Democrat campaigners have all but abandoned Florida, spending very little money on advertising Vice President Kamala Harris in the nation’s largest swing state, where polls show a significant advantage for former President Donald Trump.
In September 2020 alone, President Joe Biden’s campaign spent $38 million on television ads in the state and Trump spent $19 million, NBC News reported, citing data from AdImpact.
During the midterm elections of 2022, national Democrat organizations spent $2 million in Florida — a massive drop from the nearly $60 million they spent in the state in the previous midterm cycle.
In the current cycle, Democrats have spent just $2.1 million total on presidential TV ad campaigns, the outlet noted.
“The decrease in spending mirrors the election ratings provided by Cook Political Report, indicating that the statewide races were no longer as competitive as they had been in the past,” AdImpact’s analysis, published Wednesday, states.
NBC’s Matt Dixon referred to this phenomenon “as the first time in recent political memory” that Democrats have “left Florida as a comparative afterthought.”
With the obvious lack of financial support from Democrats at a national level, some state party operatives have voiced concerns about not having “real investment.”
“With the work we have been doing and the grassroots momentum, Florida is competitive in 2024,” Florida Democratic Party communications director Eden Giagnorio told NBC. “Now imagine what we could achieve with real investment.”
Various recent polls have indicated that Trump is maintaining a strong lead over Harris in the state, including a McLaughlin & Associates survey conducted August 6-8 among 800 voters that showed the former president with an eight-point advantage over his Democrat opponent.
A recent USA TODAY/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV survey that polled 500 likely Florida voters showed Trump leading Harris by five points — 47 percent to the vice president’s 42 percent.
A memo circulated recently by the state’s Democrat party claimed that they are, in fact, very active in the state.
“It’s a stark contrast to the Trump operation, which is virtually non-existent in Florida, as our organizing apparatus flexed its muscle to deliver a humiliating defeat to Ron DeSantis in the first real test of this election cycle,” the memo said, after multiple DeSantis-endorsed school board candidates were knocked out during the August 20 primary.
According to Dixon, this marked the governor’s “first real political loss in years.”
Trump senior adviser Danielle Alvarez told the reporter that Florida is “Trump Country,” saying he was wasting his time reporting on it and adding, “It’s as embarrassing as Kamala Harris wasting her time in Florida.”
Harris has not made a single trip to the state since replacing Biden as the Democrat candidate in July and is sending her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, in her stead for her upcoming swing state tour, NBC reported.
“To the folks who keep asking me if Harris can win here, the answer is complicated,” longtime Florida Democrat operative Steve Schale wrote in an opinion for Florida Politics last month.
“The reality is their math doesn’t run through Florida — so without the kind of spend you need to get a win, the answer is almost surely no.”
