Beyond the election: FAU Democrats work to rebuild trust and momentum

Democrats need to remind voters that they are the people’s party, and not the party of the coastal elite, students say.

The 2024 election results delivered a decisive win for Republicans. Florida wasn’t the exception.

Quickly after Donald J. Trump was elected as 47th president, many Democrats across the country wondered what went wrong and how to move forward. For members of Florida Atlantic University’s College Democrats, the loss has prompted new ideas to reconnect with voters and remind them they are the “people’s party.”  

Nicholas Ostheimer, a political science junior and member of the FAU College Democrats believes the focus should be on the image the party transmits to voters. 

“I think people really want to see Democrats as what they always have been, the people’s party. I think in the past, people have come to perceive Democrats as more of the elite party as opposed to the Republicans, which has mainly been an issue in terms of messaging,” Ostheimer said. “It is really, really important to combat that kind of perception on college campuses, because there are a lot of students who come here with very diverse political views to get an education one way or another. So we want to make sure that they see us not as intellectuals, as coastal elites, or as being out of touch with the interests and priorities of people who may not necessarily be attending college.”

Their goal is clear: to rebuild trust and strengthen the Democratic presence in the state, starting at a county level. 

The shift in Florida from a swing state to a Republican stronghold has been years in the making. “Sadly, Florida has become a really big red stronghold,” said Alexi Lambridis, a sophomore at FAU and treasurer of FAU College Democrats. 

Lambridis believes that one of the biggest strengths for Republican campaigns has been the ability to resonate with key demographics, such as Cuban American voters in Miami, and a lack of comparable outreach from Democrats. “You can look at Cubans coming here in the 2000s, the GOP launching a very successful campaign showing or telling them that the Democratic Party is communist and [it] ended up working.”

Michael Gomez, a history and political science major and a member of the FAU College Democrats noted that funding has also been a factor. “The Florida Democratic Party has received less and less funding. In 2024, we received virtually no funding from the National Democratic Convention to support campaigning,” he said. “Florida isn’t seen as a battleground state anymore, and that has made it harder to compete in key counties.”

For Gomez, the so-called “grass-roots” efforts of rebuilding trust locally are key. “We want to recreate the relationship between the Democratic Party and college voters in Palm Beach County and in Florida as a whole, because I feel, and we all feel, that there’s been sort of a disruption in how voters, and young voters specifically, perceive the Democratic Party,” he said. 

Despite these challenges, members of FAU’s College Democrats believe there is still an opportunity to engage voters who support progressive policies but feel disconnected from the Democratic Party itself. “A lot of voters back ideas like subsidized education and health care,” said Lambridis. “The issue is connecting those policies to the party and its candidates.”

To rebuild the relationship with the voters and solve the disconnect, the group is focusing on community presence and engagement. Gomez talked about the importance of visibility and getting the right image and message to the people.

 “We plan on just tabling every single week, getting students involved, getting our social media following up and generally just having conversations with media and voters and saying, ‘hey, like these, this is what we believe in,’” Gomez said.“We’re not as crazy as the media kind of tells us to be. And I don’t know, just kind of getting our point of view out there because things kind of tend to be wishy-washy in the media because it’s so polarized these days.”

Beyond campus, the group is discussing ways to be more active in the local community. Gomez said that they are still discussing the right ways of approaching the local community and that those efforts will be part of a more broad strategy to demonstrate that the group is committed to issues beyond partisan politics. “We want to show that we care about the community as a whole,” he explained.

Even though there are still a lot of questions and the path isn’t totally clear, the group plans to host regular meetings featuring Democratic leaders to inspire and inform students on campus. They also hope to collaborate with other organizations, both political and nonpartisan, to engage in civic debate and get young people involved in politics. “It’s not just about winning elections,” said Ostheimer. “It’s about creating a culture of participation and showing that Florida is not a lost cause.”

However, the group acknowledges that the path forward will not be easy. Florida’s political landscape has shifted significantly, and turning the state back into a competitive battleground will require sustained effort over many years. “The next four years are going to be challenging,” Lambridis admitted. “But if we can rebuild trust and connect with voters, we can start to make progress.”

For now, their focus is on planning the strategies to make a real comeback. “We know it’s a long road,” said Gomez. “But every conversation and every connection matters.”

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