(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Flipping Florida’s Panhandle in 2024: Why It’s Possible [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-08-31  

I’m Gay Valimont, the Democrat candidate against Matt Gaetz, if you haven't heard my story, you can see my intro article here. I’m an organizer by trade- not electorally, I worked with Moms Demand Action as the lead in FL for a long time. Now I’m running for Congress, and so far many of my skills have transferred over. But, my degree in sports medicine means I’m at least fair at math, so let’s crunch some numbers shall we?

Let’s get one thing out of the way that I’m growing tired of hearing from other Democrats- I know this is going to be an uphill battle. I know this isn’t going to be easy. But in the last 8 years, we haven’t had a candidate run a genuine general election campaign against Gaetz yet. I’m not going to speak ill of my predecessors, each brave for running, but none of them had robust ground campaigns that were designed to connect with people. Notice, I didn’t say, Democrats, I said people.

Initially, this gap looks incredibly intimidating, and without any context, it’s easy to make that assumption. Only 59,471 of those votes are Democrats. There are 126,643 democrats in the district. That means over half stayed home. So that’s the first issue- we have to drag 60k Democrats to the polls, to get them excited about something.

We are going to do that by recruiting good Democrats to run for EVERY local race- school board, state house, state senate, county boards, etc. I can’t possibly get to all 126k by myself, but if we recruit strong community members to run, the people will turn out for them. Meanwhile, I’ll be a very present and local candidate. I plan on attending every community event I’m invited to. I love meeting new people, and find we often have more in common than not.

We already know there are at least 30,000 Independents & Republicans who will vote for me. Now we are getting really close to pushing us over the edge, and have tightened the margins quite a bit. But, we still need to win over some Republican votes. That means talking about issues that resonate with everyone. About hearing about budget projects in districts that they want funded.

Over 30,000 Republicans voted against Gaetz in the primary. Identifying those individuals, and meeting them in the middle is going to be critical to victory. But once again, I’m confident that by being in the neighborhoods, and actually talking to the voters we can win them over.

Again- I KNOW it’s not going to be easy. But completely unrealistic? Nah.

Right now, as we are a year out from even the primary, the two things I’m focused on are raising money so I can reach voters, and recruiting candidates for down-ballot races.

As always, you can follow me at @gayforcongrss on all social media.

If you want to help me reach my end of month goal (only about $2000 away), you can always click here: secure.actblue.com/...

Thanks for always being a place where I can speak my mind.

-Gay Valimont

Candidate for FL’s 1st Congressional District

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/31/2190735/-Flipping-Florida-s-Panhandle-in-2024-Why-It-s-Possible

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/