What’s Next for Rep. Fentrice Driskell and the Florida Democrats?

We were privileged to welcome Florida House Minority Party Leader, Democrat Fentrice Driskell, representing District 67 in Tampa, today on MidPoint. Leader Driskell has served in the Florida House since 2018. She is term-limited now and deciding on her next steps in politics. Although she did not confirm her intentions on MidPoint, it seems certain that she will find a way to continue her public service, probably in an elected State office.

What is the Florida Democrats’ Message?

We asked Leader Driskell what she sees on the ground from the voters of Florida that might make the Democrats more competitive in our next elections. “I would say that right now, there certainly seem to be sharp lines between Republican and Democratic elected officials. But when I speak to the people, they just want solutions, and I’m starting to get the sense that they don’t care who’s delivering them, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats. But they want some solutions, and they don’t know what is… they don’t like what is happening. They don’t like the direction that the State is moving in, or that the country is moving in. So, I think there’ll be some real opportunities in the upcoming elections.”

Can We Learn Anything From Recent Special Elections?

Florida has held a number of special elections recently. In each of them, except the election for State House in Orlando’s District 35, which was first won by Democrat Tim Keen in the special election, but then lost in the general election, the Democrat has outperformed expectations, but still lost. Why? Leader Driskell believes these performances are significant and bode well for the future. She says, “It’s really difficult in the general, because you’ve got a lot of weight on the top of the ticket, either that’s going to push you up or pull you down. I will tell you that each of the candidates in our in our program outperformed the top of the ticket because we were on the ground doing that data-driven, messaging, engaging with voters, and re-enrolling people, and vote by mail. The plan is there.”

What’s the Plan to Win?

What is the plan? According to Leader Driskell, it shouldn’t be the Howard Dean “run a candidate in every race” strategy that the Florida Democrats touted in the last election. According to Leader Driskell, “I don’t like this strategy of filing candidates in every seat. I talked about it a little last cycle. But now that I’m, you know… we’ll speak real freely. It’s not a good strategy. We say that, ‘Oh, it drives democratic excitement.’ What it really does is drive Republican turnout in districts where the numbers are not close. It makes it more difficult for Democrats because we tend to not have as much money as the Republicans raise. You know, they got all the billionaires and stuff to give them all the money. So, we need to be strategic. We need to focus on a few seats and build this brick by brick. Frankly, that’s what the Republicans did when they built up power and took over control in Tallahassee.”

WMNF Loses Government Grant Funding

Leader Driskell also informed us that Governor DeSantis just vetoed all State funding for all public media. That is a loss to WMNF and all public radio stations of approximately $100,000, which we will have to make up in our fundraising from listeners.  Indeed, if the U.S. Congress also passes its budget which will de-fund public media and claw back grants already funded, then WMNF stands to lose another $137,000 this year, and we will get no additional funding in years to come.

While she ponders her next move in politics, Fentrice Driskell is back practicing law with the firm of Swope, Rodante, and listening closely to the citizens of Florida. She can still be reached at https://fentriceforflorida.com/

You can listen to our complete interview with her at your convenience, here, (Let it play on. We had a brief, little tech problem,) on the WMNF app, or as a WMNF MidPoint podcast on Spotify or Apple Music.