Walking into the Leon County Courthouse to cast an early ballot, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said Monday that “attacks on our school boards” have led the state party to put more emphasis on down-ballot races.

Fried was voting alongside Jeremy Rogers, a candidate for Leon County School Board, one of 11 school board candidate who have been endorsed by the Democratic Party statewide. He’s running against incumbent Laurie Lawson Cox, endorsed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“We have been really leaning in, for the first time in a really long time, if potentially ever, into our down ballots, into our school boards,” Fried told reporters Monday. “Because unfortunately we have seen for the last six years the attacks on our school boards, the attacks on our public education system. And so, it’s time for us to regain that nonpartisan but equal balance that’s coming into our school districts.”

On the ballot this year is Amendment 1, which would make school board races partisan starting in 2026. School board races are nonpartisan now and have been since 1998.

Partisanship has seeped into school board races with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Democratic Party issuing endorsements for dozens of candidates statewide.

Fried insisted that school board elections are not meant to be partisan, though.

“Partisan politics should not be in our school districts,” Fried said. “We should all be focused on one thing and one thing only, teaching our children, making sure that we are creating an environment that is healthy for them, an environment which allows them to grow and to learn and to be good products of the public school system for our society.”

However, “Republicans and Moms for Liberty have made this so dangerous and so partisan,” she said.

“Partisan politics needs to be out of these conversations; it shouldn’t matter whether you’re left or you’re right or up or down or center, it’s about teaching our kids, and we’ve got to get back to those basics.”

Rogers shared the same sentiment and preached pursuing the basics as a school system.

“This race is about reading, writing, and arithmetic and getting kids outside. The rest of that nonsense is just noise,” Rogers, a firefighter and military veteran, said. 

Rogers’ campaign website says, “As a father, it’s been disheartening to see our school system targeted by extreme politicians distracting us from the education and well-being of our kids.”

A reporter asked Rogers how a candidate can compete against “Republican infrastructure” such as attack ads.

“You’ve got to get out there and work, you’ve got to execute, you’ve got to knock on doors. You can’t sit at home, can’t go on vacation in the summer and miss out on meetings. You’ve got to show up, you gotta work. As a firefighter and as a veteran, and just as a dad, man, you gotta participate in this process. And that’s what Jeremy Rogers is all about, and that’s what we’re going to do in District 4,” Rogers said. 

Rogers and Fried will knock on doors together Monday, according to his campaign’s Facebook account. 

Early voting is available for the primary, which has an official election day of Aug. 20, during the National Democratic Convention.

Rallying voters

When asked whether Democrats have a chance this election to reverse the supermajority the Republicans have built in the Florida House and Senate, Fried said, “I definitely think everything is possible in this election.” She cited the energy she sees in the party since Vice President Kamala Harris announced as a candidate.

The Florida GOP announced Monday that it now has 1 million more registered voters than the Florida Democratic Farty. Fried replied that the voter gap is “all they have,” and that her party is “doing the work on the ground.”

“We’ve got a lot of new tools inside the party. Is it going to happen overnight? Of course not. We don’t have the luxury of changing the law like that, like the Republicans do to wipe out our voter registration base, but certainly we are fighting back,” Fried said about volunteers and increasing voter registration.