Melissa Ross
Fresh off the heels of his victory in the New Hampshire primary, supporters of Bernie Sanders down here in Florida say they’re energized for their candidate heading into the state’s winner-take-all March 15 primary.
“Support for Bernie has grown exponentially,” said Matt Killen, a North Florida organizer for the Sanders campaign.
“It started with a few social media posts. Then our first organizational meeting had 140 people. From there, it just grew, and grew.”
In a news release, the Jacksonville for Bernie Sanders campaign notes that PBS visited FSCJ’s Downtown Campus Wednesday morning, “to highlight the Sanders’ campaigns efforts to reach out to minority voters, specifically African-American young voters, for a documentary on the topic in Duval County.”
Thursday night, the #jaxforbernie contingent and the Jacksonville Young Dems will be #feelingthebern as they host a Democratic Presidential Debate watch party for both Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters at Spliff’s Gastropub.
“We will be at capacity,” said Killen, who stresses the important thing is the turnout, not which candidate his party supports. Duval County has historically been GOP territory (although Barack Obama nearly won it twice.) The energetic young millennials crowding the Sanders events and attracting massive social media energy in Duval said they’re trying to translate that excitement into real long-term organization and political muscle – no easy task in conservative North Florida.
“A lot of what we’re doing in Jacksonville is trying to step up our leadership as Gen Xers and millennials, to not necessarily take our city back, but to turn it blue. We’re going to turn Duval to Blue-Val!” Killen said.
“We’re working to sign people up to be delegates, we’re increasing outreach, and building out the organization. These are long-term efforts.”
