An internal war among Democrats over entitled leadership poaching black districts for political survival? How ... AWFL.
Also: Pass the popcorn.
The last we heard from Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz planted her stake in the new 20th congressional district, one of the few safe Democrat districts left after Ron DeSantis' redistricting. Wasserman Schultz does not live in that district, but claims to know it better than anyone, while citing her seniority and leadership positions as benefits to voters in that district. However, it's also the only majority-minority district left in central Florida, and black voters expected to elect a black candidate to represent them in the House. Local politicians and others didn't react well to Wasserman Schultz poaching the one district they had left.
At the time, it appeared that Wasserman Schultz had leadership support for the seat switch. Axios reported last night that Hakeem Jeffries has snubbed her attempt to get his endorsement, stunning other Democrats on Capitol Hill:
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday he has not yet decided whether to support Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's (D-Fla.) reelection amid anger over her decision to run in a majority-minority district. ...
"He's never done that," one senior House Democrat told Axios. "He supports incumbents."
Jeffries himself declared Tuesday in response to a different question: "I stand behind every single House Democratic incumbent."
Wasserman Schultz, a member of Jeffries' leadership team, has stoked the anger of Black Democrats by running in a plurality Black district. "People are pissed off," a second senior House Democrat told Axios.
Apparently so, and for good reason. The Congressional Black Caucus has revved up the demagoguery over the mid-cycle redistricting started by Republicans, as well as the Supreme Court decision in Callais, as an attempt to dilute black votes and eliminate black Democrats from the House. That message gets undercut rather severely when white Democrats carpetbag into the districts they have left and claim them over black candidates already organizing for the upcoming election. Wasserman Schultz has kneecapped their entire "Jim Crow 2.0" narrative.
Or as I put it earlier ...
Democrats: Racist Republicans want to replace black legislators with whites! It's the new Jim Crow!
Also Democrats: Vote for Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida's remaining majority-minority district!
Will Jeffries eventually come around? He didn't close off the possibility, but to say that he sounded unenthused over Wasserman Schultz' decision is to engage in understatement. "Everybody has a right to run where they see fit," he told the press, but said that Democrats needed to be "sensitive" to "the moment in terms of an unprecedented Jim Crow-like assault on black political representation." With nine days to go before the filing deadline for Florida's August 18th primaries, the message seems pretty clear: Get. Out.
If Wasserman Schultz doesn't change her mind, she may end up having the fight of her life in the primary. Black activists have begun discussing a strategy to force the issue by lining up behind a single challenger, rather than playing into Wasserman Schultz' strategy of splitting the black vote between multiple candidates:
Four of the Black candidates running in the Democratic primary for Florida’s 20th congressional district met in a closed-door meeting Monday to discuss coalescing behind one candidate in the hopes of beating U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Those present at the meeting, confirmed by three people, walked away with the clear focus that whittling the race down to Wasserman Schultz and a lone Black candidate would create the best opportunity to beat the congresswoman in a district that prior to last month was drawn to ensure Black representation.
But as of Tuesday evening, Wasserman Schultz’s opponents had yet to agree on who should carry that torch.
“I think we’re all going to come to some agreement before the end of qualifying,” said candidate Elijah Manley, who was at the gathering along with Luther Campbell, Dale Holness and ex-Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.
Ahem. What was Cherfilus-McCormick doing in the meeting at all? She should be focused more on her fraud trial and letting a candidate unencumbered by corruption emerge as a consensus challenger. Otherwise, this may be only way that a grassroots candidate from the district can beat an AWFL carpetbagger with deep pockets and DC connections galore. Campbell, a former member of the iconic rap group 2 Live Crew, might be the only one among them with enough star power to compete against Wasserman Schultz and the Democrat machine behind her.
If that fails, the district could choose to vote for a Republican instead. It's not like Democrats are interested in their participation, after all. This poaching exercise should have proven that much definitively.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
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