Nikki Fried wins re-election as Florida Dems Chair by wide margin

Nikki Fried needs some time off.

Florida Democratic Party Nikki Fried won re-election to serve a full four-year term leading the state’s party, ensuring continuity atop an organization that has seen profound challenges in recent electoral cycles.

The incumbent’s triumph came despite significant losses in the 2024 elections where Republican Donald Trump once again won the state’s electoral votes and Republicans expanded a supermajority in the Florida House.

But Fried argued the party had successes as well, including retaking School Board seats and re-electing Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. And she said the party increased turnout even “in the face of nationwide Democrats’ collapse.”

“I will continue to strengthen our presence in our communities. I’ll continue to invest in data and have in downballot races so we build our bench, altogether with the launch of a new message and strategy, informed by your feedback on the issues that matter,” Fried said.

Fried overcame a challenge from former Florida Senate Minority Leader Audrey Gibson, while another prospective opponent fell into line ahead of the vote to re-elect her. Fried ultimately won the election by a vote of 296-83.

Gibson argued any gains made by the party in nonpartisan races downballot mattered little as Democratic lawmakers become further marginalized in Tallahassee.

She said the party drastically needs an economic message that resonates with voters, but her message ultimately didn’t resonate with the people deciding the next chair.

“We have to be attentive to diverse voices, to have multicultural communities, multiple multicultural partners, and take messages that they understand,” Gibson said. “Social issues don’t carry the day.”

Briefly, Suwannee County Democratic Party Chair Laura Jorgensen had run for State Chair, but she dropped out ahead of the party’s State Organization Meeting in Orlando and endorsed Fried for another term atop the organization.

Fried took over the party in 2023 after former Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Diaz resigned following landslide re-election victories by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and then-U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio in the 2022 Midterm Elections.

Arguably, the party performed better in the 2024 election under Fried than under Diaz in 2022, though it wasn’t competitive in either of the most important elections on the ballot in the respective years.

Roughly 4.7 million people voted for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump by 13 percentage points.

By comparison, just 3.1 million voters supported Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist two years ago when he lost to DeSantis by more than 19 points.

At the same time, fundraising declined. The party under Fried raised around $28 million dollars. By comparison, it raised more than $35 million under Diaz.

The election for chair was the first since a change in party rules empowering multiple votes for large counties, as opposed to weighting the votes of individual state committeemen and committeewomen based on county population. That meant more than 406 individuals eligible to vote were in attendance at the meeting.