Blood bath...

Florida Democrats oust 2 county chairs

By KIMBERLY LEONARD

The Florida Democratic Party removed two county chairs Sunday night, a first-of-its-kind showdown that illustrated disagreements within the party as Sunshine State Democrats try to claw back huge gains Republicans have made in recent years.

Democrats’ 120-member central committee met virtually to vote on the removals, in a meeting that unexpectedly stretched for about seven hours. The party ousted Miami-Dade chair Robert Dempster and Franklin County chair Carol Barfield. But one chair targeted by leadership survived: Mindy Koch of Palm Beach County kept her position after getting only 67 votes in favor of her removal — short of the two-thirds vote that was required.

Democratic leaders accused the chairs of various infractions. They said Franklin County was missing a membership list and that audits of finances from 2022 were overdue. They accused Koch of Palm Beach of failing to cancel contracts that weren’t approved by the Democratic executive committee. And they said Miami-Dade Democrats failed to reach a quorum at meetings, had outdated membership lists and failed to follow protocol when it came to endorsing local candidates.

Party leadership said they’d hired an assessment team a year ago, warned the chairs about problems in February then told them in March that they were suspended. The chairs are all volunteers who are tasked with helping register voters, holding meetings and recruiting organizers and donors. Democratic executive committees in Franklin and Miami-Dade Counties now have 45 days to elect new chairs.

Each county chair was allowed to present their case Sunday to stay on in their positions. The back and forth — which was closed to the press — didn’t end until after 9 p.m. One person in the meeting granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly described the mood as “tense.”

Koch told Playbook that she argued her case before the committee by pointing out how much she’d been “kicking it” with all the fundraising she’d done for the party, and the elections she’d helped the party win. She said she was “relieved” and “happy” to remain in the position.

“We are just going to keep doing the work and elect Democrats,” she said. “Nothing has changed.”

Asked for comment, Dempster directed Playbook to Thomas Kennedy, a former Democratic National Committee member who re-registered as a non-party affiliated voter. Reached by phone, Kennedy said he was a friend of Dempster who’d been disgruntled with the party.

“Democrats are wasting valuable time, energy, effort, media opportunity and staff time,” he said, adding that he thought the party should have been spending more time talking to voters like himself who’d switched allegiances. Barfield did not respond to a request for comment.

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried has said one of the reasons she wanted to push the county leaders out was to help Democrats turn things around in Florida. Democrats haven’t won the state at the presidential level since 2012 and today the state GOP outnumbers Democrats by almost 825,000 registered active voters.

“When I was elected chair, I made a promise that we would never have another election cycle like 2022,” she said in a statement after the vote. “My hope has always been to get these local parties fully operational and back on track, and I trust that this process has helped them do that. We need our local parties to register voters, recruit candidates and raise money to ensure that we’re competitive in 2024 and beyond.”

It’s still an open question how much national Democratic groups and the Biden campaign will invest in the state ahead of November. At this point in the election, former President Donald Trump is projected to win in Florida, polling shows, but the state party can still influence state and local races.