Republicans outnumber Democrats three to one at the Villages. So when the Kamala Harris campaign reached out to the leaders of the Central Florida retirement community’s Democratic Party chapter last month and said it wanted to visit, they were stunned.
The campaign had a specific request: They wanted a golf-cart parade like the ones held by the development’s legion of ardent Donald Trump backers. Dennis Foley, one of the leaders of the Villages Democratic Club, swung into action.
Three days later, second gentleman Doug Emhoff picked up a megaphone and told a crowd of over 300 golf-cart drivers to “hit the start button.” The crowd honked their horns and revved their electric engines for two miles.
“What can I say,” Foley said. “Old people parading in their golf carts, it’s a scene.”
Democrats badly want to regain their footing in Florida. Once the ultimate swing state, there are now a million more registered Republicans there than Democrats. Trump won Florida in 2016 and 2020 and is expected to win it again this year. Ron DeSantis cruised to a second term as governor in 2022. Both the state’s U.S. senators and 20 of its 28 representatives are Republicans. The GOP controls the state legislature.
Yet an energized liberal base is sensing an opportunity. Along with the excitement generated by Harris entering the race, Florida Democrats are banking on an abortion rights ballot measure to drive left-leaning voters to the polls after DeSantis enacted some of the most severe restrictions in the U.S.
Democrats are also hoping they can use three Taylor Swift concerts in Miami over the weekend to galvanize young voters, with the Democratic National Committee buying up billboards across the city.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the shift in momentum could end up being Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a 53-year-old Democrat and former congresswoman born in Ecuador who’s seeking to dislodge Republican Rick Scott from his Senate seat.
The race has taken on added urgency in recent weeks, with Democrats seeking new paths to hold the Senate in a very challenging year. Republicans, who need just two seats to take control, are looking to unseat Democrats in Trump-friendly Montana and Ohio.
Some polls show Mucarsel-Powell closing the gap with Scott — a recent Marist survey had her trailing by two points — even as others have found her down by as much as nine points. That makes winning over swing voters turned off by conservative policies even more of a priority. This week, she and other Democrats campaigned at the Villages, leading to a parade that organizers said drew more than 1,000 golf carts.
Since the start of her campaign, Mucarsel-Powell has raised $27.2 million, Federal Election Commission filings show. Nearly half that total was hauled in during a $12.9 million surge in August. The campaign also got a $1 million boost following another poll in September that showed her trailing Scott by one point. Entering October, she had $4 million in cash for the race’s home stretch.
Scott’s campaign meanwhile has taken in $35.7 million since 2023, including a $14.1 million loan from the candidate himself. He raised $4.2 million in August, of which $1.6 million came from his own pockets. His campaign had $1.9 million in cash for the final push, according to FEC filings.
Mucarsel-Powell said Democrats need more resources to counteract the “extreme” policies of Scott and DeSantis. “We need to be unified and fighting everywhere to support Americans’ freedom, and that starts here in Florida,” she said.
Scott brushes off questions about the tightening race, pointing out that when he won his first term as governor in 2010, Democrats outnumbered Republicans. He said voters are comfortable with him and his record.
“They know me, I was governor for eight years,” he said, adding that Democrats spent tens of millions trying to defeat him when he ran for Senate in 2018 and that he has a history of defying the polls.
During the pandemic, Florida lured thousands of right-leaning transplants from Democratic strongholds in New York and Chicago. Today, Miami and Palm Beach are home to some of the nation’s wealthiest Republican donors, including Ken Griffin and Paul Singer.
Emboldened by a supermajority in the state legislature, DeSantis signed the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill, which increased book bans and limited education about sexual orientation. After winning reelection and ramping up for his failed presidential run, he banned abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Now, Democrats are hoping they can harness some voters’ second thoughts about that conservative shift to break the GOP’s dominance.
Party leaders believe that ballot measures on reproductive rights and recreational marijuana will boost turnout. A July poll from the University of North Florida found 64% of Floridians support legalizing recreational marijuana and almost 70% support a proposed constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.
Yet that likely won’t be enough to deliver Florida to Harris.
“DeSantis has taken Florida in such an extreme direction, but this state has always been libertarian in nature,” said Nikki Fried, the chair of Florida’s Democratic Party. Fried said Democrats need to broaden their appeal. “You can’t win Florida anymore by just turning out the blue.”
Other Democrats said that the party would likely need to spend much more time — including more appearances by Harris herself — and money to defeat Trump in his adopted home state.
“Florida is fool’s gold for Democrats,” said Doug Sosnik, a longtime Democratic strategist. Sosnik estimates that Democrats would have to spend between $100 million and $200 million in Florida to have a fighting chance.
A spokesperson for the Harris campaign said they’re ramping up efforts in Florida during the final stretch, with some 20 field offices and more than 150 staffers. They hosted new staff for training at their Florida headquarters in Orlando in September and say they’re adding headcount.
Still, the Harris field offices represent just a fraction of the nearly 70 offices Hillary Clinton’s campaign had in 2016, or the 103 offices Barack Obama opened in 2012, when he narrowly defeated Mitt Romney in the state.
Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said Republicans’ million-voter advantage may “overstate where Florida actually is.” It excludes people who haven’t cast a ballot in the past two statewide elections, and late registrations often come from younger, first-time voters, who tend to skew Democratic. Still, he called Republicans’ edge “very significant.”
Some of Florida’s wealthiest Democratic donors also said that Harris is likely to lose in the state, but they are using their cash to bolster the party in other ways.
Billionaire condo developer Jorge Perez said he is putting money behind the abortion-rights campaign. John Morgan, who runs the country’s largest personal injury law firm from Orlando, said the party should focus on breaking GOP control of Florida’s legislature.
Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters at the Villages are determined to show they remain the majority. After one of the rallies for Harris, a throng of 1,000 golf carts turned out to back Trump.
“Nobody cared,” said Jerry Prince, a Villages resident and vice chair for the local Republican Party. “Why Kamala would say anything about winning in Florida is beyond my comprehension.”
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(With assistance from Bill Allison, Steven T. Dennis and Nancy Cook.)
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