Race Analysis: Florida Governor Democratic Primary

While four candidates have qualified for the Democratic primary ballot, this is very much a race between incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and former Republican Governor turned Democrat Charlie Crist. The winner will take on Governor Ron DeSantis in the November general election.

Given DeSantis' surging popularity with Florida voters, Democrats will definitely face an uphill battle come November. As such, Democratic voters are certainly going to be considering which of the candidates they feel can be most competitive against an incumbent who is both wildly popular and incredibly well-financed. Which candidate that might be, however, is not as cut and dry as most voters would surely like.

Fried was the first candidate to win a statewide cabinet position since Alex Sink became CFO in 2006 and the first Democrat to win a statewide race since Senator Bill Nelson in 2012. Fried is following in Sink’s footsteps in attempting to leverage that popularity into a gubernatorial run in a year when her reelection to her current job seems unlikely. However, just as Sink was met with the Tea Party wave in 2010, Fried is facing a Republican surge in the state that is probably the party’s biggest one since.

Despite her performance in 2018, however, Fried trails Crist in both polling and fundraising, and the only debate that will take place between the candidates (embedded below) seemed unlikely to give her any kind of meaningful boost. Both candidates are solidly pro-choice and have criticized DeSantis and Florida Republicans for attempting to further limit the control women have over their reproductive rights. In most areas of public policy, they hold similar positions in line with the party’s platform.

Crist has had one of the most up and down careers in the history of Florida Politics. When he became governor in 2006, the Republican Party was a different animal entirely. In fact, when Senator John McCain won the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, Crist was on the shortlist to be his vice presidential candidate. All of that changed in 2010, however, when Crist tried to leverage his growing profile into a run for U.S. Senator, an office for which he initially seemed a lock.

Then came the Tea Party surge, and Crist found himself badly trailing a relatively-unknown Speaker of the Florida House named Marco Rubio when activists tarred the governor for having supported then-President Obama’s stimulus package at the dawn of the Great Recession. Things got so bad that Crist dropped out of the primary to mount an equally-disastrous independent run.

In fact, it looked like his career was over until he switched parties and won the Democratic nomination for governor in 2014, eventually losing to now Senator Rick Scott, the man who became governor when Crist left the office. Not done yet, Crist ran for Congress in 2016, winning a Pinellas County seat in the following two elections in 2018 and 2020.

It’s very difficult to get a good read on Crist’s beliefs because he’s continuously proven himself to be the sort of elected official who sticks his finger in the wind before taking a position. The most consistent knock on him has been that he’s a man without any real convictions. However, with well over $100 million thus far, Ron DeSantis will almost surely have amassed the largest campaign war chest of any Florida gubernatorial candidate in history by November.

Add the national profile DeSantis has built, first as a Trump surrogate and then as a presidential frontrunner for 2024, along with the sky-high approval ratings he enjoys with Republican voters in the state, and Democrats are going to need Crist’s name recognition, fundraising prowess, and political adeptness to have any chance at winning back an office their party hasn’t held since the 20th century.

Democratic voters who find neither candidate worthy of their support can cast protest votes for two grassroots candidates, Robert Willis or Cadance Daniel.