Black and Hispanic women running for office are shaking up Florida's political landscape

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Candidate Profile VENNIA FRANCOIS

Reflections

When it comes to politics, Vennia Francois describes herself as a bit of a late bloomer. The Orlando attorney says her family wasn’t involved in politics when she was growing up — but her parents, who emigrated from the Bahamas to Central Florida, put a strong emphasis on church and school, and Francois, the seventh of nine siblings, developed a passion for both.

Francois attended the University of Florida on an academic scholarship and followed a pre-med track — but she caught the political bug when she joined the College Republicans and started volunteering on campaigns across the state. “That’s when I really sunk my teeth into politics,” she says.

Her big break, she says, came during her first year at Florida A&M University College of Law when she met then-U.S. Rep. John Mica at an event in downtown Orlando, and he encouraged her to apply for an internship in his office. Francois got the job and spent the summer of 2005 interning on Capitol Hill. The following summer, she interned on the other side of the Capitol for then-U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, also a Republican. “I knew right then and there, I wanted to return to D.C. to start my legal career — it solidified it for me,” says Francois, who ended up joining Martinez’s staff as a policy adviser after finishing law school.

During her years in Washington, D.C., Francois was approached several times about running for office — “they saw something in me,” she says — and she immersed herself in learning the ropes, taking classes from the Leadership Institute, which trains conservatives, and participating in The Campaign School at Yale, which teaches women candidates the ins and outs of running for office. “That was an eye opener,” Francois says. “They taught us from A to Z what it’s like to start your own campaign and be a campaign manager.”

But it wasn’t until 2016, when her former boss and mentor, Mica, lost his seat in Florida’s 7th congressional district to Democrat Stephanie Murphy that Francois decided to take the plunge. By then, she was working in the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission but missed the “hustle and bustle” of the political arena. “I decided to move home to the Orlando area and prepare myself to see if I could do this and make a run for office,” she says.

In 2018, Francois finished third in a Republican primary in the race for Mica’s old seat. She ran again in 2020, that time in Florida’s 10th congressional district and won the GOP primary with 65% of the vote but lost to incumbent Rep. Val Demings, a Democrat, in the general election. She says it was an “uphill battle” given Demings’ high profile that year. “Val Demings had the name ID, and all of sudden she was on Biden’s short list to become vice president,” Francois says.

This year, Francois made her third bid for office in Central Florida in state House District 45, where she ran an ad describing herself as a “conservative Republican, woman of color” and “the woke left’s worst nightmare” as she campaigned on issues such as reforming the property insurance market, temporarily suspending the gas tax, relieving traffic congestion and tackling human trafficking. But she lost in a contentious, five-way primary to another woman of color — Carolina Amesty, who, if she wins this month, will become the first Venezuelan-American to serve in the Florida Legislature.

Despite the losses, Francois says she has no regrets and is eager to convey the lessons she’s learned on the campaign trail to other women, particularly Black women, who want to run for office but don’t necessarily have the same resources and opportunities she’s had. Among her advice for them: Get out and network with local leaders in the community, come up with a business plan that includes a brand and a message, and figure out how to raise campaign funds. “Money will allow you to brand and market yourself,” she explains.

Francois says she is troubled by the fact that there are so few conservative Black women serving in the Legislature and believes the GOP has some work to do. “I think it’s a great start to see for the past two election cycles that a lot of women of color have decided to run for office, but at the same time, they are still struggling in being able to fundraise, still struggling in being able to get endorsements and still struggling to be able to get voters to hear their message,” she says. “We need to help them get across the finish line.”

Candidate Profile JANELLE PEREZ

Paving the Way

When it comes to charting her own course, Janelle Perez, a Democrat running for a Florida Senate seat, learned from a woman who blazed the trail, former Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican. And in this era of scorched-earth partisanship, the ties that bind them come down to an important shared value: Addressing constituents’ real-world problems.

Ros-Lehtinen served in the U.S. House from 1989 to 2019 and was the first Latina elected to Congress. Perez is a moderate Democrat who worked for the congresswoman in Washington on the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen was my mentor and still is my mentor,” Perez says. “Ileana taught me what we deserve in a public servant. You see her out and around Miami-Dade all the time. Her constituent services were incredible.”

Although Perez and Ros-Lehtinen don’t always see eye to eye on issues, Perez says she learned from Ros-Lehtinen to find common ground on issues such as public safety, property insurance, housing affordability, teacher shortages and preparing Floridians for climate change.

Ros-Lehtinen says she is encouraged that more minorities are stepping up to run for office. “It’s very good because it gets little girls and little boys all around our state thinking, ‘I could do this. This is a career choice.’ Before, it was something that was removed from you. It really didn’t have anything to do with you and you thought, ‘Well, this is just something that white guys do.’ That’s certainly not true any longer,” Ros-Lehtinen says. “I think the sky’s the limit. It’s only going to get better and better as more women of color see that whether they’re Democrat or Republican, there’s going to be a very hospitable environment for them.”

Other Notable Candidates

Val Demings

The three-term member of Congress would be the first Black woman to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate if she unseats Sen. Marco Rubio.

Jeanette Nuñez

She is Florida’s first Hispanic female lieutenant governor, elected in 2018 as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ running mate.

Karla Hernández-Mats

Democrat nominee Charlie Crist chose the Miami-Dade County teachers union president as his running mate for the 2022 gubernatorial race.

Aramis Ayala

In 2016, Ayala became the first African-American to be elected a state attorney in Florida’s Orange-Osceola judicial circuit. She is the Democratic nominee for Florida Attorney General, facing Republican Ashley Moody.

María Elvira Salazar and Annette Taddeo

Salazar, the first-term Republican member of Congress from Miami, is running for re-election against Democratic nominee and Florida Sen. Taddeo. Salazar was a broadcast journalist before entering politics. Born in Colombia, Taddeo was the first Latina Democrat elected to the Florida Senate and was Crist’s running mate for governor in 2014.

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick

A health care executive with a law degree, Cherfilus-McCormick became the first Haitian-American Democrat to be elected to Congress when she won a special election in January to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings. She is running for re-election against a GOP challenger in a district spanning western and central Broward County and a portion of Palm Beach County.

About the research

Data and statistics used in this report were collected and calculated by a research team led by Susan A. MacManus, professor emerita of political science from the University of South Florida; David Bonanza, a USF graduate in business economics and author of numerous publications on Florida politics; and Anthony A. Cilluffo, an economist whose research includes demographics and politics. The team calculated data from the Florida Voter Registration System, which contains information from the 67 county Supervisors of Elections throughout Florida.

To read more about the upcoming elections and catch up on results after Election Day, visit FloridaTrend.com/Decision2022.

Set in Motion

Trends show a continued increase in women’s political clout.

• The following is an excerpt from a paper presented by University of South Florida professor emerita Susan A. MacManus, Rutgers University Ph.D. student Amy N. Benner and Florida International University teaching professor Kathryn DePalo-Gould at the Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics in March.

Looking Ahead: There’s No Turning Back Now

• Over the past decade, women have gained political clout — as voters, candidates and officeholders — in every southern state, although faster in some than others.
• In 2022, the number of women filing to run is expected to be on the upswing in nearly every southern state, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.
• Demographers are projecting that the nation’s (and South’s) non-white residents will increasingly make up a larger share of the population — through in-migration, generational replacement and more multi-racial births. That pace is expected to be faster in the South, with its projected growth rate continuing to exceed that of the United States overall. Growth in the Hispanic population will continue to outpace that of other racial/ethnic groups.
• Other significant projections are that women’s college graduation rates will continue to be higher than men’s.
• Women of all races/ethnicities are more likely to register, vote and run for and win elective office.

Each of these projections almost guarantees a continued increase in women’s political clout in the South. Specifically, they mean:

For Candidates/Officeholders …

• An increase in the number of women running for office, notably Latinas.
• An increase in the number of women running for executive office. For governor in 2022, 14 women have filed (eight Democrats, six Republicans), including four in Alabama, three in both Arkansas and Georgia, and two in Florida and South Carolina.
• An increase in the number of Republican women running, especially in low-growth states that are still predominantly one-party states.
• A more diverse candidate pool (Gen Z and Millennials; bi-racial; broader gender identities).
• More younger women with children running; more efforts to allow childcare expenses as campaign expenses.
• More women contributing to campaigns (including their own).
• More women v. women races — in primaries and general elections.
• More women in leadership posts in state legislatures and state congressional delegations.
• More women in statewide executive posts, most noticeably governorships.

For Major Political Parties …

• Major party adjustments about how to reach younger voters (messaging and means of communication) and recruit more diverse candidates.
• Significantly less reliance/dependence on the “demographics is destiny” thesis, particularly when it comes to broad racial/ethnic classifications; greater need to micro-target by country-of-origin/heritage.
• An urgency to develop ways to appeal to the rapidly rising number of voters registering as independents/No Party Affiliation. NPAs have little faith in the two major parties; campaign specialists recognize they are generally younger and more candidate/issue specific than older more party-centric voters. In competitive states, they are a powerful bloc that can swing an election — if they vote. Women NPAs vote at a higher rate than men NPAs.

The Proof Is in the Headlines

• Southern women’s gains in political clout over the past decade are captured in bold headlines detailing record-level candidacies of women from different parties, races/ethnicities, and generations in the South. These two headlines say it best:
• “Black Women Look to Make Historic Gains in 2022 Midterm Elections; A number of Black women candidates have become front-runners in seeking their party’s nominations for statewide office, particularly in the South.” — NBC News, Jan. 15, 2022
• “The Bench is Loaded:” A Record Number of Latinas are Running for Governor. Only one incumbent, many are running in crowded primaries, without party support. But their presence makes a difference. — 19th News, Feb. 11, 2022

There’s no turning back now … only full speed ahead!

Tags: Government/Politics & Law, Feature