President Joe Biden, spending part of Tuesday in former President Donald Trump’s backyard in South Florida, made a bold prediction: “I think the Democrats can win in Florida.”
Biden wasn’t lured to South Florida by the weather, even though the temps — chilly to Floridians — are warmer than Washington, D.C. He didn’t come because of the 30 electoral votes Florida will award in November, even though they’re more than 10% of the number needed to win the presidency.
He may not have been motivated by the ability to fly in on Air Force One at Palm Beach County International Airport — minutes away from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home — where he landed at about 12:45 p.m. Biden came for the thing that frequently brings presidential candidates, and presidents, to the state — campaign cash.
At major campaign fundraisers on Tuesday in Jupiter and Miami, he told his supporters in the Republican state they were why Trump will be “a loser again.”
‘Dose of ‘Trump-ism”
While Air Force One was taxiing at PBIA, passengers on one side of the plane could see Trump’s red, white and blue Boeing 757, emblazoned with his name in gold. Biden was greeted by Palm Beach County Mayor Maria Sachs and West Palm Beach Mayor Keith James.
There was a less welcoming greeting outside the airport, where a hundred or more Trump supporters were gathered. Some said “Trump 2024” while others’ signs proclaimed “Trump won,” “Biden treason,” and “f— Biden.”
Speaking at the Pelican Club in Jupiter, less than an hour away from Mar-a-Lago, Biden told the audience of lawyers that Florida has had “a real dose of ‘Trump-ism'” and was met with laughter.
“But here in Florida, we have to organize, mobilize the vote,” he said. “I think we can win Florida.”
The president spoke for 20 minutes Tuesday afternoon, his topics ranging from the lowering inflation and a strengthening economy to infrastructure projects and climate change investments, his administration’s gun control efforts and a vow to restore Roe v. Wade. Biden said Republicans were determined to undo his administration’s progress, such as limiting the cost of insulin and other prescription drugs, and he accused Trump of “threatening our very democracy.”
He said Trump left the country in a “mess,” with the COVID-19 pandemic and a reeling economy. He lambasted Trump for saying he hopes the economy would crash during Biden’s presidency in a recent interview aired on Lindell TV, created by staunch supporter and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
“It’s unbelievable. I think it’s close to un-American,” he said. “How can anyone — especially a former president — wish for an economic crash that would devastate millions of Americans?”
He also slammed Trump for a recent comment about the Jan. 4 school shooting in Perry, Iowa, where two people, including a sixth grader, were killed and several others were injured.
“What did he have to say? It’s hard to believe what he said. He said — when they asked him what he thought about it, he said, quote, you just got to ‘get over it,'” Biden said. “I’m not making this up. It’s almost unbelievable. You just got to ‘get over it.’ But we’re not going to get over it. We’re going to stop it.”
Biden said he ran in 2020 “to restore the soul of America.” He called the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol an “insurrection.”
“Folks, the truth is there are lies and there is truth,” he said. “We have to make clear where we stand — that we stand with the truth — and we’ll defeat his lies.”
He ended with a call to maintain the Democrats’ Senate majority and to win back the House of Representatives.
His motorcade arrived back at PBIA shortly before 3:30 p.m. with a few of his supporters there waiting. One held a sign that said, “Thank you for saving us.”
Biden said a brief hello to his brother Frank, who lives nearby.
Pinecrest event
Biden arrived at Miami International Airport on Air Force Once shortly after 4 p.m. and was greeted by Miami-Dade County Mayor Danielle Levine Cava.
The second event began about 6:30 p.m. on the lush tropical grounds of the Pinecrest home of Chris Korge, a lawyer, real estate developer, prominent Democratic fundraiser and the national finance chair of the Democratic National Committee and the Biden Victory Fund.
A lectern was set up on a raised terrace in the back of the sprawling home, looking down on a lake and guests gathering under a canopy of palm trees. Korge began by saying the event raised $6.2 million.
“This event is breaking all records,” Korge said. “This is the biggest event for anybody running for president in this state. And you know why that is? Because of this guy here,” he said, with the president standing to his side.
Biden, standing under palm trees near the home’s swimming pool, spoke for 14 minutes and gave the same remarks from the Jupiter event.
He again touted the economic progress under his administration, the reduction in prescription drug costs, the gun safety law passed in his administration and praised U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, who is from Miami.
Some of the audience’s loudest applause of the night came when Biden voiced his support for abortion rights and when he said he would again ban assault weapons, referring to the decades-old previous ban that was allowed to expire.
He said he and Vice President Kamala Harris would fight for abortion rights, and if the Democrats win control of the House and Senate in this year’s elections, along with him being reelected, they’d put abortion rights in federal law.
He repeatedly excoriated the former president, referring several times to “Trump and his MAGA friends,” who he said don’t believe climate change is a problem, who he said want to undo the Affordable Care Act and who he said “are determined to take away the $35 a month insulin payments and make it no longer the law.”
Biden said Trump’s defeat helped restore America’s position and image internationally. Trump and the potential consequences of the Jan. 6 riot came up with all the world leaders he met with after taking office, many of whom he already knew from his years in public life, he said.
“I’ve been around for awhile. I know I don’t look it, but I’m a little old,” he said.
The campaign declined to say how many were in attendance. It appeared fewer than 100 attendees were there.
The crowd included many Florida political leaders and Democratic activists, including Levine Cava, former state Rep. Joe Geller, “The View” co-host Ana Navarro and Andrew Weinstein of Broward, who was appointed in 2022 by Biden as a U.S. public delegate to the United Nations.
Biden alluded to the balmy evening, in the upper 60s at Korge’s home. “I don’t want to go home,” he said as he concluded his remarks.
As he finished, attendees began chanting, “Four more years.” Bruce Springsteen’s “We Take Care of Our Own” played. As reporters left the venue, a group of about two dozen people were protesting with handmade signs and a Palestinian flag was seen.
Biden did not talk about the Middle East at either event.
The motorcade arrived back at Air Force One shortly after 7 p.m., far ahead of schedule, for Biden’s return trip to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
Sign for Democrats?
Although Florida’s wealthy donors make the state an important stop for Biden, it’s unlikely to swing his way in November. President Barack Obama won Florida in 2008 and 2012, but Trump carried the state in 2016 and 2020.
Still, the visit prompted some leading Florida Democrats to stoke the embers of optimum in the face of long odds.
“I think it’s a strong signal that the national party is paying attention to what happens in Florida and that they want to be here and they want to invest here,” Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic leader in the Florida House of Representatives, said in a news conference Monday.
Driskell pointed to her party flipping a Central Florida House District from Republican to Democrat in a special election earlier this month and flipping the Jacksonville mayor’s office from Republican to Democrat last year.
“Suddenly you start to see signs of life in Florida and that there is a pulse here, and the Democrats are not dead,” Driskell said. “We’re very much alive.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried offered a similar assessment. She said she believes Biden will win Florida this year. Proposals that would restrict abortion and legalize marijuana could be on the ballot, driving up turnout among Democrats and left-leaning independents.
“President Biden knows that Florida is worth fighting for,” she said in a statement Tuesday.
Fried said Biden’s “early visibility in Florida shows that the Biden campaign is serious about competing in the Sunshine State.”
Florida had long been seen as the premier battleground swing state, home to the biggest cache of electoral votes that either party could win in a presidential election. But it’s become a Republican red state, instead of a purple blend with Democratic blue.
Florida’s rightward lean reflects the arrival of retirees from the Midwest and Northeast who generally favor Republicans, but also the political preferences of the state’s Latino population, which makes up 18% of its electorate.
- A little more than a decade ago, immediately after President Barack Obama won Florida in 2012 on his way to a second term and then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson won reelection, Democrats had 558,272 more registered voters than the Republicans. There are now 779,701 more registered Republicans than Democrats in Florida.
- In the years since the 2012 election, Republicans have won 16 statewide elections. Democrats won just one, for state agriculture commissioner in 2018.
- Trump won Florida in 2016 and 2020 and Republicans dominate the Florida congressional delegation, and control supermajorities in the state Senate and House of Representatives.
Still, Sean Foreman, political scientist at Barry University, said Biden and Democrats are right not to write it off and instead “see if it’s looking any more favorable to Democrats this year, and whether it’s worth going all in and competing for Florida.
“Florida is solidly red in terms of public opinion polling right now,” Foreman said. “But before they give up completely on Florida … I think they need to make a couple of visits to really test the temperature of Florida Democrat and see if it’s possible to make a run at this state or if it’s just pie in the sky thinking.”
Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political scientist, said Biden has a chance in Florida given the high number of independents, who make up about a quarter of the electorate. Wagner also said the inability of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature rein in the state’s skyrocketing housing prices and insurance rates could cost the party votes.
“The assumption that Florida will necessarily be an easy victory for Republicans is questionable,” Wagner said.
Both Florida parties have been hit by infighting. The Republicans recently ousted their state party chair, Christian Ziegler, after he got caught up in a sex scandal.
The state Democratic Party has long been plagued by disorganization. After the 2020 election, party employees learned that their medical insurance had not been paid, leaving them uncovered and some with significant doctor bills.
Fundraising landscape
Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee reported raising more than $97 million in the final three months of last year.
Biden isn’t unique in visiting wealthy enclaves in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
With an abundance of wealthy year-round and seasonal residents, South Florida has long been a destination — especially in winter — for candidates in both parties. (In the summer, some of those same potential donors are easier to find in places like the Hamptons on Long Island.)
On Wednesday, media reports and political activists have said, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has fundraisers planned for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties. Neither her campaign nor the super PAC supporting her provided any details.
And Bloomberg News reported that Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, is holding fundraising events in February at Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Palm Beach.
Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, slammed Biden for devoting the trip to donors.
“Joe Biden is only talking to Floridians who can shell out $250,000 to be in the same room as him because he knows that he can’t win over everyday voters. As inflation continues to cripple families in the Sunshine State and across the country, it’s no question that Florida’s election results will be even more embarrassing for Biden this year than in 2020,” she said in a statement.
Biden didn’t have any official business scheduled in Florida, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters traveling on Air Force One.
She didn’t say what share of the travel costs would be covered by the government and what share by the campaign. “There are well-established guidelines that we always follow,” she said. “In every case we follow the letter of the law in terms of the cost sharing.”
This report includes information from The Associated Press.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Anthony Man can be reached at and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Post.news.
