MIAMI — Former Florida Agriculture Commissioner and one-time Democratic candidate for Florida governor, Nikki Fried, has thrown her hat into the race to become the next chair of the Florida Democratic Party.
Fried made the announcement Monday via a tweet.
"As Florida Democrats, we either fight like hell against right-wing extremism or accept irrelevance and oppression. I choose to fight," the tweet read. "That's why I'm running to be the Chair of the @fladems. LFG."
Fried's announcement comes about a month after then-Chair Manny Diaz resigned his position after a disastrous midterm election in November. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection by a whopping 20 points and the GOP flipped two key counties, including the once-Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade.
In announcing his resignation, Diaz sent a long letter to the state's executive committee members complaining about a lack of resources, a lack of volunteers to knock on doors and a failure to present unified messaging.
“Historical investments never arrived, and a broken, unsustainable system was exposed,” Diaz wrote. “Although we started our effort earlier than in prior cycles, it was still too late. We were not able to afford necessary staffing or opening the desired number of offices. Those we did open were too late for community buy-in.”
The Democrats' troubles last year were particularly pronounced in Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county and home to 1.5 million Latinos of voting age. In a county that Obama won a decade ago by 24 percentage points, DeSantis in November defeated his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, by more than 11.
Diaz, who served as chair of Florida Democrats for two years and is a former mayor of the city of Miami, said that volunteers “have become nearly extinct in Florida since Obama’s last campaign in 2012.”
Diaz said he was surprised the state party had a “hands-off approach” to messaging, leaving it up to each candidate. The state has a large Cuban American population that remains fiercely skeptical of leftist governments.
Former President Donald Trump courted Latino voters in the state by undoing Obama's Cuba engagement policy and sanctioning Latin-American socialist governments. He cast Democrats as leftists and anti-capitalists, contributing to the rightward shift.
Fried has been a very vocal opponent of DeSantis since she was the only statewide elected Democrat in Florida. She was raised in Miami and earned a law degree from the University of Florida. She has worked in private practice and led the felony division of the Alachua County Public Defender’s Office. Before being elected as agriculture commissioner, Fried worked as a lobbyist, including for the expansion of access to medical marijuana.