Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried proclaimed Thursday night that Florida Democrats are unified, though the words and visuals showed it’s much easier to talk about unity than actually achieve it.
“We are here tonight for one reason, to make sure that we are united,” Fried declared. “I will be out there every single day fighting for this ticket.”
Fried never mentioned Crist, the gubernatorial nominee who vanquished her in the Democratic primary on Tuesday. She didn’t use the word endorsement during her four-minute speech.
And the all-important visual images didn’t convey great enthusiasm. Before the speaking started, the winner and loser sat in the front row, with an empty chair between them. After Fried spoke, Crist gave his former foe a hug.
Crist started his remarks with praise: “What a great speech from Nikki Fried.” She might not have heard Crist say that; Fried was leaving the room as he started to speak.
Crist said Democrats are united by a common cause: ousting Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. “This unification is critical. It’s critical,” he said. “To have a united Democratic Party at this point in time is incredibly important.”
“We’re going to beat this guy,” Crist said. “We’re going to do it. … This unity is what Florida is all about. The current governor tears Florida apart.”
The audience — about 200 elected officials and party activists gathered at the Colony West in Tamarac — was enthusiastic, applauding and cheering for both.
The putative allies were joined by the rest of the statewide Democratic nominees: U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio; Aramis Ayala, the former Orange-Osceola state attorney running against Attorney General Ashley Moody; Adam Hattersley, who is running against CFO Jimmy Patronis; and Naomi Blemur, challenger to Wilton Simpson for agriculture commissioner.
“Democrats, let me say this. Let me remind you of who we are. Because if we forget, we might not do what we know we can do,” Demings said, adding that Democrats have “one common purpose, and that’s to save the very soul of Florida, and to save the very soul of our nation.”
The Crist-Fried words and visuals were highly anticipated after she spent months making increasingly strong attacks against him.
During the campaign, Fried portrayed Crist as an unprincipled opportunist, highlighted his past as a Republican, and sought to convince Democratic primary voters that he wasn’t a reliable champion of abortion rights.
The barrage from Fried prompted Crist to hit back, hard, in political mailings to Democratic primary voters and in TV advertising. Looking at the camera in a TV spot responding on the abortion issue, Crist said, “Nikki Fried isn’t being honest about my record.”
After conceding defeat immediately after the polls closed statewide Tuesday night, Fried said she was committed to seeing the entire Democratic ticket elected and did use the the word “endorse” that night — when pressed by a reporter — and later offered a not-so-enthusiastic observation that, “Anything is better than Ron DeSantis.”
Rick Hoye, chairman of the Broward Democratic Party, said Democratic voters were united in a desire to defeat DeSantis and other Republicans.
“Anybody who carries the narrative that we are not united, shut it down. Shut it down immediately,” Hoye said, adding that the fall campaigns won’t be easy for his party. “Make no mistake about it. We have an uphill battle.”
Republicans, he said, are in for a surprise. “We are here this evening because we all care about our future. And they don’t see us coming. They take us for granted and we’re going to use that to our advantage and punch them in the mouth in November,” Hoye said. “We are going to raise absolute hell from here until November.”
Earlier Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely seen as a possible 2024 Democratic presidential candidate, said he would contribute $100,000 to Crist’s campaign, writing on Twitter that it is “time to make Ron DeSantis a one-term governor.” The Crist campaign said it had raised more than $1 million in the first 24 hours after he won.
DeSantis has more than $130 million in cash.
The kumbaya moment has become a quadrennial tradition for Florida’s Democratic candidates for governor.
They fight, sometimes bitterly, in the primary, and then come together to profess their respect and admiration for one another and pledge to do everything they can to get the Democratic ticket elected.
Something else has become a tradition, one that Democrats don’t want to repeat: going on to lose the November election. Democratic candidates for governor have lost to the Republican in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018.
Crist, just like any nominee, doesn’t want antipathy from the defeated opponent’s supporters to linger and get in the way of mobilizing party activists and voters for the general election. And disunity could alarm potential financial contributors — who the Democrats desperately need to mount a competitive campaign.
Democrats’ desire to stop DeSantis is so great that it could overcome lingering disappointment among Democratic activists who supported the loser — and whose time and energy is needed for November.
Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at Florida Atlantic University, said a united party “is probably the best chance that they have of trying to be competitive in November. The Democratic Party of Florida has not been particularly successful at winning statewide races.
“At some point, you have to figure out how to unify enough of their voters to win some of these. A lot of them have been competitive, but they haven’t won.”
In 2006, the losing candidate, Rod Smith, waited three weeks before appearing with nominee Jim Davis and offering his support
Since then, Democrats have started making a show of unity quickly after the primary. The Broward Democratic Party reserved Thursday night’s venue long ago and scheduled a kickoff event there.
Three days after the 2018 primary, nominee Andrew Gillum appeared with the second- and third-place finishers, Gwen Graham and Philip Levine. And two days after the 2014 primary, nominee Crist appeared with the candidate he defeated, Nan Rich.
Richard DeNapoli, Broward’s state Republican committeeman, said he didn’t think Fried endorsing Crist would make much difference. “Obviously her support was pretty weak. She got blown out,” DeNapoli said.
Crist, a three-term Democratic congressman from St. Petersburg and a former longtime Republican, including his previous term as governor from 2007 to 2011, won 59.7% in the primary. Fried, serving her first term as state agriculture, finished 24-points behind, with 35.3% of the vote.
DeNapoli said the location of the unity event — Broward has the largest number of registered Democrats of any county in the state — “makes perfect sense for their side. It’s like a Republican going to The Villages.”
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com or on Twitter @browardpolitics
