Q&A of the Day – The State of Palm Beach County’s Political Parties
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Submitted via talkback pertaining to the state of Palm Beach County’s political parties. Most specifically, the state of the Democrat party which is rumored to be ready to censure their party chair.
Bottom Line: Much like the political trends in the state of Florida, the trends of Palm Beach County’s two leading political parties are the same. It’s a tale of one party that’s on the rise with another that’s in decline. They’re actually trends which have been in place for well over a decade. Florida’s Democrat party peaked in terms of dominance over Republicans in 1978. And in Palm Beach County specifically, the peak for Florida’s Democrats was represented in the 2008 election cycle. It’s been said that the biggest long-term impact of the pandemic is that it took the trends that were already in place and advanced them by a decade. Last November’s historic Republican wins in Florida – which resulted in a record number of elected Republicans top to bottom, and without a statewide elected Democrat for the first time since reconstruction, was no doubt a rapid acceleration of that long-term trend. It was also one that left Democrats specifically soul-searching – and perhaps nowhere more so than right here in Palm Beach County.
While Palm Beach County was far from the only traditional blue county to break mostly for Republicans last year, remarkably seven of Florida’s 12 Democrat majority counties did, the story which played out here was likely the most remarkable. Miami-Dade received more national attention for breaking right, largely because they’re not only the largest blue county which broke red, but the largest county in the state period. However, in terms of political change it was even bigger here. Miami-Dade had previously shown a proclivity for breaking towards the right. They voted for Jeb Bush for governor. Palm Beach County did not. And not only did Palm Beach County break for Governor DeSantis, but the county also broke for the entire Republican cabinet. Maybe that’s happened before but if it has, I couldn’t find a record of it. Like the state Democrat Party that sent PBC’s DEMs in search of new leadership. There was heated competition for the post, however unlike the state party there was essentially parity in the final leadership vote.
Last December Mindy Koch won the Palm Beach County Democratic Party Chair vote by one vote, 160-159. It wasn’t just that close at the top either. All leadership positions up for vote by the party were won by one or two votes. There were clearly two different factions with two different views on the direction Palm Beach County’s Democratic Party should go. That said, Koch and her team of leaders won, and she articulated her two top goals. Her top priority was increasing Democrat voter registration. Her second priority was candidate retention and recruitment via a “listening tour”. Well, I don’t know how the “listening tour”, went (or is still going?)? But I know how voter registration is going.
At the peak of the Democrat voter registration advantage in Palm Beach County Democrats held an advantage of 138,400 voters. Democrats now hold an advantage of 95,211 registered voters. Most importantly, as it applies to Mindy Koch and her leadership team, the trend continues to not be their friend. Florida’s Democrats have continued to lose ground to Republicans in each of the first five months of this year with a net partisan loss of 7,224 voters year-to-date as of yesterday. Given last November’s stunning losses, the highly continuous leadership battle, and razor thin margin of victory for Koch and her team, and what appears to be an apparent failure by them to stop the bleeding in the early going of an off-election year – tensions are no doubt running high. And the demand for change at the top by those who wanted a different direction to begin with is no doubt growing louder from within. Beyond that it’ll likely not surprise you that I don’t have specific insight into what exactly will be within Democrat party circles, but I do know that patience has already worn thin.
A Sun Sentinel article in March detailed the internal issues at play with Palm Beach County’s Democrats. The last line from the story was a quote from Koch saying: "Give me another six months”. That was three months ago. There was another quote in the article, this from the author that weighs heavy as well: It’s impossible to see how Democrats can ever win another statewide election in Florida without Palm Beach, the state’s third-largest county, home to more than a million voters. With every month, where the only real measuring stick we have about how things are going in an off-election year is voter registration...it appears its only becoming worse for Democrats here. I’m not surprised they’re on the verge of a mutiny. Meanwhile, there’s little doubt Palm Beach County Republican Chair, and County Commissioner Michael Barnett, who so brilliantly has played the long game in growing the Republican brand locally, is more than happy to watch it all happen.