JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Duval County was on the frontlines of the 2020 presidential campaign when Kamala Harris made a stop on the first day of early voting and urged people to turn out for a Democratic ticket topped by Joe Biden, with Harris as his running mate.
Her swing through Jacksonville came after Donald Trump, running for re-election, flew on Air Force One into Cecil Airport and rallied thousands of supporters on the tarmac a few weeks before early voting kicked off that year.
"When we vote, we win," Harris said during her stop at the University of North Florida.
That campaign battle cry was back in Jacksonville this week when the Democratic National Committee launched a "We Vote, We Win" bus tour in Jacksonville.
But if the message is the same, the attention by presidential campaigns in Duval County is nowhere near what it was in past elections. Florida isn't one of the most hotly contested states in the race between Trump and Harris. Neither Trump nor Harris or their running mates have come to Jacksonville since they locked up their nominations.
"Florida is not in play," University of North Florida political science professor Michael Binder said bluntly. "Florida is not a swing state."
Gov. DeSantis and DNC have same-time Jacksonville events
Duval County, which has swung back and forth between siding with Democrats and Republicans, still carries influence at the ballot box in statewide contests.
At the launch of the "We Vote, We Win" bus tour, Democratic Senate nominee Debbie Mucarsel-Powell leaned into a "Duuuuuval" greeting and ripped U.S. Sen. Rick Scott as she tries to flip that seat. She was joined by Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison.
"So much is at stake here, Florida," Harrison said. "Our future is at stake."
He said it's not only the presidency that's riding on Nov. 5 but majority control of the U.S. House and Senate and whether Florida voters will break the super-majority control Republicans have of the Florida Legislature.
Thirteen miles away, Gov. Ron DeSantis was at Sacred Heart Jacksonville Parrish Center where a group of doctors in lab coats joined him in urging voters to reject Amendment 4 that would put the right to abortion access into the Florida Constitution.
Dave Tomzik holds up a sign Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024 across the street from the Legends Center in Jacksonville, Fla. Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell was making her case to defeat Sen. Rick Scott on her Florida Freedom Bus Tour campaign.
He said supporters of Amendment 4 are spending millions of dollars to promote it by using "poll-tested" phrases that conceal what the amendment would do while falsely portraying the state's current abortion law in a blitz of television ads.
"It's all a bunch of lies, but that is part and parcel for this, which is a very deceptive amendment and the whole thing is based on deceit," he said.
Mucarsel-Powell also brought up abortion access in her list of differences between her and Scott in the Senate race.
"We also know that we are now living under an extreme ban on abortion" she said of state law that prevents abortions with some exceptions after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Binder said the election results in Duval County could make a difference in the statewide outcome for the constitutional amendments that need to clear 60% approval for passage. He said if Mucarsel-Powell could pull of an upset of Scott, she would need a strong performance in Duval County.
But in the presidential race, Florida has lost its battleground state status because the vast majority of people moving into the state in recent years are Republicans, Binder said.
"If you think back 30 to 35 years ago and think of 'Seinfeld' and his parents moving to Boca, that generation was much more evenly divided," Binder said. "It's just that the group now is so much more Republican and they're flooding into the state."
On top of that, he said, Trump has consistently been running ahead of Senate candidates in Florida and other states.
Election will show what shade of purple Duval County is now
A UNF poll released Monday showed Trump with a 10-point lead in Florida over Harris. But Binder said Harris has a shot at winning in Duval County if her campaign can energize Democrats who stayed home in 2022 when DeSantis won handily.
"By no means is Duval County reflective of the rest of Florida in terms of party registration and voter makeup," he said. "There's a sizable Black community in Duval County and if she can mobilize that group and peel off some moderate support, it's certainly plausible."
Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2018, won Duval County in the race against DeSantis. In 2020, Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Duval County since Jimmy Carter in 1976. DeSantis captured Duval County in 2022 when he won re-election. Donna Deegan then notched a win for Democrats when she was elected mayor in 2023.
"We're going to do that again when we make sure Duval stays blue for Vice President Kamala Harris," Duval County Democratic Party Chairman Daniel Henry said at the "We Vote, We Win" rally.
Dean Black, chairman of the Republican Party of Duval County, said while he expects Trump will win Florida and run up big numbers in Northeast Florida counties outside Jacksonville, Duval County remains a toss-up county. Statewide, Republicans have about 1 million more registered voters than Democrats do, but in Duval County, the voter rolls have Democrats up by several thousand voters.
"Duval County remains a battleground county," Black said. "It's hard to say anything other than that when there are still more Democrats than Republicans."
Both sides are putting their ground game into operation with phone banks and neighborhood canvassing. Through Wednesday, the third day of early voting, Republicans accounted for 43% of ballots cast by mail and at early voting sites in Duval County, compared to 42% for Democrats.
But if the Nov. 5 election will give another snapshot of the political currents in Duval County, the big money pumped into Florida by the national parties and organizations isn't there this time around.
"Since probably 1980, we were used to being the center of the political universe," Black said. "Now suddenly because we have fought so long and hard and smart and been effective at it, I don't want to say it's over but we certainly have a commanding upper hand in Florida."
He said it is different to see all the action taking place in this year's battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.
"The music stopped playing and went somewhere else," he said, "and we're not used to that."
