Today, Raw America managing editor Carl Gibson sat down with Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried to discuss how Democrats in the Sunshine State are mobilizing in response to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ last-minute gerrymander of Florida’s congressional districts. Here’s what else they discussed:
Why the new maps may not survive a court challenge despite the latest Supreme Court ruling
Florida Republicans endangering their own congressional representation by diluting their own districts
Florida Democrats’ recent pattern of surprising wins in deep-red cities and districts
How the cost of living crisis is impacting Floridians, and making it harder for Republicans to win
The recent resignation of a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and what that means for an embattled Republican congressman
The strength of Florida’s slate of 2026 Democratic candidates
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DeSantis’ Gerrymander: Rushed, Indefensible, and Likely Unconstitutional
Fried opened by explaining that Florida voters passed a Fair Districts amendment in 2010 with nearly 70% support, enshrining protections in the state constitution that prohibit partisan map-drawing, mandate the protection of minority districts, and require keeping communities and counties intact. DeSantis, she argued, is trampling all of that.
The special session moved with startling speed.
“On Monday, we saw the maps that he announced on Fox News — color coded red and blue — and talked about the partisan differences between Democrats and Republicans in our state,” Fried said. “None of that should be in consideration.”
By Tuesday, the legislature had passed the new maps in under 24 hours, with the bill’s own sponsor unable to answer basic questions about how the lines were drawn.
Perhaps most telling, Fried noted, was the silence from the GOP itself: “There was not a single Republican in either chamber that defended the maps, and I think that says everything we need to know.”
Lawsuits, she said, have been in the works for months. As soon as DeSantis signs the legislation, legal challenges will be filed by a coalition of advocacy organizations. Fried said the Florida Democratic Party has been closely involved in preparing for litigation, though the party itself may not be a named plaintiff given the non-partisan framing of the Fair Districts law.
‘They Just Handed Us Seats’: Why Democrats Think the Gerrymander Backfires
After Virginia voters passed their own pro-redistricting ballot measure, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) argued that the new maps would actually create more pickup opportunities for Democrats — just as he believed Trump’s redistricting effort in Texas had done. Fried said she shares that confidence.
Florida Democrats have flipped 29 seats since early 2025, outperforming the national leftward swing by 17 points. The new lines, Fried argued, diluted once-safe Republican districts.
She also pointed out that the state’s eight Democratic members of Congress — including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Darren Soto, Kathy Castor, and Jared Moskowitz — are deeply embedded in their communities and their political influence extends beyond their district lines, making them difficult to unseat even with redrawn maps.
A Grassroots Wave: How Florida Democrats Are Winning Again
Gibson pointed to a string of striking Democratic victories: Miami’s mayoral seat flipping blue for the first time in 30 years, a Democratic mayor in Boca Raton, and a state legislative seat in Mar-a-Lago’s own backyard flipping Democratic. Fried attributed the turnaround to a combination of structural organizing and genuine voter frustration.
The party launched what it calls the “Pendulum Project” in early 2025 — a year-round organizing operation that contacted over 5 million Floridians in an off-year cycle alone. “For the first time, and probably maybe ever, can say that we are not in chaos, that everybody is rowing in the same direction,” Fried said.
She also pushed back on the perception that Florida’s voter registration numbers doom Democrats from the start. Around 1.5 million Democrats were shifted from active to inactive voter rolls under a DeSantis-backed law — a move she said inflated the GOP’s apparent advantage. Meanwhile, she said roughly 80 percent of independents have been breaking for Democrats this cycle, with 10 to 20 percent of Republicans crossing over as well.
Cost of Living: The Issue Driving Voter Anger
Fried was emphatic that pocketbook issues are central to the Democratic message. She noted that Florida Democrats in the legislature introduced over 25 bills this session addressing affordability — covering housing, tax relief, subsidies, and healthcare — and not a single one received a hearing. Republicans, she said, spent the session renaming airports and arranging a Trump presidential library deal on prime Miami real estate.
“The reason why our insurance premiums — we’ve seen since DeSantis became governor a 400 percent increase in people’s premiums — that is not by accident,” she said, also faulting the state’s former CFO for failing to hold insurance companies accountable after major hurricanes.
On the national level, she connected soaring costs to Trump administration policies favoring wealthy corporations, pointing to recent reports showing CEO salaries rising roughly 25 percent in 2025 while worker wages declined.
“This is just corporate greed at its worst,” Fried said.
Holding Both Sides Accountable: The Corey Mills Question
Gibson noted that the Florida Democratic Party had taken an unusually firm stance when former Congressman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) resigned amid an ethics probe, publicly stating that “corruption has no place in Congress.” Fried used the same standard to call out Congressman Corey Mills (R-Fla.), who faces his own ethics investigation and has been accused of Stolen Valor and other serious misconduct.
“If the Republicans aren’t going to hold him accountable, we will,” Fried said, adding that the party has a strong candidate — Bale Dalton, a former NASA Chief of Staff under Senator Bill Nelson — running against Mills in 2026.
Looking Ahead: Candidates and Cautious Optimism
Without making primary endorsements, Fried expressed enthusiasm for the overall candidate bench Florida Democrats are fielding — veterans, first responders, Teach for America alumni, and community organizers. She named Eliot Rodriguez, a well-known former TV news anchor, as a notable candidate in Florida’s 27th congressional district, and praised Gay Valimont for her 22-point improvement in the Florida Panhandle’s 1st district in the last cycle.
“Do not give up on us,” Fried said. “Florida is worth fighting for. Our people are worth fighting for. We were the lab rats of Project 2025 — it started here in Florida, and we’re going to end it here in Florida.”
Help Raw America Stay Independent
Fried’s exclusive interview with Raw America capped off a week in which we also spoke with attorney Anne P. Mitchell about the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling that fundamentally weakened the Voting Rights Act, and with former Trump DHS chief of staff-turned-whistleblower Miles Taylor about his new anti-ICE initiative. Our Capitol reporter, Luke De Cresce, has also been bringing on-the-ground coverage of developments in Washington, directly from the halls of Congress.
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