Former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried was elected as the party’s new chair on Saturday, as Democrats look to rebound from a dismal midterm showing in the once-promising swing state, where Republican control has been solidified under the leadership of high-profile Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Fried, 45, defeated former state senator Annette Taddeo at a special party meeting in Orlando’s suburbs and will replace Manny Diaz.
Last month, in his resignation letter, he outlined a number of issues facing the party, including a lack of resources and volunteers and ineffective messaging.
Both Fried and Taddeo lost their own races last year, Fried in the primary for governor to Charlie Crist and Taddeo in November to U.S. Representative Maria Elvira Salazar.
In recent years, Republicans in Florida have eliminated the decades-long advantage Democrats held in voter registration.
Longtime Democratic strongholds like Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties flipped to the GOP in the midterm elections, and DeSantis won a landslide reelection victory as he eyed a 2024 presidential run.
Compared to previous years, Democrats performed particularly poorly with Latinos in Florida.
In the state’s most populous county, 1.5 million Latinos of voting age reside.
Fried, whose tenure as agriculture commissioner ended last month, has vowed to rebuild the party “from the ground up,” with an emphasis on voter registration.
As the only statewide elected Democrat, Fried was a fierce critic of DeSantis, frequently challenging him on policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic and later on the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
55-year-old Taddeo served as state senator from 2017 to 2022.
She had stated that she desired a year-round effort to register voters without relying on other organizations and to mobilize young voters.
In addition, she asserts that the party must increase its outreach to the Black and Hispanic communities.
A little more than a decade ago, President Barack Obama was reelected to the White House after carrying Florida twice.
Florida has been won by President Donald Trump in the last two elections, with an even larger margin in 2020 than in 2016.
