Miami's Progressive Conflict
Should Miami's Progressive work within or outside of the Democratic Party
by Anthony David Vernon
It is no mystery that the Democratic Party in Florida is in shambles. On April 24th, 2025, Jason Pizzo, the Florida Senate’s Democratic leader, quit the Democratic Party (Tallahassee Democrat). Florida, which used to be a swing state, is now solidly seen as a stalwartly red state, and in 2024, Miami-Dade County voted for a Republican for President for the first time since 1988 (CBS New Miami). What connects these two threads is that Jason Pizzo represented the Miami area; it appears Miami liberals and progressives alike are losing faith in the Democratic Party.
The decline of Florida’s and Miami-Dade’s Democratic Party was rapid; in 2018, Ron DeSantis won Florida by a 0.4% margin (Politico). The comparative reality in 2025 is stark, making 2018 feel like eons ago. Given this rapid descent to the point of near collapse, is it best for Miami liberals and progressives to ditch the Democratic Party and go down an independent route? While utterly abandoning the Democratic Party is not taken seriously in Miami’s liberal circles, it is a point of serious debate amongst Miami’s progressives that an independent would be more likely to beat a Republican in Miami than a Democrat.
Before considering abandoning the party outright, what is the argument in favor of Miami Progressives of working within the Democratic Party in order to reform it and make it a vehicle that can push for social change, along with beating Miami Republicans? After all, this is a view held by the Progressive People’s Caucus of Miami-Dade, along with the Progressive Democrats of America and the Social Democrats of America, both of which do not have established chapters in South Florida. For one, there are more registered Democrats, 515,761 people versus 496,241 Republicans in Miami (Florida Division of Elections). The Democrats have an established infrastructure with automatic voters.
In addition to this, progressives have taken over Democratic Executive Committees [DEC], thus taking over Democratic Party chapters outside of Miami: in Florida, this includes the Pinellas County DEC and the Orange County DEC. Why build a new infrastructure when you can take over an old infrastructure and fix it up? But what if Miami’s Democratic Party is beyond fixing?
Taking the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar out of context, “I think it's time to watch the party die. This shit done got too wicked to apologize…Why argue with these clowns if the circus is well at work” (Watch The Party Die)? For many progressives, including the members of Miami Indivisible and most of the Miami Democratic Socialists of America [DSA], Miami’s Democratic Party is far too conservative, controlling, and incompetent to beat Miami Republicans. In local races, the margins are so wide that it's questionable whether running as a Democrat is actually more detrimental than not over an independent. With how much of a mess the Miami-Dade Democratic Party is, perhaps an independent progressive candidate could draw in more votes than a Democratic one, instead of splitting left-wing votes.
The core question here is whether running as an independent or as a Democrat is the more effective path for advancing progressive politics in certain areas. In the case of Miami-Dade, that may be a toss-up. But Miami progressives will have to come up with a joint strategy in unified solidarity on this front if they wish to beat Miami Republicans in 2026 and so on. The goal here is mainly to win over a combination of Miami Democrats, people registered to minor parties, and independents who number at about 1 million people with progressive policies and ideas. But the real goal is actually come together and help people get free healthcare, guaranteed school lunches, access to affordable housing, clean food/water, and so on that improve people’s material conditions: this is where Miami’s progressives are united and so should unite towards the end of improving people’s material condition.