Biden campaign announces leadership team for Florida

President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is rolling out its Florida leadership team, amid ongoing questions as to how much the one-time battleground state will be in play during the 2024 elections.

The campaign is tapping Jasmine Burney-Clark as state director and Phillip Jerez and Jackie Lee as senior advisers, according to an announcement shared first with POLITICO.

“Jasmine, Phillip, and Jackie are proven operatives who have been on the front lines pushing back against Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans in Florida,” said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez in a statement.

The announcement comes shortly after the Biden campaign announced the launch of a Hispanic outreach effort in Miami-Dade County, where Republicans have made significant inroads since 2016.

Who he hired

Burney-Clark is the founder and former director of Equal Ground Education Fund and Action Fund, which works to expand Black political power in the state. It is one of the groups that challenged Florida’s congressional map in state court.

Jerez is currently executive director of the Florida Democratic Party and has been involved in statewide campaigns previously, including when he worked as political director for Charlie Crist’s 2022 campaign for governor. Lee is the founding partner of JLee Strategies and was the state director for the Biden campaign in Florida in 2020.

Is Florida really up for grabs?

Questions continue as to how much money and effort Democrats will eventually put into a state that appears to be slipping out of reach. Trump won the state by 3 points in 2020, while Gov. Ron DeSantis crushed Crist in the 2022 governor’s race. The last Democrat to win a statewide election was Nikki Fried in 2018 when she narrowly won the agriculture commissioner’s race.

Another big problem is that Democrats now significantly trail Republicans in voter registration.

"Phillip, Jackie, and Jasmine understand that we are the last line of defense and are ready to prove all the critics wrong. Florida is winnable and worth fighting for,” Fried, now the state party chair, said about the hires.

Trump, who is now considered a Florida resident, already had state operatives in place as he battled DeSantis for the Republican nomination.

But there are signs that Trump’s support among the GOP is not as strong as it was when he ran for reelection in 2020. During the recent March primary, nearly 20 percent of Republican voters cast a ballot for someone other than Trump, including DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, after both had dropped out of the race.