Florida Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo touched on several topics in a recent interview with Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher, including his rumored run for Florida governor in the 2025 midterm elections.
Republican Congressman Byron Donalds has already announced his run for governor. Is Sen. Pizzo the next to announce his gubernatorial aspirations for the Democrats?
"I think I have to be. I'm 100% committed to Florida. This is supposed to be a part-time legislature, but, you know, it's like raising kids correctly. It's a full-time job," Sen .Pizzo said.
"I've had disasters and tragedies and opportunities. I represented Surfside in the collapse. We have flooding and infrastructure issues. My constituents want us to deal with property insurance and auto insurance. And why are their kids SAT scores plummeting. They don't want socially divisive issues anymore, regardless of what side they're on. And so, yeah, I find myself, you know, getting closer and closer," he added.
Pizzo, considered a moderate in a red state, also wondered who the leader of the Democratic Party was after former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz struggled to answer in a recent interview.
"No, not whatsoever. It should be the people and the people should be deciding. But really what sucks all of the oxygen out of the room and we keep losing with opportunity [and the] cost of actually getting things done, it's the loud fringes of both sides that really leaves us searching for something," Pizzo said.
Pizzo could be referring to "The Squad", a progressive, left-wing coalition of the U.S. House of Representatives made up of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Talib. Another left-winger, Texas U.S. Rep. Al Green, was kicked out of President Donald Trump's joint session to Congress on Tuesday minutes in for disrupting his speech.
"We're not really so progressive or a lot more practical. We have real issues here in Florida," Pizzo added.
House Republicans and 10 Democrats later voted to censure Rep. Green over his tirade in the chamber.
Unlike The Squad and Al Green, Pizzo has championed more sensible legislation in the Florida legislature, including an E-Verify bill to go after all employers who hire illegal immigrants.
President Donald Trump, who joked he couldn't do anything right to please Democrats in attendance, also honored several distinguished guests at the address, including a 13-year-old boy who survived brain cancer.
Trump then surprised Devarjaye "DJ" Daniel, who wants to become a police officer, as an honorary member of the U.S. Secret Service. Pizzo scoffed at the idea that Daniel's recovery and courage weren't worthy of a standing round of applause from his colleagues.
"Just it goes to show you that, especially from a national level, Democrats have really just lost their course, if they had any at all," Pizzo said.
Along with Daniel, Trump also congratulated a man for getting into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In addition, Trump announced the capture of a terrorist suspected as a senior planner in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. Service Members.
Again, Pizzo criticized some Democrats for not celebrating an otherwise non-partisan issue.
"My son reported to Paris Island to be a United States Marine last week. So it touches me to see the kid accepted to West Point. My other son wants to be a law enforcement officer, so capturing a terrorist who killed an American. And I'm a former prosecutor, so I don't know where they're going, but they're certainly not the grownups of the room," Pizzo said.
With pettiness at seemingly its highest level on both sides, is Pizzo the answer for normalcy at the state level?
While Florida has become a solid red state under President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis, it was only six years ago when DeSantis defeated Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum in the 2018 gubernatorial election by less than 33,000 votes for his first term.
Since, DeSantis defeated Democratic candidate Charlie Crist by 19 points in 2022, and Trump mopped Vice President Kamala Harris by 13 points last November.
But could the tide turn once again? Time will tell.
"We have about 3.8 million registered NPAs, and while the Republicans have their voter registration advantage, that shouldn't be taken for granted," Pizzo said.
