Too little, too late: In final weeks, Kamala Harris campaign sidelined Florida leadership, launched ineffective field work
Kamala Harris. Image via AP.

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Sources say Jasmine Burney-Clark got benched amid personnel turmoil as the campaign struggled to best use minimal resources.

Few political consultants realistically believed Kamala Harris could win Florida’s electoral votes in November. However, sources inside the Florida arm of the Democratic presidential campaign say the extraordinary disorganization left the operation rudderless for weeks before the election.

Sources familiar with Harris’ campaign dynamics indicated that the campaign sidelined Florida Director Jasmine Burney-Clark in September.

“There was turmoil with staff,” one source told Florida Politics.

Burney-Clark remained on the payroll and denied being removed from a leadership position. She acknowledged that the campaign struggled with infrastructure and challenges in the field.

“This is a state battered and bruised by a Republican Legislature who does not want to see free and fair elections happen in this state,” she said. “That is not a recipe for success for everyone and not an environment anyone can thrive in.”

Harris campaign adviser Adam Hoyer said he effectively took over State Director duties in the first week of October, but never formally held the title. That switch occurred roughly one month before the Nov. 5 General Election, when Harris lost nationwide to Republican Donald Trump. In Florida, Trump won more than 56% of the vote, contributing to an electoral vote landslide.

Florida officials say that throughout the campaign, the state attracted little attention, even as Democrats openly asserted that it remained competitive.

“It’s no secret or surprise that the national campaign didn’t treat Florida as a true ‘battleground’ state — in funding, or principal/surrogate visits,” Hoyer said. “We advocated for more resources to come to Florida every single week, but ultimately, they decided that it wasn’t the best investment toward their win goal. So, we were very limited in what we had to work with — particularly in a state as big and as expensive as Florida.”

Sources within the campaign said the Florida team was not given the resources spent in the state in prior cycles. Moreover, the state campaign sat on available resources too long, failing to put a field organization in place early. Many Democrats working on other campaigns in the state suggested the Harris Florida team’s failures impacted other races negatively and ultimately contributed to a night of political failures even compared to low expectations for the blue team within the state.

In April, the Joe Biden campaign named a Florida team with Burney-Clark, founder of Equal Ground, serving as the State Director. Philip Jerez, Executive Director for the Florida Democratic Party, also came on as a senior adviser, as did Orlando political consultant Jackie Lee. But unlike any other major state, Burney-Clark said she was never assigned a deputy state director.

“I knew it was going to be a difficult election to invest at the levels we believed were necessary,” Burney-Clark said. “But I was happy to know post-2020 that the Biden-Harris campaign wanted to make an investment in the state of Florida.”

But Florida wouldn’t receive the same resources as prior cycles. While Biden’s 2020 campaign budgeted $20 million and established a staff of 400 in the state, the 2024 Florida campaign received just $5 million and built a staff of just over 100.

Sources say the frugal demands proved especially painful in Florida, where consultants had grown accustomed to swing state status. Every indicator, though, signaled such prestige was unmistakably in the past. Republicans were on track to have greater than a 1-million-voter registration advantage in Florida before the General Election. And Biden in 2020 unseated an incumbent Republican President without winning Florida, creating little incentive to invest in the state in 2024.

National developments rocked the campaign in Florida and across the country. In July, Biden announced he would not seek a second term and quickly endorsed Harris, his Vice President, as a successor. Harris quickly consolidated national support as the nominee and largely inherited Biden’s campaign as it promoted a new candidate.

At an August news conference, Burney-Clark and Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried told media the transition sparked renewed interest in the campaign. The state party reported more than 40,000 new volunteers signed up after Harris’ nomination.

Harris, though, never showed up to campaign in Florida for the rest of the cycle, despite numerous visits by her while Biden was the nominee.

Sources in the Florida campaign said that mattered little since the organization under Burney-Clark never set up a proper field operation. The campaign set up networking events for coalitions, something many staffers saw as more a chance for Burney-Clark to mingle with donors than any earnest attempt to win Florida’s electoral votes. The campaign authorized the hiring of just 40 field organizers, roughly one person per 1,000 volunteers.

But even those spots were not filled immediately. For a period, the Florida operation put a hiring freeze in place, though apparently without the authorization of the national campaign. Officials said many top applicants landed jobs in Georgia, Pennsylvania and other swing states before Florida started hiring.

Additionally, internal staff dynamics became a problem, with many complaining about Burney-Clark as a leader who publicly scolded staff. While Burney-Clark was never formally removed, national campaign officials informed Florida staffers that they would no longer report directly to her as of late September.

But that didn’t mean a successor in the Florida campaign immediately stepped up. Instead, multiple meetings passed with different people in charge. Internal managers tried to fill the leadership void, and the South Pod director for Harris’ campaign briefly directed state efforts. Ultimately, Hoyer, who had worked with the Harris campaign as a senior adviser since July, effectively took over the director’s duties.

Immediately, he renewed a focus on field organizing.

“The area where I thought it was most important to focus resources was our organizing program,” he said. “I am a longtime field guy; I got my start in politics as a Field Organizer for Obama in the Iowa Caucuses.”

The national campaign also authorized hiring 80 more field organizers, a move officials said was unrelated to leadership change. Several said the injection of new resources and the layering of Burney-Clark renewed the energy in the operation. But again, organizers felt handicapped by timing. Even fewer professional field organizers could be found weeks from the General Election, and the state campaign was still hiring people as late as Oct. 15. Additionally, Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the state in the final six weeks of the election cycle, hampering a field program that already launched late.

Hoyer remains proud of the work done during his short time in charge of the Florida campaign.

“We tripled the organizing staff during the final stretch, and I am really proud of the work that they did,” he said.

“In the final 10 days of the campaign alone, we knocked on 169,241 total doors and made 3,422,163 calls. That’s a Herculean effort that rivaled the numbers of some of the ‘true’ battleground-state operations on the campaign. And we spent nearly $100,000 in paid phones during GOTV — specifically to target Spanish speakers, Creole speakers and voters who lived in targeted State House districts across the state.”

The result was yet another statewide defeat for Democrats in Florida and a new round of finger-pointing.

Jacob Ogles

Jacob Ogles has covered politics in Florida since 2000 for regional outlets including SRQ Magazine in Sarasota, The News-Press in Fort Myers and The Daily Commercial in Leesburg. His work has appeared nationally in The Advocate, Wired and other publications. Events like SRQ’s Where The Votes Are workshops made Ogles one of Southwest Florida’s most respected political analysts, and outlets like WWSB ABC 7 and WSRQ Sarasota have featured his insights. He can be reached at [email protected].


15 comments

  • THE SAGE EARL PITTS AMERICAN

    November 12, 2024 at 8:23 pm

    Good evening, “DOOK 4 BRAINS LEFTIES, INDEPENDANTS, NPA’s, and Whatever,
    I, “THE SAGE EARL PITTS AMERICAN”, strongly suggest that you all pretend, henceforth, that you, one & all, voted for Trump if you are hetero and want to get any coochie for the next 12 guranteed years of Sage Republican control of our Great Nation.
    Any of you still bitterly clinging to “Identifying” as “DOOK 4 BRAINS LEFTYS” will only be able to engage in Perverse HomerTestical relations henceforth.
    IN CLOSING:
    If you like coochie just start telling everyone you voted Trump.
    Thank you,
    THE SAGE EARL PITTS AMERICAN

    Reply

    • Whoopi The G

      November 13, 2024 at 6:51 am

      What this Earl dude said is a trending thing in liberal groups all over. We rallied behind Harris but we all knew she was defective. Now that Trump flushed her none of us liberals want to be associated with what has been. I cant endorse pretending to have voted for Trump on the show. But thats what 1/2 of liberals are doing to lie low and wait to see if we get another shot at running America into the ground. “I voted for Trump” see how easy it is to say that?
      Woops

      Reply

  • TD

    November 13, 2024 at 1:07 am

    They have only themselves to blame.

    Reply

  • Cat 5 Sara

    November 13, 2024 at 5:37 am

    When you dealing with ignorant White people,who will not benefit from voting for Trump and Harris not addressing the racist trash that malign her,was her undoing

    Reply

    • Red Storm

      November 13, 2024 at 5:43 am

      She was a poor candidate from the get go. She simply couldn’t think on her feet and avoided any sort of press conferences or non scripted sit downs. An empty vessel she is that was pushed forward by coup leader Pelosi simply because of her skin color and sex. Bottom line she was a poor choice and too many Democrats forgot how poorly she did perusing the job back in 2020. Go cry with fellow racists Hostin and Reid.

      Reply

      • Cat 5 Sara

        November 13, 2024 at 4:44 pm

        Trump is the racist Trash,you too ignorant to realize that

        Reply

      • Cat 5 Sara

        November 13, 2024 at 4:45 pm

        They wealthy than your butch ass

        Reply

      • PAY UP

        November 14, 2024 at 6:27 pm

        MAGA TRASH, are you still telling lies on dems, shame on you you empty vessel. pay up for ruining my country.

        Reply

  • Mike Collins

    November 13, 2024 at 8:33 am

    Jen O’Malley Dillon publicly and recklessly wrote off Florida in early summer. I spent my DC career dealing with know-it-alls like her. They lose campaigns. “Target” 7 states … you limit your opportunities to 7 states.

    Reply

  • It's Complicated

    November 13, 2024 at 12:03 pm

    Trump won Florida by ~1.5M votes or just under 14%. Republicans only hold a 1M+ voter registration advantage over Democrats, here, so Trump clearly received a lot of NPA votes, too. Depending upon how you look at it, Democrats may have invested too much in Harris’ race in Florida. Would spending $300-400M more made Florida winnable for Harris? Unlikely. May have closed the margin a little bit, which may have helped with coattail races, but for Harris, winning Florida was never in the cards.

    Reply

  • Circumstances

    November 13, 2024 at 8:34 pm

    5 ways to turn people off. Or loose job openings.
    Bad Grammer
    Surpassing the dickery
    Rudeness
    Contemptuous
    Turning full circle into bag of dicks.

    Reply

  • Victoria A Olson

    November 13, 2024 at 10:22 pm

    I am sick & tired of every article that is published here is Slamming Democrats. Trump had 2 years to put together a campaign Harris had THREE MONTHS in that time she did a damn good job. There was a great ground game in EVERY state, the credit should go to her for the limited time she had to put together a campaign. That’s where the credit should go. Statistics state that 54% of Americans read at a 6th grade level, perhaps that’s where you should go with your criticism. They couldn’t read or understand the facts they believed the propaganda that shoved down there throat by Republicans. sadly all your articles have gone to the dark side. Perhaps it’s time to unsubscribe as I dislike reading LIES.

    Reply

    • It's Complicated

      November 14, 2024 at 5:16 pm

      Not sure that is fair. It is difficult to write positively about Democrats in an election where they were trounced – particularly in Florida. Nikki Fried made enormously idiotic decisions about use of resources as party chair, and she is accountable.

      The DNC, Harris, the Obama machine, and the political funders of the National Democratic Party toppled Biden at the 11th hour because a debate revealed to the public the true level of Biden’s cognitive decline. Everyone inside the White House already knew of his decline, but were going along with the lie. That is 100% on them.

      Reply

  • PAY UP

    November 14, 2024 at 6:22 pm

    IT’S COPLICATED, you gop wing nuts think that winning is an indicator of of worth. i would rather be an ethical election loser than a pos felon and win an election. you are biased, so you are part of the problem, not the solution. it’s complicated, based on your posts, you are a biased,, bigoted, pos. florida deserves you. pay up, you owe me for screwing my country up.

    Reply

    • It's Complicated

      November 20, 2024 at 10:40 am

      Are you capable of responding to actual comments posted?

      Unlike you, who openly hates conservatives and Christians, i don’t hate anybody. I work well with people from all walks of life and political perspectives. It is comical for you to hurl the “biased” accusation, LOL!

      Reply

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