Fucking Florida...

Florida Democrats aim to end a string of deflating losses. Orlando is step one.

By GARY FINEOUT and MATT DIXON

Florida’s Democrats, who have been battered by a string of narrow yet demoralizing defeats, once again are saying wait until next year.

“We are close to the mountain top but we have got to keep fighting,” said Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Perez is joining state Democratic leaders as they flock to the Orlando area this weekend for Leadership Blue, the party's biggest annual fundraiser. Coming off a state losing streak that stretches back to 2012, the party is assembling in the nation’s biggest swing state less than two weeks before President Donald Trump returns to the same area to officially kick off his reelection campaign.

Three years ago, Republicans and Trump put together a turnout machine that swamped Democrats in Florida on Election Day. The GOP replicated that success again in 2018, defying a national trend that saw Democrats taking control of the House for the first time in eight years.

Perez, in an interview with POLITICO, promised that 2020 will, somehow, be different. He is heading to Florida with a revamped playbook that he said will bring the Sunshine State into the Democrats’ win column. The party is organizing and spending earlier, focusing on increased voter registration, and hiring, and training field organizers.

Perez said he is optimistic because Democrats have lost by “razor-thin margins” in the last two cycles. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, won narrowly against Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum last year. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by only 113,000 votes two years earlier.

The Democratic strategy includes widening outreach efforts beyond party strongholds in three south Florida counties. The party has purchased more than 7 million cellphone numbers it will use to reach out to voters and is training “homegrown” organizers instead of “parachuting” campaign workers in from other states, Perez said.

“The key to success in Florida is that you have to recognize that you have to be an every year, every month party, and you have to be an every ZIP code party,” he said.

Beyond the organizational muscle, the DNC will invest record amounts of money in Florida, Perez said. So far, the DNC has transferred roughly $40,000 to the Florida Democratic Party’s federal account, campaign records show.

Republicans scoffed and mocked Perez’s strategy to win Florida.

“Our game plan is to focus on a roaring economy, improving schools, low taxes and a plan to save Florida’s environment for generations,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and Trump ally.

Blaise Ingoglia, a state legislator who led the Republican Party of Florida when Trump and DeSantis were elected, said the Democratic Party’s’ “new game plan” is the “same ol’ game plan” that party officials — including state chairwoman Terrie Rizzo — “tried to implement last election.”

“That didn’t work out too well for them,” Ingoglia said. “In Florida, if they try once again to take their leftist, socialist policy suggestions to voters it will backfire no matter how much money they spend.”

Perez said Democrats will do more to push back against what he labeled Republican efforts at “voter suppression,” highlighting a 2018 lawsuit that challenged the process for vote-by-mail ballot signatures and a bill passed by Florida’s Republican-controlled state Legislature that makes it more difficult for ex-felons to have their voting rights restored.

Democrats in Florida recently launched an “election protection” team led by an attorney whose job will be to have a network of lawyers ready to spring into action between now and Election Day.

“We understand that they’re going to lie and cheat and it’s worked for them before, so why wouldn’t they do it again?” Perez said. “It’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, it’s unconscionable.”

Gaetz predicted that cries of voter suppression wouldn’t boost turnout.

“With campaigns built around voter suppression as a rallying cry, it’s no surprise Democratic voters feel less motivated than, say, voters in my district who voted like crazy in the midterms,” said Gaetz, who represents a staunchly conservative district in the Florida Panhandle.

Perez, Ingoglia said, “should stop making excuses for another Florida loss in advance.”