Democrats say they’re on pace to register 200,000 new voters for November election

Terrie Rizzo is touting some significant registration numbers.

Florida Democrats and several allied groups working on voter registration declared Tuesday that they’re now registering new voters at a rate that should add 200,000 Democrats to the state’s rolls for the November election.

The Florida Democratic Party, Forward Florida, Alianza for Progress, and New Florida Majority held a joint press conference in Miami Springs on Tuesday to tout that Florida Democrats now number more than 5 million. Though the party said it has registered only 40,000 new voters since announcing its 200,000 goal last spring, the pace has picked up, Florida Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo said.

“When we launched this program in June of 2019, we were registering 28 people per day. As of today, our team is registering 446 voters each day — and that average is increasing each month. If we stay on our current trajectory, the party alone will collect 200,000 voter registrations by the launch of the General Election — compared to fewer than 20,000 voters registered by the party in advance of the 2018 election,” Rizzo said.

The statewide tallies researched last week by Florida Politics find Florida now has at least 13,698,000 registered voters, up about 420,000 since the general election in 2018. While Republicans made gains, Democrats still hold the slight registration advantage statewide. There now are more than 5 million registered Democrats, roughly 5,076,000 in the latest count. There are 4,821,000 registered Republicans. That gives Democrats a 37% to 35% advantage.

“We are seeing a diverse young group of voters joining Florida’s electorate. Over half the voters the Florida Democratic Party has registered are under 35. More than a third are African American and Caribbean, and 25% are Hispanic,” Rizzo said, detailing the party’s registration efforts. “We are taking no one for granted and are proud of our work to engage everyone.”

That has involved targeted efforts by Forward Florida, Alianza for Progress, and New Florida Majority.

Adriana Rivera of Alianza for Progress discussed engaging the many Hispanic and Latin American communities in Florida, including the Puerto Rican population concentrated in Florida’s I-4 corridor.

“Most of [Alianza for Progress and it’s coalition partners’] work in the I-4 corridor, where three-fourths of the Puerto Rican population live. The Puerto Ricans in Florida are about 1.3 million at this point,” she said. “We are very proud to be part of this coalition because the Latinos in Florida need to be reached out early, numerous times, and with nuance. The Latinos all have different interests where they are from.”