(Photo credit: Florida Democratic Party)
While Florida Democratic Party (FDP) Chair Nikki Fried has already announced that she is running for a full-four year term following another bad election cycle for the state party, there is now competition for the role of party first vice chair in an election slated for later this month.
Jayden D’Onofrio, the 20-year-old chair of the Florida Future Leaders PAC, a political committee he created to fund the Florida High School Democrats and the Florida College Democrats, announced his candidacy for the post on Thursday.
“This past election’s results really showed me the importance of building new leadership within the party and some new strategies that we need to implement and make sure that we actually have youth outreach within the party but also just general effectiveness,” D’Onofrio told the Phoenix.
“I’ve had people approach me about wanting to get into the race and talk about getting more youth leadership in the party, talking about building up that future into the party, and building out some of those new strategies that we need to implement and actually make sure that we’re building gains into the state.”
Also entering the contest is Duval County Democratic Executive Committee Chair Daniel Henry, 33, who has led that local party since 2019. He’s also a member of the Democratic National Committee.
“I’ve been thinking about running for first vice chair since the November election,” Henry said on Thursday. “It’s something that I’ve always thought that I wanted, to make sure that I not only stayed engaged in the state party, because I’ve been doing that over the course of the last six years, but I also wanted to see the best ways that I can make an impact.”
Henry, the son of Haitian immigrants, said he spoke last month with siting Vice Chair Judy Mount (who is not running for re-election) to get a better idea about the position and how much of a difference he could make if elected, and decided shortly afterwards to “put my hat in the ring.”
Student power
D’Onofrio is a student at Florida State University. His Florida Futures Leaders PAC collected more than $1 million in 2024. He says he’s ready for any critique that at the age of 20 he’s too young to serve as vice chair for the party.
“I expect that’s going to happen, and what I would say is just watch what I do, watch what we’ve accomplished already,” he responds.
“When we wanted to build youth organizing in the party and it couldn’t happen, what did we do? I created the Florida Future Leaders PAC and raised $1 million among all students. I don’t think that there’s ever been a PAC or organization all led by students that’s ever raised $1 million and put out these historic organizing numbers.
“But even if you don’t want to pay attention to the effort, what I’ve done and what our team has done in the past, what I ask you to do is also look towards the future. This my future, this is our future. We have to grow up through what’s going to happen in this state and the Republican stranglehold that exists, and we have a level of determination — I have a level of determination — that I think only youth will be able to rival in this state.”
Brutal cycle
The 2024 election cycle was a brutal one for Florida Democrats, and the following month has only become worse. They failed to break the supermajority enjoyed by the Republican Party in the Legislature and saw Donald Trump and Rick Scott rack up victories in the two biggest contests in the state with 13-point margins of victory.
Their minority status in the 120-member House of Representatives has taken a blow in the weeks since the election, with two members of their caucus — Hillsborough’s Susan Valdés and Palm Beach County’s Hillary Cassel — bolting to join the Republicans, reducing their ranks to just 33 members, compared to 87 Republicans.
“I think some of our [legislative] seats just lacked investment in general,” D’Onofrio said.
“We got outspent by huge numbers in some of these seats in some of our Legislature, and that’s going to happen because Republicans have so much more resources at their disposal. But for us, we have to be as efficient and effective as we possibly can with our organizing, to be able to make up that gap. And there are certain campaigns where I just didn’t see that. There’s certain counties, for example, that lack training and investment from our state party that otherwise, if we were able to do that, we’d be able to draw down the margins in some of these places.”
He added; “Our message was faulty at best, and I think that we have a lot of work that we can do there.”
Gains in Duval
As the head of the Duval County Democratic Party, Henry says he’s proud that he was part of the local leadership in 2020 when the county flipped to help elect Joe Biden as president, the first time Duval had voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976. He also takes pride in seeing Democrat Donna Deegan upset the northeast political establishment by winning the Jacksonville mayoral contest in 2023. (Duval did go for Ron DeSantis for governor in 2022 and Trump by two percentage points over Kamala Harris for president.)
“Jacksonville has shown itself to be a critical part of any candidate that is running on a statewide level on both sides that is necessary in order for them to be able to win,” he said.
“I think that there’s lessons that we have seen here locally that can be really exhibited on a statewide level. Especially when it comes to focusing on an economic message. Making sure that people not only identify the party as their right choice but also the candidate as the right choice and really bringing it down to the neighborhood level to understand the stakes of this election.”
Like D’Onofrio, he questions some of the party’s messaging in 2024.
“I think we were too heavily reliant on Amendment 3 and 4 to really push out the vote,” Henry said.
“In order for us to be successful on a statewide level moving forward, I think that we need to go back to the basics of focusing on these local races that not only present an opportunity for us to be able to have that personal relationship and conversation with voters, but allows for us to be able to expand the base of Democratic elected officials that we’re going to need in order for us to be successful, not only at the top of the ticket when we come to executive like positions like the governor or U.S. Senate, but also when it comes to county mayors races, county commissions, city councils, school board races. Those are the ones that are going to present the best opportunity for us to be able to see short-term gains that will lead to long-term results.”
D’Onofio is boasting of endorsements from Florida Senate Democratic Minority Leader Jason Pizzo, South Florida state Sen. Tina Polsky, and longtime political strategist Steve Schale.
Henry has yet to announce any endorsements, saying that he has a couple that he intends to announce in the near future. In addition to Mount, he notes Jacksonville-area state Sen. Tracie Davis (who will lead the caucus in 2026) as being “two great political mentors to me.”
The election for officers for the Florida Democratic Party will take place on Jan. 25.
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