Florida Democrats Insist Their State is 'In Play'

Although Florida has only voted for a Democrat for president three times in the past quarter-century — and by razor-thin margins in 2000, 2008, and 2012 — party activists insisted to Newsmax that Kamala Harris could take the state and its 30 electoral votes in November.

Democrats who spoke to Newsmax this week at the Democratic National Convention felt strongly that the key to Harris capturing a state Donald Trump has won twice before is the surprising defeat Tuesday of the Moms for Liberty candidates for local school boards throughout Florida who were backed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Near-final results showed 11 candidates backed by the governor lost on Tuesday, including some incumbents in conservative-leaning counties. Meanwhile, six of DeSantis-endorsed candidates won their races and six were poised to advance to a November runoff after no one in their contests cleared 50% of the vote. Those runoffs could still go in DeSantis' favor.

"Florida is definitely in play this year," state Democrat Chair Nikki Fried told Newsmax. "We had a big win in races for school boards. We have a very strong candidate for Senate [against GOP incumbent Rick Scott] in Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. And we're all excited about Kamala and Tim Walz."

A recent University of Florida poll of likely voters statewide showed Scott, a former two-term governor, narrowly leading former one-term Rep. Mucarsel-Powell at 47% to 43%.

Delegate Ramon Day of Jacksonville agreed that the defeat of the Moms for Liberty school board candidates backed by DeSantis has excited Democrat candidates.

"We called our opposition candidates to them 'The Regulars' and they did quite well," Day told us. "Some of us didn't like the fact that the Moms for Liberty candidates were so critical of the public schools but many of them home-schooled their kids rather than sending them to public schools."

Day also pointed out that he thinks Scott is vulnerable, noting that "he only won last time by about 10,000 votes and that was only after he spent $60 million of his own money."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.