2020 race to Tallahassee: Republicans defend seats, Democrats fight for parity
The 2020 battle plan for Florida Democrats — the latest effort in their decades-long quest to gain control of the Republican-led Senate — has been reshaped in recent days, with competitive races emerging that change the state’s political landscape, though the main focus remains on Senate District 39 in South Florida.
The Friday qualifying deadline for candidates to get on the Florida ballot set the state’s official playing field — and officially kicked off the bi-annual struggle for more power in Tallahassee. For Republicans, 2020 means defending seats and maintaining the status quo. For Democrats, it means playing offense, with the contest for Senate District 39 likely to represent the party’s most important and winnable race on the ballot as they try to achieve parity in the Senate for the first time in 20 years.
There has already been one twist in Democrats’ plans. The unexpected resignation last week of former Senate President Tom Lee increased the number of competitive races to four. Democrats had already been poised to battle for Senate District 9, in Central Florida’s Interstate 4 corridor, to replace Republican Sen. David Simmons. They also think they can keep the District 37 seat held by Miami Sen. José Javier Rodríguez, despite the announcement of a new Republican challenger backed by the Florida GOP.
But most of the focus is on Senate District 39, as Democrat Javier Fernandez attempts to make the jump from the Florida House to the Senate and replace the term-limited Republican incumbent, Anitere Flores. If he wins in the August 18 Democratic primary, Fernandez will be competing with fellow House member and Republican opponent Ana Maria Rodriguez for the seat, which includes South Miami-Dade and all of Monroe County.
Democrats say the party’s priority continues to be ensuring Fernandez the seat, which they consider “flippable.” And it’s part of a strategy to gain the three seats they need to reach an even split in Florida’s 40-member Senate. Half of Florida’s Senate seats are up for reelection in November
And there’s more at stake. Those elected in 2020 will take part in the state’s crucial redistricting process, a once-in-a-decade event to draw the boundaries for congressional and state legislative districts.
Florida’s 2020 primary election is August 18. The general election is November 3.
But who stands to benefit from South Florida’s changing ethnic and generational make-up of voters in a presidential election year depends on who you ask. What Democratic candidates — who have been historically outspent and underfunded — view as a golden opportunity to prove South Florida as a progressive stronghold, Republicans cast as an “up for grabs” region.
“It’s not a terrible year for Republicans in other areas of the state, but I can tell you it’s a terrible year for a Republican in Miami,” said Miami Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democrat who represents southern Miami-Dade County. “It always is in a presidential year.”
Republicans took control of the state Senate in 1994 and by 1998, they controlled 25 of the chamber’s 40 seats. By 2010, they had a total of 28. They lost ground in the 2018 election and Republicans now hold 23 seats.
Democrats say they aren’t taking any chances when it comes to their focus on Fernandez and the coveted South Florida District 39 — a district Hillary Clinton won in 2016.
The Florida Democratic party and political committees like Senate Victory, the fundraising arm of the Senate Democrats, are putting the vast majority of their efforts into South Florida, one of the most expensive media markets in the state. Democrats say Fernandez, a Cuban American, has the financial backing of labor unions for the race, which some sources estimate will cost Democrats and allies about $6 million or more.
But even with a party decision to back Fernandez, there’s a Democratic primary opponent for the seat in Daniel Horton-Diaz, a former district chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
Fernandez says he’s already “running a general race.” And he’s not worried about other races in the state that might siphon off money and party interest, such as Lee’s vacant seat in Hillsborough County, which runs through parts of Trump-friendly Pasco County.
Kathy Lewis, of Wesley Chapel, is the only Democrat so far who has filed to replace Lee. She lost to him by seven percentage points in 2018. Gov. Ron DeSantis has scheduled a special election for the seat to coincide with the August 18 primary and November 3 general election. The qualifying period for that election starts June 17 and ends the following day.
Fernandez said he thinks the focus must remain on South Florida for the Democrats. “The path to majority for Democrats in either chamber starts and ends in South Florida,” Fernandez said. “If we can’t win competitive seats here, we can’t win competitive seats anywhere.”
So far, his Republican opponent, Rodriguez, has raised about double the money that Fernandez has brought in, though unions and outside groups will spend heavily and the fundraising arms of each party are pulling about equal weight.
Rodriguez received about $178,000 from the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee. The Florida Democratic Legislative Committee has contributed about $123,000 to Fernandez’s campaign.
Incoming Senate President Wilton Simpson, who chairs the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, called Rodriguez “a five-star candidate” compared to Flores, who currently holds the seat.
Florida Democrats acknowledge that Republicans have more of their party’s financial firepower behind them. “At the party level, we are never going to match the Republicans,” said Senate Victory spokesman Anders Croy, who still lauded Fernandez’s fundraising efforts.
From unopposed incumbent to facing GOP’s ‘talented crop’
And there are other competitive seats that Democrats need to keep in mind. Incumbent Jose Javier Rodríguez, who came into office after a narrow victory in 2016, is facing a challenge to his reelection. On May 29, weeks before the qualifying period, Republicans announced they’d found a candidate for his Senate District 37, which runs through the northeast coast of Miami-Dade including Coral Gables, Pinecrest and Key Biscayne.
Republicans trying to retake the district are backing IIeana Garcia, founder of Latinas for Trump and former deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration.
Anthony Pedicini, a Tampa-based Republican strategist, said new voices like Garcia’s are part of “a very talented crop” of fresh candidates who Pedicini says can win and increase Republicans’ majority in the Senate.
“I do not think Florida Democrats can win one seat, let alone four,” he said of the Senate races.
Simpson, the incoming Senate president, said District 37 is one of two seats the Republicans’ fundraising arm is highly focused on. And he said that while Democrats are focused on flipping four seats, he thinks District 37 is one of two seats that could be flipped for Republicans.
“I think [Democrats] get caught up in the notion that if they say something, it may actually happen,” Simpson said. Under his leadership, the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has raised more than $16 million this cycle.
Pedicini, the Republican strategist, says he thinks the seat is vulnerable to the Republicans because the Democrat, Rodríguez, won in 2016 by only 3.3% and less than 5,900 votes against Republican Miguel Díaz de la Portilla.
“South Florida and particularly Miami is always a closely watched area because it is constantly up for grabs, and rightly so,” Pedicini added.
And yet the district has grown more Democratic-leaning since Rodriguez’s win. In 2018, the Democratic nominee for governor, Andrew Gillum, won 55% of votes in the district.
Taddeo, whose constituency is in southern Miami-Dade, said the county is not the “Trump country” Republicans make it out to be. Demographics have changed, she said.
“Just listen to Spanish radio in the mornings. It’s not how it used to be,” she said.
The blue-ing of Miami-Dade
Adding to Democrats’ drive in 2020 is the fact that for the first time in years, the party now has a candidate running in every seat in the Legislature.
On Monday, the first day of the qualifying period for candidates, the state Democratic party announced that Rosy Gonzalez Speers, Gillum’s former political committee director, would serve as its first-ever senior adviser for down ballot elections, overseeing the party’s push to expand Democrats’ presence locally and in Tallahassee.
The effort comes with an investment of over $2 million, which the party will pour into about 50 municipal, county and state house campaigns. Individual donors and organizations like Forward Florida and the Florida Alliance have chipped in more than $1 million to bolster the effort as well.
“For the longest time, I heard the saying that Florida isn’t a blue state or a red state, it is an unorganized state,” Gonzalez Speers said. “Us having Democrats running in every district shows that we are organized... For the first time, we are seeing that a lot of these seats are really within reach.”
Fernandez’s campaign for Senate District 39 has $352,867 cash on hand and the Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has spent $33,000 to bolster it.
Gonzalez Speers said the party is going to be spending more in targeted races that it will identify after the August 18 primary, but that she feels confident knowing some of the seats the party is looking to take back voted for top-of-ticket Democrats like Gillum in 2018.
Gonzalez Speers is the former executive director of Forward Florida, a political committee founded by Gillum that was focused on flipping seats and registering Floridians to vote.
Last month, the committee spent $113,190 in legal expenses for Gillum, who was once the subject of a federal investigation. He recently stepped down from all public-facing roles and entered rehab after police say they found him in a South Beach hotel room with a collapsed companion and baggies of crystal meth.
Democrats have flipped five South Florida seats in the past decade, which puts even more focus on SD-39 and the question of whether Democrats can prove they can outwork their well-funded opponents.
“I think the win in 39 will be a continuation of the blue-ing of Miami-Dade,” said Croy, from Senate Victory. “A win in 39 represents what we have been saying for years.”
Herald staff writer David Smiley contributed reporting.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated election results from 2016. Hillary Clinton won Senate District 39 in 2016.
This story was originally published June 12, 2020 at 12:22 PM.
