{"id":164121,"date":"2026-02-21T20:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T20:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/164121\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T20:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T20:54:07","slug":"nikki-fried-discusses-florida-democrats-gains-obstacles-and-voter-registration-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/164121\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikki Fried discusses Florida Democrats\u2019 gains, obstacles, and voter registration concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried discussed the party\u2019s organizing strategy and challenges facing Democrats in Florida on This Week In Jacksonville.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fried, who previously served as the state\u2019s agriculture commissioner, said that when she became chair, the party launched the Pendulum program, a year-round statewide organizing model. <\/p>\n

\u201cLast year we hit and called over 3 to 5 million Floridians throughout the course of the state,\u201d she said. The program helped flip 17 seats in municipal elections, including Miami\u2019s mayoral election for the first time in 30 years.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the party\u2019s progress, Fried noted, \u201cThose over performances that we saw in 2025 were even five points higher than the national average.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fried identified voter suppression as the biggest obstacle for Democrats gaining ground in statewide races. She pointed to gerrymandering, restrictive voter registration laws, and the creation of an \u201celection police\u201d by Gov. Ron DeSantis that arrests individuals before elections.<\/p>\n

Fried said claims that new voting laws increase election security are humorous to her. <\/p>\n

\u201cRon DeSantis, over the last eight years that he\u2019s been governor, has said this is the most secure elections in the country…So all this is a ruse, including the new pieces of legislation that they\u2019re wanting to pass here in the state of Florida,\u201d Fried said.<\/p>\n

She explained that the proposed laws would make it harder for women who have changed their last name, naturalized citizens, seniors without driver\u2019s licenses, and others to vote. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat is all forms of voter suppression, not security,\u201d Fried said.<\/p>\n

This Week in Jacksonville<\/p>\n

More Stories Like This In Our Email Newsletter<\/p>\n

To watch our full interview with Fried and our conversation with News4JAX Political Analyst Rick Mullaney about the legal foundations behind major national issues, tune in to This Week In Jacksonville. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried discussed the party\u2019s organizing strategy and challenges facing Democrats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,116,118,117,11298,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-164121","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","11":"tag-jacksonville-news","12":"tag-nikki-fried","13":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}