Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo should resign. Today.
ERIC BAZAIL-EIMIL: Since December 2017, Terrie Rizzo has served as Chair of the Florida Democratic Party. During this time, she has directed the party’s operations during the 2018 Midterms and now the Presidential election. And Democrats shouldn’t let her serve one more day in that office.
Under Rizzo’s leadership, the Democrats have lost:
1 presidential vote in Florida that should have been much closer
1 winnable Governor’s race in 2018
1 winnable Senate race in 2018
2 South Florida house seats (FL-26, FL-27) that were flipped in 2018 by significant margins
Countless races to try and regain control of the Florida Senate and Florida House.
In fact, after last night, the only shimmer of hope for Democrats comes from two unexpected results, both of which the mainline Party only tepidly supported: the successful passage of a $15/hr minimum wage increase amendment (which not even Nikki Fried, the expected party standard-bearer in the 2022 gubernatorial supported, much to the anger of progressive figures in the party), and the successful election of progressive Miami-Dade County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava to the County Mayorship.
But it shouldn’t have been unexpected.
Andrew Gillum in 2018 provided Florida Democrats with the clearest roadmap for winning in with his progressive vision and messaging, one that actually salvaged Bill Nelson’s flailing re-election bid and reinjected the race with much-needed, though ultimately insufficient, enthusiasm. Progressive leaders like Representative Anna Eskamani (a likely gubernatorial candidate in 2022 in her own right) have taken cues from the AOC playbook to make politics far more accessible and help down-ballot candidates, without getting any of the support she has deserved from the FDP. And not shockingly, where Democrats prevailed in Florida last night reflects the success of a progressive message, even in areas where Democrats have lost ground overall.
And Florida is changing. It is changing in ways that can, and should, be more favorable to Democrats. Democrats have to want to win in Florida.
The Florida Democratic Party has a long history of incompetence, inadequacy and complacency. Certainly, Democrats cannot crucify Chair Rizzo for all the sins of the FDP over the last quarter-century and the sins that also stem from bad recruiting by the DCCC and DSCC (ex: Margaret Good in FL-16). And this summer alone, as we talked about in the last installment of this column, the FDP began the process of dying from a thousand unavoidable cuts, which only added to the problems.
And yet, the buck stops with the top leadership. This election was, and remains, perhaps the most consequential election in modern American history, and certainly since World War II. Rizzo’s failure to adequately steer the party, construct a clear and winning message and organize a COVID-safe ground operation to support candidates in such a critical moment is unacceptable. It sank candidates like Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in FL-26, who had strong records in Congress and asked for much greater support from the broader statewide party. And it will keep Democrats from remaining competitive in what remains the purplest of swing states.
Rizzo must resign today, quietly, and pass the torch to the party’s progressive wing. After that, the party must also begin a process of soul-searching. If not, Florida may actually seal its fate as a red state in the 2022 midterm elections.
Eric Bazail-Eimil is a second-year student in the School of Foreign Service studying Latin America and Africa as a Regional and Comparative Studies major. A native South Floridian and a proud Cuban-American, Eric’s column “The Florida Project” appears biweekly in “On the Record.”