A Jolly Good Time?

It was an embarrassment to then-President Barack Obama when David Jolly, a center-right Republican, won an open U.S. House seat in a special election in a Florida U.S. House district.  It was just another example of how Florida was slipping away from the Democrats.  Florida was a state where a progressive Democrat like Reubin Askew could serve two terms as governor in the seventies and where a more conservative Democrat like Bob Graham could succeed him and become so popular that he served three terms representing Florida in the U.S. Senate.  Jolly's victory in a district in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, was seen to be a symptom of a larger problem Democrats had in Florida.  Although Jolly lost his House seat in 2016, that was a negligible upward blip in an otherwise downward trend; Trump won the state in the presidential election that same year, and Marco Rubio was easily re-elected to the Senate seat that Bob Graham had once held.

So who would have thought that Jolly would lead a Democratic comeback?

Jolly is the Democratic candidate for governor of Florida, which would make him the second Florida Republican to become a Democrat and stand for the state's highest office.  The first, Charlie Crist, was, coincidentally, the chap who defeated Jolly for that House seat in 2016.  But while Crist was a Republican ex-governor who twice sought without success to regain the office as a Democrat, Jolly is a former Republican who had been an MSNBC contributing commentator who spoke out against Trump and MAGA and who left the Republican Party because there was no hope of returning the GOP to sanity.  Unlike Crist, he's now making his first effort to be elected governor.  Jolly could make history by becoming the first Democrat to win the office since 1994.  He not only has Bob Graham's politics, he has his daughter - Gwen Graham (below), who ran for governor of Florida in 2018, only to lose the primary to Andrew Gillum, who in turn lost the general election to Ron DeSantis - as his lieutenant-gubernatorial running mate.  

(So why didn't Gwen Graham run again in 2026 as soon as a term-limited Ron DeSantis was out of the way?  Because Graham, a one-term Democratic congresswoman who, like Jolly, lost her seat in 2016, is handicapped by a primary loss, just as her father lost his bid for President in the 2004 Democratic primaries, and the rule in general elections for Democrats also applies to primary elections - one strike and you're out.  Also, she's a woman.  Florida is one of seventeen states that has never had a female governor.  As for Andrew Gillum, the less said about him, the better.) 

Jolly should be well ahead in the polls, given how the affordability crisis has crippled people in the Sunshine State.  But Bryon Donalds, Jolly's pro-Trump Republican opponent, has only been two points at best behind Jolly, meaning that nearly half of Florida voters like the MAGA agenda Donalds is selling.  This indicates how difficult it still is for Florida Democrats to regain the relevance they once had.  But there is a silver lining.  Independents are beginning to break for Jolly, as reported by anti-Trump activist, former Republican consultant, and Florida resident Rick Wilson, which could put Jolly and Gwen Graham over the top, which would be good news for Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon (below).

Uh, yeah, about that . . . a few words about Angie Nixon.  A black female progressive in the Bernie Sanders mold, she upset Alexander Vindman, the Ukrainian Jewish immigrant serviceman who testified in Trump's first impeachment inquiry over Trump's efforts to blackmail Volodymyr Zelensky to get him to investigate Hunter Biden - in the primary for the Senate special election in Florida to fill the seat vacated by Marco Rubio.  She's running to be Florida's first black U.S. Senator and opposing interim Senator Ashley Moody to become Florida's first elected female U.S. Senator since Paula Hawkins, who was elected in 1980.  (Hawkins was one of sixteen freshman Republican U.S. Senators who rode in on Ronald Reagan's coattails, and she was considered the dumbest member of the Class of 1980, and this was the class that included Dan Quayle.  Oh yeah, she was also the first female Mormon senator.)

Anyway, Nixon's victory came out of nowhere, and in Washington, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who had been counting on a Vindman victory in the primary, was so appalled by a Sanders Democrat winning in an upset that he refused to back her, allowing Moody to get an edge.  Yet another reason why so many progressives despise Schumer so much.  Democratic socialists in Miami celebrated her win over Vindman by putting out an ad heralding the socialist revolution in Florida - hardly a way to curry favor with Miami's Cuban population - but the support she's gotten from black voters has allowed her to remain competitive.  She'd be a shoo-in if not for Schumer and his fellow New Yorker Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who leads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this cycle, who have continued to snub her.  And it is here where I end this discussion by coming back to David Jolly, who, thanks to a crackup in the Florida MAGA coalition, could win enough votes to help Nixon overtake Moody in the final 48 hours of this statewide Democratic campaign and allow her to ride on their coattails.

I'm rooting for Jolly.  And Graham.  And please, Florida, send another Nixon to Washington . . . Angie ain't no DICK!