If Lucy Morgan was calling, something bad had happened to your boss - or was about to happen to you – or both, and you needed a professional to help you out of the mess you were clearly in.  Talking to her would only make it worse.  

Driving the fear of God into each of us kids wasn’t without merit – after all, Lucy, the then Tallahassee bureau chief of the state’s largest newspaper, wasn’t just any reporter.  She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting and had even gone to jail to protect a source in a story.  Her bio reads like a prize-fighter’s resume of defeated foes --- though in Lucy’s case, it was the careers of bad politicians that hung on her wall. 

So, just imagine the utter fear streaming through my veins when this kid, who frankly had zero business managing one of the state’s most expensive and consequential state house races, answered the phone in the campaign office late one night about ten days before the election…

“Is this Steve Schale?  Hi, this is Lucy Morgan.” 

I don’t remember what I said – but I remember what I felt: “Oh shit.”

At that moment, I was sure my exceptionally short career was over – even if I didn’t know why.  

I’ve been a political hack for nearly 3 decades, and a flack for 20+ years of that time.  Over that time, I’ve spoken to hundreds, if not thousands of reporters – many of whom I now consider friends.  But the way I think about dealing with the media – and frankly the process in general, was heavily influenced by the first two reporters I dealt with in my professional life -- two legendary women from the same era:  Margo Pope of the St. Augustine Record and Lucy Morgan.   

Both were doggedly tough – their careers coming of age at a time when they were true trailblazing pioneers – women breaking story after story in a decidedly male-driven industry.  Respect for them was always due, though respect from them had to be earned, and was never a guarantee.  And as happens as one gets older, I’ve come to understand just how important both were to the development of my career.

I knew Margo before I got into my career.  She had been active at several points of my youth, so when I made the transition from actual kid to kid source/subject/flack, she was often gracious (though quite tough), and took the time to help me understand what was news, and what wasn’t – and to tell me when I was doing something dumb and foolish.  

Where Margo was familiar, Lucy had been built up to mythical status, this person I did not know – probably never wanted to know, because she could end your career simply by calling you.  Heck, in the mind of this 21 year old, she could probably end it just by knowing your name.

So when that call did come – and I heard that name on the other end of the phone, the anxious stutter I have fought since youth kicked right in.  Clearly sensing the fear and panic in my voice she rescues me – “Steve, you aren’t in trouble.  I just need to know X” – and of course, X was just a routine press question about spending in our race.  Certainly nothing that would end my career in dramatic above the fold fashion.

We went on to win that race, and not long after, she wandered into our Tallahassee office.  Hardly the sword-wielding figure in my mind, Lucy came across like everyone’s wonderful Aunt – albeit an Aunt with a Pulitzer Prize for taking down corrupt politicians.   She took the time to thank me – a kid – for my help on that story – wanted to meet my boss, who had won a seat most thought he would lose.  

Over the next few years, I got to know her a bit – mostly as an aide setting up her visits with my boss, but occasionally in the journalist role.  She’d come by and see where he was on issues or ask about the politics of our district.  Her presence at my desk still put the hair up on my back, but I began to understand what made her good – she was super competitive, knew literally everyone in that building, which meant she knew more than anyone.

In 2002, I joined Doug in Tallahassee in a new role – him as the Democratic Leader, and me as his Communications Director.  I had zero training to be a flack – and like most things in my career, probably had no business in the job when I first got it.  I was at best a rising political hack, hardly a seasoned press secretary.

I hadn’t been in the job long and Lucy paid me a visit.  She didn’t stay long – but offered that she thought Doug was smart to bring me over, and thought I would do fine in the job.  Then she went on to lay out the terms of our relationship:  She would ask questions, my job was to answer them – or get answers to them.  If I was responsive to her inquiries or desires to talk to certain members, we’d be fine.  If I wasn’t – or if I scooped her to another reporter, she’d remember.  But one thing I could never do:  lie to her.  She’d figure it out, and she’d definitely remember.   

I broke that last rule once.  At the time, I didn’t think it was a big deal – she had learned of a meeting she thought she had a right to cover (she didn’t), and rather than me telling her to pound sand, I told her there was no meeting.  Frankly, I had panicked a bit, not used to being in that situation before. 

But of course, she found out.  I never made that mistake twice.  Spin all you want, she reminded me - that’s your job – but don’t lie – don't ever lie -- it is the only way we can have the trust required in the flack/journo relationship.  It is a lesson that to this day I mention when I get a chance to talk with aspiring hacks in college classes.

As happens in a career, time passes by.  I got to know her a little better over a lot more chats  – and I got to know her a little better as a person.  But unlike with the journalists who were closer to my age at the time, I could never break this sense that she was this legend, and in her mind, I was just some kid. 

Not long after the 2008 elections, Lucy was asked by what was then Campaigns and Elections Magazine, to create a list of the ten most influential Democrats and Republicans in Florida.  I ended up on her list.  

I called her – “Lucy, I am grateful, but not worthy of this by any means.  It is almost embarrassing considering the people not on this list.” 

Her response: “Listen Steve, I wasn’t being nice.  You earned a spot on that list, that is why you are there. That is the end of this discussion.”

It was easy then – and honestly still is – for me to struggle with my place in this town, and earning her respect meant something – it allowed me to have a sense of belonging, that maybe this kid from a small town, who doesn’t easily fit into the often hyper Type A world of politics and harbored a healthy imposter complex about it - that maybe I would be OK.  If Lucy Morgan - this titan who had blazed her own trail to greatness - if she thought I had made it, then maybe I should have more confidence about my own place. Far more tha my name on a list -- it was that which truly meant something to me.  

Years later, I tried to tell her the story of this moment in my life - and why it mattered -- and why she mattered, and in classic Lucy style, she basicallly told me to just shut my mouth!

When she retired formally (as we all learned, retirement was just a word to Lucy) – the Tampa Bay Times threw quite the party for her.  The state showed up – current and former statewide electeds, long lost legislators, the town’s power brokers, both old and new, Republican and Democratic alike, colleagues from all over – and at least one hack who she stopped in the hall to make sure he was coming.  I am not sure there is another person, journalist or not, who would have commanded an attendance like that.   But as a dear friend of mine said the other day about her, “she’s probably done more good for this state than everyone else over in that building, combined.”  The State of Florida bestows the “Great Floridian” distinction on the finest among us, and it seems like she’d be a perfect honoree. 

I heard the news a few weeks back that Lucy wasn’t doing well, and honestly, the prognosis wasn’t good. I sat down and wrote this the night I heard, and struggled with whether to share it then.  I chose not, because after all, this was Lucy Morgan, and time and time again, her adversaries learned going toe-to-toe with her was a bad idea.  I didn't want to be the guy betting against her. 

Sadly this was one adversary she couldn’t overcome. 

But I am grateful my journey crossed hers – grateful I got to learn from how she carried herself and handled her business, grateful she was there when I needed to learn, and there to encourage, when I needed that too, grateful she took a liking to me and let me beome her friend – and most importantly, grateful I never ended up in her crosshairs!   Even in the last few years, the hair on my arms would stand up a bit when I saw that name on my phone, or in my inbox. 

As former Florida Attorney General Richard Doran said tonight on Twitter after her passing was made public:  “Plain and Simple, she was the best this town ever saw.”  

There will never be another like her. 

Thank you Lucy.  Godspeed my friend. 

How we got here - Florida Democrats

I wrote this piece for Bulwark in early June 2023 about the down - then up -- then back down journey for Florida Democrats.  if you haven't read it there, you can here:

Anatomy of a Murder. 

Let's talk about Jacksonville...

Tuesday night was a big win for Donna Deegan in Jacksonville.  As is often the case when something happens in politics that conventional wisdom didn’t see happening, everyone tries to find the hidden meaning.  But sometimes the secret is -- to quote my GOP brother from another mother (and fellow First Coaster) Kevin Sweeny -- "well, maybe there is no secret at all."

But after a dozen or so press calls on Wednesday, I thought it might be useful to write down some thoughts. 

So, let’s get to the foundational reasons behind her win – at least as I see it, as an aging hack and Jaguars fan with a more than average rooting interest in Jacksonville.

1.     Duval County is not what you think it is, and by all standards is more Democratic than the state.

Just like some people are surpised to learn the first Thanksgiving in America was celebrated in Jacksonville -- decades before Plymouth Rock (with a meal of alligator, true Florida Man style), and others out there who were shocked to learn last year that Trevor Lawrence is good – really good – there are people who seem oddly surprised that a Democrat won in Duval County.

For example, some dude with a decent sized following on Twitter on Election Night tried to say this was as big as Republicans winning San Francisco or Boston.  As the kids would say, “tell me you know nothing about Jacksonville without telling me you know nothing about Jacksonville.”

Yes, Republicans have controlled the Mayor’s office for all but four years going back to when I was a kid, and yes, Ron DeSantis put a beating on Charlie Crist there in 2022.  

But neither of those things tell any kind of a story.  The last two competitive Mayors races – 2011 and 2015 (2019 was largely uncontested) had margins of D +1 (Brown 2011) and R +3 (Curry 2015)

And up the ballot, the average margin of the last four Presidential elections is R +0.25, with Biden winning by four in 2020 – and the last 3 before 2022 (2010, 2014, and 2008) is R +4, with Gillum winning by four in 2018.   And DeSantis’ margin of 11, while quite strong, was significantly less than his statewide margin.  

The point of this is Duval itself is competitive, and if you consider the 2022 margin to be an outlier – there is no reason to think a strong Democratic candidate can’t win. It was a huge win – a historic win -- but it is not a shocking win. 

2.     Donna Deegan was a tremendous candidate.

I grew up in the region, went to high school in Jacksonville, and have lived through enough horrific Jaguars seasons for several lifetimes.  Like everyone who calls Jacksonville home, for a huge chunk of my life, Donna Deegan has been a fixture – albeit on television.  I met Deegan’s now husband when I was in the 5^th grade, met her for first time as a teenager, and watched them both on TV for years.   In an era when local broadcast news was a key spoke of civic life, Deegan operated at the hub, a trusted voice. 

As a candidate, you couldn’t have asked for a better bio.  She grew up in Jacksonville, went to high school there (This Episcopal grad will forgive her for going to Bishop Kenny), spent 25 years on television, during which time she had a very public battle with cancer, then left television to go run a foundation that raises money to fight cancer.  Her brand isn’t as a Republican or Democratic candidate – rather, she is Donna Deegan. 

And this brand, frankly, was underappreciated by most.  While most observers questioned whether she could win enough crossover support, the truth is, I don’t believe there was a single public poll that ever had her losing this race, starting when she first got in. People had decided from the beginning they were comfortable with her as a political candidate because they were comfortable with her as a public citizen.  And it is this brand that allowed her to withstand a massive spending disadvantage and a months-long barrage of negative ads.  

One note to this – I don’t like to Monday morning QB races – I’ve lived them, and I understand that campaigns have a lot more information than the rest of us have – but one thing that surprised me:  I expected the Davis folks to run ads that we often call “permission structure” ads – ads that say to the voter in a roundabout way – hey, it is OK to like this person and still vote against them.   But they chose a far more coarse route, and that likely hardened her support - as it is very hard to convince people who like someone personally that they are suddenly something different than they think.  Anecdotally from friends over there, the contrast in style of ads seemed to make a difference - and that difference benefited Deegan (and yes, I have more than Democratic friends!).

3.     There was a change atmosphere in Jacksonville.

I am proud to call the current Mayor, Lenny Curry, a friend.  While we have political differences, I am grateful we've never let that get between us (The Jaguars Mafia bonds are strong).  But as is often the case after two terms, several polls I saw showed a desire for change in the city - a feeling i suspect was furthered by the tone of the race.  The Republican nominee came out of the Jacksonville political establishment.  Deegan was an outsider and community leader.  The contrast wasn’t difficult.

4.     Persuasion/Median Voter Theory/Etc. – It all still matters. 

There is this notion, particularly among twitter activists in my party, that no voter is moveable – that all Republicans will only vote Republican, and that it is fruitless to try to persuade them.

Donna Deegan is just the next in the line of people to crush that theory, and remind everyone that the median voter theory is very much alive and well.

If you had taken all labels off these two candidates, just looked at what they said on paper, you would have picked Deegan ten out of ten times as the candidate whose messaging was closest to the center.  While Davis ran hard to the right, she ran in a place that made it easy for unaffiliated voters to support her, and she gave space for Republicans to cross over.   And because of this, she was able to overcome a decent GOP advantage in terms of turnout. 

5.     Please stop trying to draw national conclusions on this race.

I know, I am a Democrat, so some of y’all think I should be screaming – “SEE DUVAL IS BLUEVAL – DEMOCRATS ARE GOING TO CRUSH EVERYONE!” but alas, that is simply as ridiculous as Miami Hurricane fans trying to argue “The U” is "back" every time they win a single game -- or absurd as the aforementioned dude who compared Jacksonville to the GOP winning Boston– or dumb as those trying to draw DeSantis/Trump/Biden conclusions.  

Every campaign is unique – they are their own moments, driven by the circumstances and the people in them. Donna Deegan was uniquely the right candidate for the right moment running the right kind of race in a community that has been getting riper for Democrats, and that is the only conclusion anyone needs to make. While winning is important for my side -- important for morale, important for momentum,  Deegan doesn't need national comparisons to make her win historic -- it stands on its own. Period, full stop

6.     Community Leaders should run for office.

We can all disagree on ideology and partisanship, but Jacksonville was a good race between two people who have spent a lot of time working in their community.  My first boss, Doug Wiles from St. Augustine, was once described as someone who had run for office their whole life, just never knew it.  Too many community leaders shy away from running, and given the nature of politics, it is understandable.  I hope Deegan’s win demonstrates to people like her – in both parties – that there is a path, and that public service is a noble calling.

7.      Trevor Lawrence is Him.

You didn’t really think you’d get through a blog about Jacksonville without a Jaguars section, did you?

Trevor finished the season last year showing the promise that he’s had from Day 1 – leading the team to three of its biggest comebacks in history, including the historic 27-point comeback in the Wild Card round.    In fact, my phone got more texts that night from friends than I’ve ever gotten in a single political campaign.   I think we win 11-12 games this year, and America, you haven’t seen anything more insufferable than Jaguars fans will be when he gets us a ring.

In the end, Deegan’s win was hers, and hers alone – a great candidate who ran a smart race, at the right time.  After all, politics is all about timing and opportunity.  

Just like it is for the Jaguars.  This is right time – with the right set of opportunities.  

And with that, I close with the prayer for all who love Jacksonville -- Republican and Democrats alike – may Deegan’s first term not only be truly uniting, may it also be the moment that Trevor gets us that long-awaited first ring. 

And that moment when all of America will stand on their porches and yell in unison:  DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUVAL.  

It will be a glorious night, one that will definitely end at Waffle House. 

But until then, Congratulations Donna.  I know you will do well.  (And Congrats to my 08 colleague Pat McCollough on a race well managed!)