Connect with us

Florida

Gen Z Florida Dems: ‘Youth voters will turn out en masse for Kamala Harris’

Published

on

Gen Z Florida Dems: ‘Youth voters will turn out en masse for Kamala Harris’


Generation Z-led Democratic organizations in Florida say that while the party’s presidential ticket is changing, there won’t be fewer young voters at the ballot box in November.

President Joe Biden has officially dropped out of the 2024 race for the White House. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his preferred successor, as did many others in the party, including many Florida Democrats.

Harris, in turn, said that her “intention is to earn and win” the party’s nomination.

Now, three groups of politically engaged young Democrats in the Sunshine State — Florida Future LeadersFlorida College Democrats and Florida High School Democrats — are lining up behind her.

Advertisement

So is Voters of Tomorrow, a national Gen Z political organization with chapters across the U.S., including Florida.

“Youth voters consistently turned out on behalf of President Biden in historic fashion because he always showed up for us on the issues, whether it was gun violence, climate change, or the Republican Party’s attacks on our very rights to bodily choice and autonomy,” Florida Future Leaders Chair Jayden D’Onofrio said in a statement.

“Now at this historic crossroads, youth voters will turn out en masse for Kamala Harris, to be our first woman President (who) will protect and expand our right to choice all across the nation. The contrast could not be clearer to our generation: vote for a young and always determined Kamala Harris, or watch the promise of our future fall apart at the hands of a 78-year-old convicted felon and sex offender who is at the front lines of waging the Republican Party’s war on our youth rights.”

Alexa Matos, Vice President of the Florida College Democrats, said her group is “fully supportive” of Harris for President.

“This shift does not change the work the Florida College Democrats are doing to mobilize students and Take Back Florida,” she said in a statement. “It only emphasizes the need for us to unite as a voting block against Donald Trump and Project 2025 in favor of progress.”

Advertisement

Voters of Tomorrow, which is working to mobilize young voters through more than 20 million in-person, phone and text contacts, thanked Biden for his “courageous announcement” Sunday and said in a statement that the group is ready to get young voters to the polls for Harris.

“As Vice President, Kamala Harris has been one of Gen Z’s fiercest champions. She has toured the nation to engage young people in the fight for reproductive rights, economic justice, climate action, voting rights, and LGBTQ+ equality. She oversees the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and stepped up to fund mental health care in schools,” the group said.

“Vice President Harris has presented a clear vision for our future — a vision that will undoubtedly fire up young people this election to defeat Donald Trump. Together, we will elect Kamala Harris this November so that she may continue the progress of the most pro-youth administration in our nation’s history.”

According to the Pew Research Center, in the last Presidential Election, Biden led Trump 59% to 33% among voters under 30 who did not participate in the prior two elections. Overall, Gen Z and Millennial voters favored Biden over Trump in 2020 by a margin of about 20 points, while Generation Xers and Boomers were more evenly split.

Tufts University projected in October that 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote in this year’s election — 8 million more than two years ago.

Near-record youth voter participation nationally in 2022 helped stymie what was expected to be a red wave of GOP victories. Instead, Democrats gained a U.S. Senate seat but lost nine seats in Congress — none more than in Florida.

Advertisement

At the state level, it was a bloodbath. Florida Democrats lost their only seat in the Cabinet and saw their already sizable disadvantages in the Senate and House grow by four and seven seats, respectively.

Tufts analysis of Midterm turnout provides insight into why. Florida had the ninth-worst participation rate for voters 18-29 among all U.S. states, with just 22.4% of Gen Z voters in Florida turning out at the polls in 2022 — a 9.1% decrease from two years prior.

That decline disproportionately hurt Democrats and progressive causes with which younger voters side more than most of their generational counterparts. Gen Z adults today account for 1 in 6 eligible voters, and 43% of them identify as liberal — the highest rate of any generation, according to a Public Religion Research Institute survey.

___

Editor’s note: This report has been updated to include an endorsement by Voters of Tomorrow.

Advertisement

Post Views: 0



Source link

Florida

Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’

Published

on

Florida college Republicans group chat reveals racist texts: ‘Avoid the coloreds like the plague’


It only took three weeks for a group chat for conservative students at Florida International University (FIU) to become a place where participants eagerly used racist slurs, prompting widespread condemnation from community leaders.

Abel Alexander Carvajal, secretary of Miami-Dade county’s Republican party and a student at FIU’s College of Law, reportedly started the chat after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, in September 2025.

But on Wednesday, the Miami Herald published leaked WhatsApp conversations in which the college Republicans made racist, sexist, antisemitic and homophobic comments, including variations of the N-word used more than 400 times. Knowledge of the chat’s existence was revealed on the same day that Republican lawmakers in Florida pushed forward a bill to rename a one-mile stretch of road alongside FIU in honor of Kirk.

William Bejerano, who the Herald noted once tried to start an anti-abortion group at Miami Dade College, was the most prolific user of the N-word. Using the slur, Bejerano called for dozens of acts of extreme violence against Black people, including crucifying, beheading and dissecting.

Advertisement

Dariel Gonzalez, then the College Republicans’ recruitment chair, who has recently applied to become a GOP committee member, responded to the calls for violence by saying: “How edgy.” He repeatedly used “colored” to describe Black people, including writing: “Ew you had colored professors?!” and “Avoid the coloreds like the plague,” according to the Herald.

Carvajal, who was appointed to a two-year role on the city of Hialeah’s planning and zoning board earlier this year, confirmed to the paper that the group chat was his doing, but he denied knowledge of the problematic comments until the publication contacted him about its logs last week.

“It’s been five months since this was sent and this is the first time I’ve seen this message,” Carvajal told the Herald.

“I guess to an extent, I bear some responsibility, cause I created a chat. But if I had seen this at the moment, I would have removed [Bejerano] from the chat. I probably would have even blocked his number.”

The Herald found that Carvajal had deleted 14 messages sent by other participants in the chat and 42 of his own messages before the publication obtained the chat’s logs.

Advertisement

He also participated in some of the racist discussions. While referring to a Black student who allegedly left FIU’s College Republicans after a member of the group “called her a [N-word]”, the Floridian reported that Carvajal wrote: “Why didn’t miggress leave?” Elsewhere in the chat, the publication reported that Carvajal used “Miggress”, “Migglet” and “Migger” to refer to Black women, Black children and Black people, in general.

At one point, Gonzalez wrote: “You can fuck all the [K-word, a slur for Jewish people] you want. Just don’t marry them and procreate.”

Ian Valdes, the Turning Point USA FIU chapter president, responded, “I would def not marry a Jew,” before changing the group chat’s name from “Uber [R-word slur for disabled people] Yapping” to “Gooning in Agartha”. “Gooning” is a gen-Z slang term for male masturbation, while “Agartha” is a mythical white civilization promoted by Heinrich Himmler, one of the most powerful leaders in Nazi Germany next to Hitler.

Gonzalez reportedly described Agartha to the group chat as “Nazi heaven sort of”.

Kevin Cooper, the first Jewish chair of the Miami Dade Republican party, condemned the group chat in a statement published to X and called for Carvajal’s resignation.

Advertisement

“The majority of our board voted to request Carvajal’s resignation. We have commenced removal proceedings and look forward to resolution from the Republican Party of Florida,” he wrote.

That call was echoed by Juan Porras, a Republican state representative and Miami-Dade GOP state committee member, who said in a statement: “Leadership carries responsibility. When someone in a leadership role engages in this kind of behavior, it damages the trust placed in our party by voters across Florida. For that reason, I am asking the Miami Dade Republican party secretary to step down from this position.”

In a joint statement, Florida Republican state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez denounced the chats and called for the expulsion from party leadership of its participants.

“The individuals in the group chat have exposed how profoundly misaligned their beliefs are to the views of the Republican party of Florida,” their statement said. “We call for the immediate expulsion of the individuals disseminating from any level of leadership of the Miami-Dade Republican Party … We will not tolerate bigotry or discrimination.”

Multiple leaked group chats from young Republicans have created controversy in recent years.

Advertisement

Last year, Politico published messages from a group chat of more than 100 conservatives across the country in which users also made racist and antisemitic comments. In 2022, a Young Republican group chat from North Dakota was revealed as a cesspool of homophobic and antisemitic rhetoric.



Source link

Continue Reading

Florida

Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'

Published

on

Federal judge blocks DeSantis executive order declaring CAIR a 'terrorist organization'


A federal court in Tallahassee has issued a temporary injunction blocking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a “terrorist organization.” U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s order comes nearly three months after DeSantis signed his executive order on Dec. 8. The order directed Florida’s executive and Cabinet agencies, as […]



Source link

Continue Reading

Florida

Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip

Published

on

Gas prices rise in South Florida amid U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, as the stock market also reports a dip



Four days into the Iranian conflict, gas prices are rising at many stations in South Florida.

Advertisement

“I’ve traveled all over the United States,” says Stacey Williams. CBS Miami spoke to him as he was gassing up on the turnpike. He paid $66 for 20 gallons of diesel to fill his pickup truck. Williams has noted the fluctuations in fuel as he drives to locations for his work on turbines. He just spent three weeks at the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami.

“The salary we get paid per hour does not add up to what we pay for gas, housing, and food,” he says.

Mitchell Gershon is also dealing with the higher gas prices. He has to fill three vehicles constantly for his business—Thrifty Gypsy, a pop-up store at musical venues. He’s back and forth from Orlando to Miami and says fuel is costing him 20% more. When asked how he handles these fluctuations, he said, “Have a little backup cash so you are ready for it.”

The rise in oil prices contributed to a drop in the stock market on Tuesday, which means some retirement accounts dipped, too. CBS Miami talked to Chad NeSmith, director of investments at Tobias Financial Advisors in Plantation, for perspective on the drop.

“We are seeing most of the pullback today. Yesterday was a shock,” he says. He’s not expecting runaway oil prices but says investors should stay in the loop: “Pay attention to your portfolio. Stick to your goals. Have a plan because these things are completely unpredictable.”

Advertisement

That unpredictability has Williams adjusting his budget. “You just cut back, cut corners, all you can do,” he says.



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending