Florida always does things a little differently, and the state’s Democratic Party is no exception.
The party just announced its ditching the donkey, a longtime party symbol, for something a little closer to home, as it attempts to claw back votes this election year. A panther.
The official state animal, the Florida panther was once on the verge of extinction. But it’s seen a resurgence: their population has grown from about two dozen to more than 200 as of 2021. Now, Florida Democrats are hoping for similar growth after seeing their own numbers fall.
Florida Democrats have lost their footing in a state once considered a battleground. The state helped pick every president for 20 years, from Bill Clinton in 1996 to Donald Trump in 2016, but recently, it’s gone from purple to red. Democrats lost their 2020 voter registration advantage, and are now outnumbered by about 1 million registered Republicans, data from the Florida Department of State shows. Gov. Ron DeSantis won his reelection by a larger margin in 2022 than he did in 2018. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. Safe to say it hasn’t been looking ideal for Dems.
The new logo is part of an effort to rebrand the Florida Democratic Party from a party in retreat to one gaining ground in an important election year. “Florida panthers are fierce, and they’re making a comeback,” says Florida Democratic Party communications director Eden Giagnorio of the concept.
The possibility of a comeback is also due to Republican policy positions on abortion, LGBTQ+ issues, and TikTok, that according to Giagnorio, could make them vulnerable and put Florida back in play as a battleground state. Within this context, the panther logo emphasizes that the Democratic party will “fight for the issues that voters care about,” she says.
The Florida Democratic Party rebranded last year, going from a light-blue-and-white logo to one that was red, white, and blue to “reclaim elements of the flag, reclaim patriotism, reclaim freedom,” Giagnorio says. They fine tuned the brand and replaced the donkey symbol with a panther this year because they “wanted something that represented a more aggressive image of the Florida Democratic Party,” she adds.
Republicans are brushing it off. Chris Hartline, an advisor for Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) reelection campaign, said Florida Democrats have “spent more time, energy and effort on redesigning their logo than they have on registering voters for the last ten years.” Evan Power, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, posted a graphic detailing his interpretation of the new logo. (According to the graphic, the growling panther indicates “rage after losing all statewide elections.” The graphic also draws a parallel between the panther and state Democrats as an endangered species.)
In a text to Fast Company, Giagnorio said the Florida Democratic Party’s official response to Power’s diagram analysis was the meme of Charlie Kelly from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia explaining a conspiracy theory.
Polls shows both Trump and Scott in the lead, but Democrats have made investments in the state, including 12 visits from Vice President Kamala Harris since she took office.
The donkey goes back to the first Democratic president, Andrew Jackson, in 1828, but it was cartoonist Thomas Nast who helped popularize both the donkey and Republican elephant as party symbols in the 1870s. Despite its long history, Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Nikki Fried doesn’t seem nostalgic for the longtime symbol.
“We gave the donkey the boot,” Fried wrote on X. “It’s time to kick ass in Florida.”
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