Hope Florida, Alligator Alcatraz, and How Florida Democrats Climbed Out of the Hole

You mentioned that Miami Marys race, and I think that was one of the real bellwethers for me.

Watching the Corolla machine get defeated by an outside reformer blew my mind.

It was a signal, and it should have been a signal, that Because folks, a lot of ways in Florida, Miami is the laboratory where a lot of bad ideas for the Republicans go are born.

And the corruption down there is what you would expect.

So when that race was such a blowout, it struck me that like the economic damage the Republicans have done over 30 years and now with Trump icing that cake.

It really is a state sort of teed up for some major political changes.

You described a lot of what the FTC is doing, FTP is doing differently now.

And folks should know, you were the last Democrat to win a statewide race in Florida in 2018.

And it has been a state where the Republican money advantage is mattered and mattered and mattered and mattered.

And this year it still matters, but it seems to be mattering a bit less than it did in the past.

Talk to us a little bit where you see that.

I see it all over the place.

I mean, and to your point, you know, Republicans here in the state of Florida are taking, you know, we've had, I think, 25 billionaires have moved to our state in the last since 2020, and they're all funding the Republican Party.

So they have an unlimited war chest.

They're taking dollars from big tech companies, the data centers, AI worlds.

insurance, industry money, basically every industry money, because what they have done is they have written blank checks to these industries for the last 30 years.

I mean, look at Alligator Alcatraz.

$1.8 billion of no-bid contracts that went out to Republican donors and now Republican donors are giving it back to Republicans.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

We know what we are up against, which is why our volunteer apparatus is so important in this moment.

But we're seeing it all over the place.

We saw it when we had the special election in one of the Senate seats in Tampa Bay.

Our candidate was outspent 10 to 1.

We are seeing it, obviously, in the governor's race.

That's my old neighborhood where he won.

You mentioned that Miami Marys race, and I think that was one of the real bellwethers for me.

Watching the Corolla machine get defeated by an outside reformer blew my mind.

It was a signal, and it should have been a signal, that Because folks, a lot of ways in Florida, Miami is the laboratory where a lot of bad ideas for the Republicans go are born.

And the corruption down there is what you would expect.

So when that race was such a blowout, it struck me that like the economic damage the Republicans have done over 30 years and now with Trump icing that cake.

It really is a state sort of teed up for some major political changes.

You described a lot of what the FTC is doing, FTP is doing differently now.

And folks should know, you were the last Democrat to win a statewide race in Florida in 2018.

And it has been a state where the Republican money advantage is mattered and mattered and mattered and mattered.

And this year it still matters, but it seems to be mattering a bit less than it did in the past.

Talk to us a little bit where you see that.

I see it all over the place.

I mean, and to your point, you know, Republicans here in the state of Florida are taking, you know, we've had, I think, 25 billionaires have moved to our state in the last since 2020, and they're all funding the Republican Party.

So they have an unlimited war chest.

They're taking dollars from big tech companies, the data centers, AI worlds.

insurance, industry money, basically every industry money, because what they have done is they have written blank checks to these industries for the last 30 years.

I mean, look at Alligator Alcatraz.

$1.8 billion of no-bid contracts that went out to Republican donors and now Republican donors are giving it back to Republicans.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

We know what we are up against, which is why our volunteer apparatus is so important in this moment.

But we're seeing it all over the place.

We saw it when we had the special election in one of the Senate seats in Tampa Bay.

Our candidate was outspent 10 to 1.

We are seeing it, obviously, in the governor's race.

That's my old neighborhood where he won.