Democrats face Duval losses weeks after Fried elected state party chair
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (FLV) – Democrats faced multiple losses during the March 2023 Duval County Unitary Election weeks after former Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried was elected to Florida Democratic Party chair.
Despite Democrats having a 28,000 voter registration advantage, Jacksonville Republicans, who were divided on who to pick for mayor, turned out nearly 7,000 voters greater than Democrats, or a margin of nearly 3%.
In total, that’s nearly a -35,000 registration-to-turnout deficit Democrats faced on Tuesday night in Duval.
Republican Ken Amaro flipped the City Council district 1 seat red with around 66% of the vote. His opponent, Democrat Alton McGriff Jr. received around 34% of the vote.
City Councilwoman Democrat Ju’Coby Pittman won the seat for city council district 10 with almost 65% of the vote.
“Nikki Fried is turning out to be the greatest asset of the Republican Party of Florida. Instead of being focused on getting out the vote and winning elections, she is focused on posting memes to tickle her radical base,” Republican Party of Florida Chairman Christian Ziegler said.
“To be clear though – I am not asking her to change her tactics. Instead, I hope she doubles down, because the more she Tweets, the more Democrats lose and the better our state becomes.”
While Fried sent some tweets encouraging people to vote the day of Duval county’s elections, several of her social media posts focused on mocking Gov. Ron DeSantis while polls were still open.
“I’ve seen two polls in the last two hours that have DeSantis’ presidential campaign absolutely cratering,” Fried said Tuesday afternoon. “Because he sucks at this.”
Fried was elected as Florida Democratic Party chair Feb. 25. A few days after, she held an event promoted to all Democrats living in Duval County.
Fried rallied Jacksonville Democrats prior to the election with a “Be Bold, Vote Blue” event. Pictures showed a few dozen people showed up to Fried’s event.
“This is an opportunity to flip Duval blue and to make sure that we’re putting some incredible candidates into your city council as well into so many of your Constitutional officers, so go out and vote,” Fried said a week prior to the election.
Fried sent out a social media message with Duval Democratic Party Chairman Daniel Henry a few days before the election.
“We know that Duval is blue. I won it, Senator Nelson, Senator Gillum, and President Joe Biden. So, let’s prove our state wrong and make sure that we are turning blue on Tuesday,” Fried said.
Ziegler’s social media posts primely focused on the election, a contrast from Fried. He was in Duval County the day of the election holding signs and rallying voters.
He stopped by the Duval GOP headquarters a few weeks before the election and spoke with Duval GOP Chairman Dean Black, a state representative from Jacksonville.
“We have to make sure Donna Deegan loses and with your help, I’m sure we could do that and I thank our very busy chairman [….] Looking forward to your leadership so that we keep Florida red, we keep Duval red, and we show the rest of America just how this is done,” Black said Feb. 27.
Republicans scheduled a text bank to “help turnout Republican voters” prior to the election.
Prior to the election, Democrats asked voters to “Help Duval Dems” with a volunteer signup website.
Even with some of the losses, the Duval Democratic Party shared Chairman Daniel Henry’s statement after the election results were in, calling it a “great night” for Democrats in Jacksonville.
“We showed up in strong numbers at the polls and are looking forward to showing up even stronger in the May Runoff Election. Voters spoke loudly that they are tired of the negative campaigning in our elections and are ready for change,” Henry said.
