Days after election day, Sarasota’s progressive orgs are already looking to 2026 and the governership
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: November 13, 2024
Host: Less than a 100 hours after U.S. voters returned Donald Trump to the White House, and two citizen-initiated amendments in Florida failed, a bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings assembled at a church in Sarasota to plot their next steps. We have a report about what’s called Forward Together.
Johannes Werner: The median age in Sarasota is 57.1 years. That’s almost 20 years older than the U.S. median. Retirees make up the bulk of those engaging in politics and civic affairs here. So a big meeting run by teenagers and twenty-somethings is unusual here.
That meeting went down less than 100 hours after the unexpectedly clear re-election of Donald Trump, and the defeat of both citizen-initiated constitutional amendments in Florida. Two locally rooted groups — SEE Alliance and Voices of Florida — packed the sizable sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Sarasota.
There was some sharing of feeling tired and depressed. There was a bit of crying. Talk about the need for self-care. But the tone was defiant, and the four community organizers on the panel had news for the crowd of supporters.
And they have a name for their organizing effort:
Crowd: One, two, three — Together!
JW: That name is Forward Together. This was just the first meeting of Forward Together. More work meetings will follow on Saturdays for the foreseeable future.
Sarah Parker is President and Executive Director of Voices of Florida and one of the driving forces behind the abortion amendment. She first talked about her own exhaustion to see her initiative fall three percentage points short of the 60 percent required for constitutional amendments. But then, she all but said that the Amendment 4 campaign will be back.
Sarah Parker: Man, I was hoping that I could come back and give the thunderous speech that we want, right? But here’s the deal. We got more votes than Donald J. Trump. We got more votes than Obama. We got more votes than DeSantis. And all that we have left to win. That is how many votes, about 6 million people, voted yes on the board. Sarasota County got 59%, I want y’all to know that. 59% on Yes On 4. We want you to know that. That it’s not a blue county to get a yes. So y’all put in that work. Anyone that volunteered, anyone that did the phoning, anyone that did the canvassing, or texting, or just talking to your neighbors. I didn’t do that. I was making crazy decisions about media. Y’all did that work. And I appreciate you so deeply, because in that moment, I was once again proud of my county, no matter what anyone says.
I was proud of Sarasota. And I was proud of Florida. When I found out the 6 million votes. We have to go back to Tallahassee. And I’m in my team and I’m in front of you. If you’ve never been to Tallahassee, you need to go. And I’m dragging y’all. I’m dragging y’all. Each and every one of you. Definitely the youngins in here. We’re going. And we are going to give them hell. We’re going to make sure they know that the majority of Floridians voted yes. A minority, a small minority, said no. The majority of Floridians voted yes. The majority of Floridians believe that there should be no six week abortion ban. A majority of Floridians kicked politicians away from their dining room tables and locked their doors. That’s what they wanted. And we owe that to the 6 million people.
Audience: Applause
JW: Meanwhile, the SEE Alliance has been building up its activities from organizing high school students around school board politics in Sarasota. Zander Moricz, co-founder of the SEE Alliance.
Zander Moricz: We found something that works. And that is the school board group. The young people of Florida are the most disenfranchised voter population out of all 50 states in the country. That is not talked about. We are also the most diverse youth population out of all 50 states in the country. They are never talked about in the same sentence. They are never put in the same paper. But they are not only directly because of each other, but they can solve each other as well.
What we looked at and what we tested was if young people don’t want to vote in the elections, let’s figure out why. Very quickly we found that young people that have only ever experienced the political leadership of Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump do not feel inspired to participate in politics, especially when those young people are black, brown, trans, and queer.
Because if it does, we have to stop with the rhetoric that young people don’t care, young people are lazy, young people are phone addicted, because they’re not. What young people are, is closer to how politics is discussed on their phones, than they are to how it functions in the structures. Which again, you’d be like, “Ugh, Gen Z’s so lazy.” But that just makes sense. Fifteen year olds are not going to county commission meetings, they are on Instagram. And what’s on Instagram is, Florida is a swamp of racists, give up, move out. They feel that, and it impacts the way they think about themselves, their state, and their future. But we tested, we polled, we tried, and the school board moved it for us to organize on local levels, build local movements that have local power, and then connect those local movements into a greater one of a statewide capacity. The reason we do this is because local movements, local organizing, has significantly more power more impact, more reach than any other type of movement. You have the most power when you function in your local community.
JW: Then, they took their organizing statewide.
ZM: We have been able to build relationships with future organizers, with students, with parents, supporters, in 46 of Florida’s 67 school districts. Can I get a hey yo?
Audience: Hey yo!
ZM: There are people all across the state who, when they saw the school board organizing, when they saw students take down the previous founder of Mom For Liberty, the previous school board chair, this previous political icon, it allowed them to see, oh wait, even in the very worst places, it can be done. I can do this too. I want to do this too. I will do this too. And so for the last 11 months, we built relationships with these people, we organized, and on August 20th, we in Florida experienced massive, massive, unpredicted, unprecedented victory in our school district.
JW: Finally, before the general election, the group took the lead in Florida to repeal the state-initiated Amendment One.
ZM: Our strategy was never built around this election. This election was the end of nothing. It was a part of the story of the path forward. There’s an election in 2026 where we’re going to get a new governor. And with bases activated in 46 of one of 67 school districts, just now, we are going to organize, educate, and activate our bases to prepare for that election, so that in 2026, not only are we continuing this school board revolution, but we’re voting up the ballot to create the state that we want to see. But the thing is that it cannot start four months before the election. It did this year. The turnout effort can’t start four months before. It can’t get funded three months before. It can’t get discussed two months before. It’s going to start today.
JW: Another SEE Alliance member on the panel was Sebastian Martinez. He used the opportunity to out himself as the son of undocumented immigrants.
Sebastian Martinez: But I do want to be honest with you, so that you can understand why advocacy work is important to me, why it’s important to everyone here, is that advocacy work is personal. Both of my parents are undocumented immigrants. Going into this election cycle, I understand that I might not see my parents by the end of this industry, and that’s why it’s important to stay involved.
JW: Reporting for WSLR News in Sarasota, this is Johannes Werner.
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