Tallahassee State College student and 20-year-old Jayden D'Onofrio is running for Florida Democratic Party Vice Chair.
Sitting Vice Chair Judy Mount is not running for reelection. D’Onofrio, a 20-year-old Weston native, has made waves in the state Democratic party in recent years.
He was the youngest PAC Chairman in Florida last election cycle. His PAC, Florida Future Leaders, raised over a million dollars in 2024 to turn out the youth vote in Florida. It got most of that money through small dollar donations, with over 22,000 contributions rolling in.
D’Onofrio said he wants to bring those fundraising chops to the party, while prioritizing training local Democratic parties to utilize similar tactics to his PAC.
“I want to make sure that, especially for example, on the digital side of things, that we’re able to raise a small dollar army through fundraising ads on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, for example, and training our DEC’S, our candidates, our campaigns, our state party and anything in between that on how to do digital fundraising, small dollar raising and building a real movement across the state,” he said.
He also wants the party to focus on refining its databases to better reach potential supporters. He believes database issues may have cost them a few seats this cycle.
“If you do phone banking, for example, anywhere between 25 to 35% of the phone numbers that you call within the Florida Democratic Party are generally you're reaching numbers that are incorrect: attached to a person that's moved away, attached to a person that is a different party affiliation than Democrat, or they've even passed away. Unfortunately, relatively the same thing when you're doing canvassing. And so, when you look at House districts such as House District 93 with former Rep. Catherine Waldron, she lost her district by, I think it was something like 360 votes. If we knocked 30,000 doors in that district for the election cycle, and just 2,000 of those doors we knocked are incorrect. That could have literally made the difference in that election,” he said.
His candidacy comes during a time where Florida Democrats are floundering. Two Democratic state lawmakers swapped parties last month, arguing the party has become too ineffectual and focused on progressive culture war issues. Florida Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo, who has endorsed D’Onofrio, also has raised similar concerns.
D'Onofrio said the infighting has occurred due to the party’s big tent losing elections. He believes that losing is due to failures in messaging.
“Republicans have dominated our legislature for every year since 1996 and our governor's mansion for every year since 1999. It's gotten us to this point where we have one of the worst property insurance crisis in the entire country. We're also one of the most unaffordable states in the entire nation. Unfortunately, on a larger scale, I don't think our state party was able to bring that message to the voters or make sure that it resonated with the voters in any real fashion, and that's what I want to bring to the party to make sure that we have that messaging,” he said.
Also running is Duval County Democratic Executive Committee Chair Daniel Henry. The election for officers for the Florida Democratic Party will take place on Jan. 25.