Political | Process

The Florida Democratic Party is standing by its decision to scrap its presidential primary after it submitted only President Joe Biden’s name for the 2024 ballot.

“We’re not trying to create a conflict here,” progressive political commentator Cenk Uygur, who launched a presidential bid last month, said during a Friday news conference alongside fellow 2024 hopeful Marianne Williamson.

“We’re just trying to do the bare minimum of getting on the ballot. And we’ve all earned it, and there’s no need for this conflict.”

Williamson and Uygur said they sent a letter Friday to the Florida Democratic Party asking that their names be submitted to the Florida Secretary of State’s office so they can be put on the primary ballot. Another candidate, Democratic U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, is preparing to send his own letter to the party, a spokesperson for his campaign said.

Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Phillips, said the campaign was looking at a range of options to try to get the Minnesota congressman’s name on the Florida primary ballot, including a potential lawsuit or an effort at the 2024 Democratic National Convention to challenge the credentials of Florida’s delegates.

“We’re consulting with lawyers now and I think we’ll take a multi-pronged approach,” he said. “A lawsuit if appropriate, an appeal to the Democratic National Committee and, if none of those resolve this problem, a credentials challenge at the convention, which could result in Florida losing all its delegates.”

The cancellation of Florida’s Democratic presidential primary comes as polls show a majority of Americans souring on Biden’s performance. A poll of Florida voters released last month by the University of North Florida found that nearly two-thirds of Floridians held an unfavorable view of the president, including a quarter of Democrats in the state.

Florida is expected to award 250 delegates to the winner of the Democratic primary on March 19. Republicans will go to the polls that day to vote for their preferred presidential candidate.

But the Democratic Party says the decision was made weeks ago, and its hands are tied. The deadline for the party to submit its candidate list to the Florida Secretary of State’s office was Nov. 30. Under state law, if a political party lists only one presidential candidate, that person will be declared the automatic winner of the primary and no vote will be held.

The party chose its roster of candidates at a meeting of its state executive committee in October — a decision that went under the radar.