Last Wednesday, Rock Aboujaoude, Jr. became a candidate for Congress from Florida’s Twelfth District, giving Democrats a candidate in all 28 of Florida’s Districts. Without Rock’s candidacy, thousands or even tens of thousands of Democratic votes for Joe Biden for President and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for Senate would be lost. Help Rock at his page here. Our goal now is the FL State Legislature.
Even though Florida’s Congressional and State Legislative Districts are heavily gerrymandered, having a candidate in every district is critical. Why?
- This year in FL there are two statewide elections (Senate and President), 28 US House Elections, and about 120 state legislature elections. Every vote cast for a Dem candidate for the state legislature is also a vote for Biden, Mucaserel and U.S. House candidates.* Remember, in 2018, Rick Scott won by only 10,000 votes. If 40 candidates had been added in uncontested districts, 250 votes per district would have re-elected Bill Nelson..
- Running candidates in every district works over time. VA Dems swept the Governor and legislature in 2019 when almost all districts were contested, then lost offices in 2021 when they weren’t.
- A candidate can get thousands of votes for Democrats without spending a dime. In VA in 2021, Dem candidate Natalie Short received over 11,000 votes without raising a penny:
- Having Democrats in “safe” R districts forces Republicans to spend money there, taking away resources from other Districts.
- Having a candidate energizes Democrats in the district to participate and donate on state, congressional and Presidential levels. In the words of David Pepper, author of Saving Democracy:
The local neighbor who taught for 20 years—who’s running for a state House seat that we haven’t contested for decades or for years—that person is also here for democracy. They are bringing accountability to bear against an extremist. They’re raising awareness of what that state House has been doing, what it could be doing differently, and I’m going to get excited about that role as well, because I understand that it’s institutions like state Houses and school boards that right now are the front lines in this battle over democracy.
Right now we are recruiting 6 State Senate and 38 State House seats currently without a candidate. The main reason? A fee of $1,781.82 . Lots of people giving even small amounts ($5, $10, $20, $50) can get us to the goal. Great people working in Florida are leading the charge to crowd-source this amount, plus about another $1,800 to run a minimal campaign or a total of $150,000 for about 40 candidates.**
Getting about $150,000 through crowd funding is possible. How do we know? Because we did it in 2020!
Over the next few days we will be linking Act Blue pages for the candidates individually and collectively.
In the meantime, your contributions to this page will help in the effort.
Please pledge to contribute in the poll below.
*Ticket splitting will not be a factor.
** Please don’t confuse this for giving a lot of money to one candidate in a very red district. The goal is the cumulative effect of a few hundred or a few thousand votes in about 40 FL Districts.