Florida Democrats are huddling in Miami Beach for their annual conference as they look to stage a comeback after a slew of recent electoral disappointments that left the state party on the brink of political irrelevance.

The three-day “Leadership Blue” weekend has been billed by top Florida Democrats, including state party Chair Nikki Fried, as a reset for the party. State Democratic leaders and activists spent Saturday shuffling in and out of workshops and seminars, strategizing what they hope will be a political comeback in 2024.

Democrats have struggled for years to recreate the same kind of success that they saw in Florida just over a decade ago when former President Barack Obama won the state for a second time in a row. The 2022 midterm elections were particularly devastating for the party; Gov. Ron DeSantis won reelection by a staggering 19-percentage point margin, Republicans secured supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature and Democrats found themselves frozen out of every statewide elected office.

Yet prominent Democrats say it’s too soon to write Florida off. While they concede that the past couple of election cycles were politically devastating for Democrats, they say that they’ve learned the lessons of the past and are ready to revamp the party ahead of 2024.

Fried said that the conference was a chance for Democrats to show “that this truly is a new day for Florida Democrats.”

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