“Floridians are hungry for new leadership and I’m so excited to tell you first I’m seriously considering running for governor in 2018”, Graham said in a news release and video.
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Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, whose efforts to keep her 5th Congressional District intact were rejected by the three-judge panel late Monday, announced Wednesday she will seek re-election despite the district being redrawn from a north-south orientation from Jacksonville to Orlando to one that will stretch from Jacksonville west for 200 miles along the Florida-Georgia border past Tallahassee.
In 2014, Graham defeated incumbent Republican Congressman Steve Southerland in the Panhandle-based district with heavy support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which targeted the district. She announced her plans in a video message.
“It’s time to remind the legislature, governor and lobbyists that when they come to the state Capitol, they’re in North Florida, and we have a certain way of doing things here”, Graham said. That’s why there’s now 17 Florida Republican representatives in D.C., and just 10 Democrats.
But the thought then was she would seek re-election and then consider running. The new boundary lines would split Tallahassee in half and cover Bay to Levy County, lines which heavily lean in favor of the Republican Party.
Graham fits that bill perfectly, but so do any number of recent state-wide Democratic nominees who have failed miserably in general elections.
Democrats are expected to net one seat from Florida’s new map.
Graham of Tallahassee, who is in her first term in Congress, faced a tough reelection after her district was reconfigured to be less favorable for Democrats under a court-ordered redistricting plan. She cast her vote for fellow Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee. As her father did when he was governor and in the Senate, Graham puts in “work days” at regular jobs across her district, and MacManus said the common touch goes a long way in a campaign climate which, increasingly, scorns the government elite and professional politicians.
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Screven Watson, another Democratic who also is unaffiliated, said he believes Graham is “an immediate force to be reckoned with”.
