For Democrats, a very steep climb begins in Palm Beach | Steve Bousquet
It has been six months since Gov. Ron DeSantis coasted to re-election in Florida with a huge, unexpected boost from an unlikely place: reliably blue Palm Beach County.
That makes it a good time to take stock of what’s changed and what hasn’t.
It’s impossible to see how Democrats can ever win another statewide election in Florida without Palm Beach, the state’s third-largest county, home to more than a million voters. The 2022 electoral map is a sea of red, with only five of 67 counties voting Democrat for governor: Alachua (Gainesville), Broward, majority Black Gadsden, Leon (Tallahassee) and Orange (Orlando). A party of five counties.
In a state that Barack Obama carried twice not so long ago, that’s pathetic.Is it hopeless? No, if enough Democrats are truly determined to not want to live under an authoritarian regime any more.
The long, hard climb must begin someplace. I suggest Palm Beach. It’s big, important — and everybody knows Trump lives there. But the early signs on the ground are, well, mixed.
Mindy Koch, a retired school teacher from Palm Beach and Broward, became the county Democratic chair in January. As the rank-and-file whined over a lack of a strong bench, she challenged them to recruit candidates.
“You want a bench? Find some Democrats to run,” Koch said.
Koch, 69, of Boca Raton, won her party election by one vote. Not much of a mandate. As a result, she has had internal party problems, at times over the sort of trivial stuff for which Florida Democrats are legendary.
Case in point: Party progressives insisted on virtual Zoom party meetings every month. But Koch, with a nudge from state party chair Nikki Fried, urged a return to in-person meetings.
The compromise result is a hybrid of remote and in-person attendance. The May meeting was a fiasco, as tech-challenged party members held scrawled, hand-written questions up to their phones while others were unable to unmute themselves. I wanted to see it for myself, but nobody bothered to push the record button. (Does this sound like a place that’s prepared to deliver a victory for Joe Biden next year and take out Sen. Rick Scott?)
Sean Rourk of Palm Beach Gardens, the local party vice chairman, who also won by one vote, was critical of Koch’s handling of logistics.
“I wish she would just let it go,” Rourk said. “She’s approaching this like she’s a teacher, that she needs to teach all of us how to do it right.”
Refusing to let it go, Rourk said online meetings are more family-friendly, more considerate of older people who won’t drive at night, and people who have disabilities. Maybe. But that won’t put a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion.
If rank-and-file Democrats spent as much time and energy fighting Republicans as they do each other, Republicans would be in big trouble.
One of Palm Beach County’s longest-serving and popular Democrats, Tax Collector Anne Gannon, supports Koch, and said she’s better than her predecessor, Terrie Rizzo.
“Terrie was a cheerleader instead of a leader. She wouldn’t deal with these problems,” Gannon said, praising Koch’s communications skills. “Mindy is exactly what our county needs.”
Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, praised Koch for taking “some bold actions.”
Koch is determined. She takes attendance at party meetings. She’s raising money online, training volunteers to register voters, and phone banking for next week’s closely watched mayoral race in Jacksonville. In an email for Democratic donations, she called her county “the home of the nation’s most notorious sexual abuser.”
For Palm Beach Democrats, 2022 was dismal locally, too. Republicans seized two County Commission seats that were held by Democrats and a Boca-based House seat where a strong Democrat, Andy Thomson, lost to Republican Peggy Gossett-Seidman. Democrats have a solid candidate, Greenacres Mayor Joel Flores, to run for one of the commission seats.
Yet another challenge for Democrats is keeping their voters. Since November, Democrats have left the rolls or been moved to inactive status at a rate five times higher than Republicans. A two-month snapshot earlier this year, also from the county’s elections office, shows that Democrats in Palm Beach are twice as likely as Republicans to leave their party and switch to NPA, or no party affiliation.
The road back to relevance starts on the ground, precinct by precinct, in places like Boca Raton and Delray Beach.
All Koch asks for is a little more time.
“Give me another six months,” Koch said.
Steve Bousquet is Opinions Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale. Contact him at sbousquet@sunsentinel.com or (850) 567-2240 and follow him on Twitter @stevebousquet.