Why Democrats Need Nikki Fried to Win Back Lost Ground in Miami-Dade County
If Democrats hope to win statewide in 2022, Miami-Dade County is critical. Nikki Fried has proven capable of doing that while Charlie Crist and Annette Taddeo have failed both separately and together.
If Democrats hope to win any of Florida’s five statewide elections in 2022, Miami-Dade County is critical. It is where Joe Biden lost Florida in 2020. It is where Andrew Gillum lost Florida in 2018. As you’ll read later, it is where Charlie Crist lost Florida in 2014.
Any Democrat is likely to win a solid majority of the votes in Miami-Dade. But any Democrat who is going to have a chance to win statewide is going to have to run up the score, securing the votes of at least 60% of Miami-Dade’s voters. After a generationally poor performance in 2020, winning big in Miami-Dade County may be the single biggest factor in whether or not a Democrat can win statewide in 2022.
Democrats have a clear choice for governor if running up the score in Miami-Dade County is a priority. Nikki Fried has already proven to be the strongest candidate in the field, and it’s not close.
We have two election cycles that are worth comparing Fried with her current opponents, Charlie Crist and Annette Taddeo (announcement expected on 10/18).
2018 - Fried’s First Run & Taddeo’s Re-election
In 2018, Fried was on the ballot as a first-time candidate. Her upset victory along with Bill Nelson’s defeat launched her from citizen to Florida’s top Democrat overnight.
Taddeo was on the ballot as a candidate for re-election to Florida Senate District 40.
In Miami-Dade County, Fried had the strongest numbers of any Democrat on the statewide ballot, pulling in 60.93% of the vote. Compare that to Bill Nelson, who received 60.57% of the vote, and the Andrew Gillum and Chris King ticket, which received 59.9% of the vote.
Despite well-established names like Gillum and Nelson at the top of the ticket, Fried, a Miami native proved to be the best bet for Democrats in Miami-Dade County in 2018. And it wasn’t close.
Miami-Dade County is rich with diversity. According to Matt Isbell’s MCI Maps data analysis of state senate and state house districts, Nikki Fried did well across the spectrum, running up the score in Black, Hispanic, and White communities as she won five the six state senate districts and a whopping fourteen of eighteen state house districts. By contrast Democrats won four of the six state senate districts and ten of the eighteen state house districts in 2018. In 2020, Democrats only won three of the six senate seats and eight of the eighteen house seats.
State Senate Districts
Taddeo ran for re-election in Senate District 40, having initially won the seat in a special election. In her re-election Taddeo pulled in 53.49% of the vote. But taking a look at other statewide candidates, Taddeo actually proved to be relatively weak in her own district. Gillum/King received 52.87% of the vote. Nelson received 54.14%. Fried received 53.97%.
Even in Taddeo’s own District 40 seat, where millions of dollars were spent to reelect her, she was topped by both Fried and Nelson, who likely spent less time in her district in the year than she did in any given week.
In District 39, a swing seat won by Republican Anitere Flores, Fried and Nelson each topped the statewide field, taking 51.17% of the vote.
In District 38, a safe Democratic seat help by Jason Pizzo that splits roughly evenly between Black, Hispanic, and White voters, Fried topped the field at 76.06%, nearly a full point ahead of Bill Nelson’s 75.1% performance and more than a point better than any other statewide candidate.
In District 37, where Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez won reelection in 2016, Nikki Fried again led the statewide field, taking in 56.98% of the vote.
In District 36, won by Republican Manny Diaz, Nikki Fried led all Democrats on the statewide ballot with 48.65% of the vote while Democrat David Perez lost to Diaz 54.1% to 45.9%.
And in Democratic Leader Oscar Braynon’s District 35 (which has a small portion of Broward County as well), one of the most heavily Black districts in Florida, Fried took 82.43% of the vote, trailing the Gillum ticket by just 0.02%.
State House Districts
There are eighteen state house seats that include Miami-Dade County. In 2018, Democratic candidates won ten of them, while Nikki Fried won a whopping fourteen of the eighteen seats. At no point in the decade the current districts have been in place have Democrats come close to holding fourteen of the eighteen seats.
Taking a look at the eight house seats won by Republicans in 2018, Nikki Fried won four of them and led all Democrats in three of them. She trailed only Bill Nelson in the five seats where she wasn’t the top Democrat.
Looking at the ten seats currently held by Republicans, Fried won six of them and and led all Democrats in five, with only Bill Nelson topping her in the other five.
If Andrew Gillum had been able to run up the score in Miami-Dade County the way Nikki Fried did, he’d be governor of Florida. Had Bill Nelson matched Fried’s success in Miami-Dade, he’d still be a United States Senator.
2014 - The Crist/Taddeo Ticket
Let’s take a look at the Crist/Taddeo ticket from 2014. I won’t go into raw numbers because the turnout increased massively in 2018.
As the nominees for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, Crist and Taddeo pulled in 58.44% of the vote in Miami-Dade County, a full 2.5% less than Fried did in 2018. 2.5% matters in even the smallest counties in Florida, but in Miami-Dade, that is a massive number.
Despite Crist’s universal name ID and Taddeo’s Miami-Dade roots and three prior runs for public office in the county, Fried outperformed them substantially from one gubernatorial cycle to the next.
Conclusion
Nikki Fried dominated Miami-Dade County in 2018, winning over Black, Hispanic, and White voters on her way to a becoming the on
ly Democrat to win a statewide election since 2012. She won in places Democrats don’t, and ran up the score in the places Democrats regularly win.
A repeat of Charlie Crist’s 2014 performance in Miami-Dade County would guarantee a win for Ron DeSantis in 2022. But a repeat of Fried’s 2018 performance would position Democrats to elect a governor of Florida for the first time in more than twenty years.
While Annette Taddeo will attempt to convince Democrats that she is the best choice to win back Hispanic voters and reverse the 2020 trends in Miami-Dade County, it is clear that her case is not only weak, but an outright fallacy. This piece didn’t address Taddeo’s two lost congressional races or her third place finish in a county commission race, but they certainly add to a history that shows Taddeo’s weakness as a candidate.
Nikki Fried isn’t just stronger than Taddeo in her own district, she’s clearly the candidate who can dominate Miami-Dade County the way that Democrats have to in order to have a chance to defeat Ron DeSantis in 2022.
If Democrats hope to win statewide in 2022, Miami-Dade County has to be a place where they build a massive lead. Nikki Fried has proven capable of doing that while Charlie Crist and Annette Taddeo have failed both separately and together.