What Would Bob Graham Do?
Some disjointed thoughts about how the Democratic Party in Florida can find its way out of the wilderness, and the example they should follow.
20 plus years after the state served as home to the one of the closest presidential election results, Florida remains a difficult state to assess but now for different reasons. It was cast, in the wake of the role it played in the 2000 election, as the ultimate swing state that could be won by either party by a razor-thin margin.
Yet now, between electoral results and party registration, it seems to have become a solidly red Republican state (the Ohio of the south, if you will). There are at least a million more registered Republicans to Democrats (though it’s not as cut-and-dry with the number of people registered to vote and affiliated with no political party) and Nikki Fried was the last Democratic politician to hold a statewide office (as agricultural commissioner, and her term ended in 2022.
Florida is the big fish that the Democratic Party chases—if there’s just a way to get a foothold in Florida, it would change everything. There’s talk of “blue Texas” or flipping Ohio or North Carolina, but Florida is the really coveted one.
So… how do Democrats do it? How do Democrats make something happen in Florida, perhaps on a state-wide level? The next opportunity for this will be in 2026 will feature a gubernatorial election (Ron DeSantis is term-limited, so it’s wide open) and a special election for what was Marco Rubio’s Senate seat (which will then be up again in 2028). Democrats have those two chances to win a state-wide office. How do they do it?
Hopefully it’s by not doing what they’ve been doing since Barack Obama carried the state in the 2012 presidential election. One of those things—nominating Charlie Crist (former Republican governor) not once but twice (2014 and 2022) as their candidate for governor?
It’s not that I think Crist is an especially bad political figure; rather, the turning towards Crist in these two elections (one of which, 2014, still ended up pretty close) shows a flaw in the statewide party’s approach, which begins when you get to Crist’s path to running on those tickets.
Crist was sunk in the Republican Party by being willing to engage with then-president Barack Obama, particularly on issues of economic stimulus in the wake of the Great Recession of 2007-2008. The famous picture of Crist and Obama embracing at an event forever cast him as a heretic amongst the post-2008 Republican Party. How quickly the Republican Party was ready to turn on Crist for fairly low-level cooperation with the President of the United States on a major issue pushed him into this progression from Republican to independent to eventually the Democratic Party.
Crist was probably one of the first of the “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me” figures, which is an honorable stance to have (being willing to step away from something if you see it conflicting with your beliefs and views). But to do so and still strive for that top-line important position? Whether it’s honest or not, it’s going to read to voters as a very political move (using political in the negative sense).
Crist’s popularity, his ability to navigate this shift in party identification, and his relative popularity across the aisle even while governing as a Republican tells us something about Florida. Before DeSantis in 2022, he was the last Florida governor to win more than 50% of the vote. A fiscally-conservative, business-minded politician who eschews a lot of the culture war materials played well in a swing-state like Florida.
That there was a connection between Crist and John McCain is telling too (McCain endorsed Crist’s 2006 gubernatorial run), in that their connection speaks to a politics we don’t really have anymore. In that moment, it wasn’t as though the two sides didn’t have strongly-held beliefs and views. There wasn’t some kind of total and complete unity. Instead, what was different was that something that was shared—that there was an issue that was real, that something had to be done to address it—a foundation on which the whole enterprise had to operate. That what Crist realized in his dealings with the Obama White House, and his willingness to do that ultimately sunk him in the hyper-partisan environment.
To swerve briefly into a discussion of John McCain—those of us who point to him or lionize him at this point in time, we don’t deny that he fit within the Republican Party (albeit somewhat idiosyncratically and with a… yes, maverick streak). But he was also someone who understood the work of governance, and the compromise and discussion that went into it. McCain certainly wasn’t some closet liberal or really a Democrat, not a chance. But if we’re working in a two-party system and there is going to be that other party, we’d be better served with someone like McCain being on the other side in times of agreement and disagreement.
It’s worth noting that, sandwiched in between Crist’s two runs, was the 2018 candidacy of Andrew Gillum, former Democratic mayor of Tallahassee. The environment was set up for the Democrats to reclaim the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee in 2018. DeSantis wasn’t the figure he’s become now. Rather, he was seen as an extremely liability and unelectable (Adam Putnam was the party’s choice, but DeSantis was able to ride the momentum of Donald Trump’s support all the way to the governorship). There was a great deal of anti-Trump/anti-GOP sentiment throughout the country (the Democrats took back the House in 2018). After Jeb Bush, the Republican version of Crist, and Rick Scott, this was a chance for Florida Democrats to get a foothold. And yet, by the thinnest of margins, DeSantis won (as did Rick Scott, who replaced Democratic Senator Bill Nelson). Gillum’s 2018 defeat is illustrative of two things relative to Crist’s runs, lining up with an issue with Crist as a candidate while showing his strength in another way,
What it seems like Florida voters crave is authenticity, which they haven’t been getting from candidates in the Democratic Party. By authenticity, I mean being unapologetically something, whatever you are. Ron DeSantis, for example, does have a kind of authenticity in that you would never choose to be that kind of a person. Rick Scott seems wholly like himself (again, make of that what you will). Crist’s consummate politician-ness might have worked in the past, but now it just feels so hollow that it won’t resonate with voters. Gillum had a touch of this too (the power brokers like their idea of Gillum, which wasn’t exactly who he was and thus he didn’t have that grounding).
The other issue that Democrats faced in these statewide elections, which I think they’re still grappling with, is trying to strike a balance between a moderate candidate (who can appeal not only to the Democratic base but also independent voters who usually align with the Democratic Party as well as extreme moderate Republicans) but who is also authentic in some essential way. Gillum was also hamstrung by the ways in which he was (or seemed) to be liberal in a way out of step with the bulk of the state.
Who is that person/who can be those people? I think they’re out there, but I’m going to take a slightly bigger view and answer the question in an annoyingly less direct way. When I think about when state Democratic Parties have either made a comeback or solidified themselves, it comes from someone who knows and understands the state being in charge. One thinks of Stacy Abrams work leading the Georgia Democratic Party (I didn’t force Georgia having two Democratic senators… ever) or Ben Wikler in Wisconsin. More than being bright political minds, they’re people who understand those states. Who will that person be in Florida? Can it be Nikki Fried? She’s certainly Florida through and through. But can she weave together the disparate strands of the state’s thought to do something comprehensive?
I also think about striking that balance—someone who’s moderate but also authentic/that moderation does not feel like political calculus—and how does one do that. My mind frequently returns to perhaps the most successful Florida Democratic politician of recent memory—Bob Graham.
Graham was governor of the state for two terms and then three terms as a US Senator. He was someone who had the kind of wide-reaching appeal that made him a potential vice presidential pick (it could have been him running with Bill Clinton in 1992 or Al Gore in 2000). But Graham had his strong Democratic Party bona fides (he voted against the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution, and the senators who joined him were by and large the ones you heard described as too liberal). His record as governor on environmental protection speaks to this quality as well. Graham was someone who did not hide his positions, and yet he won statewide office (by wide margins) in a politically diverse state like Florida.
When I think about what Florida Democrats should do, how can they prove Florida Senate Minority Leader Jason Pizzo wrong when he says “the Democratic Party in Florida is dead,” I think above all they should look to the example of Bob Graham. Who are the ones who will follow in his footsteps? What would he do in a given situation? To win, the Florida Democratic Party needs to be the party of Bob Graham and his memory, his values, his ideals, and his approach. To find its way out of the wilderness, the party needs a North Star to follow. The greatest Democratic politician to come out of the state should play that role in our minds.