Florida Democrats go on offensive as DeSantis' image crumples on the national stage

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis no longer seems so invincible after a series of mistakes on the national stage. And Democrats in his home state have noticed, reported the Miami Herald on Monday.

"After two tough election cycles in a row — including a particularly bruising 2022 midterm year — the state party has begun an aggressive counteroffensive against DeSantis in an effort to claw its way back from the brink of political irrelevance, seeing the top-tier Republican presidential hopeful as the perfect foil to fuel their political resurgence," reported Max Greenwood. "The animosity between Florida Democrats and the state’s powerful Republican governor isn’t new. What’s changed, party officials and operatives said, is that DeSantis’ nascent bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination has elevated their platform and allowed them to appeal to national Democrats — including donors — in a way that’s been lacking in recent years."

DeSantis, who won re-election by a handy 19-point margin last year, has passed a flood of culture war legislation and policies, including restricting even the mention of sexual orientation in schools, to making it easier for right-wing activists to pull books from school shelves, to appointing far-right allies to govern a public university.

His run for president, however, has put some of those policies under a spotlight, and his favorability has cratered nationally as he faces criticism — giving Florida Democrats an opening to go on the offensive.

“What it’s done for Florida Democrats is one: it has brought us fire in our bellies to take him down, and two: it is absolutely raising the national profile of Florida Democrats, because we are the frontlines,” said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried, who was recently arrested protesting DeSantis' near-total statewide abortion ban. “We live this every single day. We live every bill he passes, every veto of the budget, every insane decision he’s making with the Department of Education, all the things that he is doing.”

"Fried filed formal complaints this week against three aides in the governor’s office over allegations that they solicited donations for DeSantis’ presidential campaign from lobbyists and lawmakers," noted the report. "And on Thursday, U.S. Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a first-term Democrat who has gained a reputation as a DeSantis antagonist in D.C., held an ad hoc congressional hearing on so-called 'anti-democratic abuses of power' by DeSantis and his allies, using the 90-minute gathering to air a long list of grievances against the governor."

It remains to be seen whether these efforts can rejuvenate the Florida Democratic Party, which has struggled to fundraise and seen an abandonment by national figures in recent years. The previous chair of the party, Manny Diaz, offered a scathing indictment of the party's shortcomings in his resignation announcement.