| | | | |  | | By Kimberly Leonard | | Presented by |  | | | Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. The Miami-Dade Republican Party on Monday night elected KEVIN COOPER to be its new chair — at a time when the once reliable Democratic stronghold showed it’s now moving toward red territory. Cooper already had widespread support from members because he previously was vice chair for the county GOP, but he faced a challenge from the far right. The Election Brigade, which describes itself as an “election integrity” group, put up a slate of candidates led by Sunny Isles Beach Commissioner JERRY JOSEPH. People with ties to the group often refer to the current Republican executive committee leaders as “RINOs” and some have created tumult within the county GOP. Cooper, 31, handily won the seat 83-15. The other elected officers were LUIS RODRIGUEZ as vice chairman, STEPHANIE TORRES as secretary and ABEL CARVAJAL as secretary, all of whom defeated Election Brigade candidates for their spots. The Miami Herald’s Max Greenwood reported on Monday that the previous chair, state Rep. ALEX RIZO, wouldn't be running for reelection to the post, given the full plate he has in the state Legislature. They’re all going in at a time when Republicans are on the rise in Miami-Dade. President-elect DONALD TRUMP became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Miami-Dade since 1988, when the county went to GEORGE H.W. BUSH. Trump's 11-point victory came on the heels of Gov. RON DESANTIS becoming the first Republican in 20 years to flip Miami-Dade County during his 19-point statewide reelection victory in 2022. Cooper told Playbook ahead of the vote that he was urging members to embrace unity and their winning streak. After the vote, he told Playbook his goal was to flip Miami-Dade to a majority-Republican county by the end of 2025. It has about 32,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans now, according to data posted on Florida's Division of Elections website, which runs through October. “We are a big county, and we need a big strategy and we have to keep going,” Cooper told Playbook after the meeting. “Everything we have done can be done on a larger scale.” Cooper said he was going to get to work immediately, including beginning fundraising “today” for 2026 and on voter registration. He plans to find ex-registered Democrats and discover why they chose to register as non-party affiliated voters rather than Republicans. Cooper, who is Jewish and is from Aventura, said he especially wanted to increase outreach to Jewish voters, who’ve tended to vote Democratic. “We are making inroads in neighborhoods we haven’t been to before,” he said. Cooper first started out in politics as a volunteer for MARCO RUBIO’s first Senate campaign. He said he hoped that having Rubio at the helm of the State Department under Trump would lead to policy victories that could then be converted to more voters registering Republican — especially on issues that South Florida voters are watching closely, from the disputed election in Venezuela to instability in the Middle East. Have a tip, story, suggestion, birthday, anniversary, new job, or any other nugget that Playbook should look at? Get in touch at: kleonard@politico.com.
| | | | A message from Instagram: Instagram Teen Accounts: a protected experience for teens, guided by parents
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Learn more. | | | |  | ... DATELINE TALLAHASSEE ... | | |  The Florida Capitol in Tallahassee is pictured. | Getty | TODAY — State senators continue their trainings in Tallahassee, including viewing a presentation about the state’s financial outlook, learning how to put in for local funding requests and getting the second part of an ethics refresher. (See the schedule and watch at the Florida Channel.) SWITCHEROO — Florida House Speaker DANNY PEREZ emailed members on Monday to announce that state Rep. SUSAN VALDÉS of West Tampa had switched her party registration from Democrat to Republican. The result, he said, was that the state House had the “largest Republican conference in the history of the Florida House of Representatives,” reports POLITICO’s Gary Fineout. Valdés said on X that she wanted to be part of a party that would help her district. “I’m tired of being the party of protesting when I got into politics to be part of the party of progress,” she wrote. But House Democratic Leader FENTRICE DRISKELL slammed the flip, saying: “It is sad that she has elevated her own aspirations above the needs of her district. It feels especially egregious in light of the fact that, just last week, she ran for Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee chair and lost by a substantial margin. Susan should have trusted her constituents, not pulled a bait-and-switch after the fact." LEGISLATION ROUNDUP — GOP state Rep. JOEL RUDMAN, who’ll soon be vacating his seat to run for Congress, has introduced a bill that would allow Floridians to openly carry guns, reports Gray Rohrer of USA Today Network - Florida. (Senate President BEN ALBRITTON has already said he’d oppose such a measure, siding with law enforcement.) The bill would also repeal Florida’s “red flag” law, which allows people to petition a court to take away a person’s firearm when they’re worried that the person poses danger to themselves or others. Another state lawmaker running for Congress, GOP state Sen. RANDY FINE, introduced legislation to repeal in-state tuition provisions for students who are undocumented, reports Florida Phoenix’s Jay Waagmeester. The original provision became law thanks to a bill Lt. Gov. JEANETTE NUÑEZ filed when she was in the state House. Democratic State Rep. DAN DALEY has filed a bill that would require teacher to get training about how to prevent and respond to school shootings, reports Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics. State Sen. BLAISE INGOGLIA, who POLITICO reported is being considered for the chief financial officer job being vacated by JIMMY PATRONIS, said recently that he was considering introducing legislation that would provide tax breaks to homeowners who make their residences stronger against storms, reports Mitch Perry of the Florida Phoenix. IN COURT — “Lawyers for a Louisiana company and an environmental group battled Monday at the start of a weeklong legal hearing over oil drilling near the Apalachicola River,” reports POLITICO’s Bruce Ritchie. “Clearwater Land & Minerals attorney Timothy Riley told a state administrative law judge that the company will show the environmental threat of the drilling site 1.5 miles from the Apalachicola River is minimal under various scenarios, including hurricanes. “‘Not only will Clearwater present evidence that the environment will be thoroughly protected, it will also show that modern technology has allowed Clearwater to identify a specific location 12,000 feet below the earth where there is a high likelihood of finding oil and gas in quantities that are commercially viable for extraction,’ Riley said in his opening statement. However, Apalachicola Riverkeeper lawyer Tim Perry told an administrative law judge that the company's plan to drill an exploratory well in Calhoun County is ‘unacceptably high.’" AMESTY GETS ‘DIVERSION’ — “State attorney drops charges against former state Rep. Carolina Amesty,” reports Annie Martin of the Orlando Sentinel. “State Attorney Andrew Bain dropped four forgery-related felony charges against former state Rep. Carolina Amesty, upon Amesty’s completion of community service and a financial crimes course. Amesty was indicted by a grand jury in August following an investigation by Florida Department of Law Enforcement that concluded she had improperly notarized — and likely had forged — a man’s signature on a licensing form for a small Orlando-area private college run by her family. The investigation came in the wake of investigative reporting by the Orlando Sentinel into Amesty’s conduct.”
| | | | REGISTER NOW: As the 118th Congress ends, major decisions loom, including healthcare appropriations. Key focus: site neutrality. Can aligning hospital and clinic costs cut federal spending, reflect physician costs, and lower patient expenses? Join policymakers and providers to discuss. | | | | | | | PENINSULA AND BEYOND | | STATE ATTORNEY LATEST — “A Central Florida prosecutor on Monday raised the possibility — and then backtracked from it — that his victorious opponent from the November election might not be allowed to take office and he wouldn't assist with a transition," reports POLITICO’s Gary Fineout. "State Attorney Andrew Bain, who was appointed to office by Gov. Ron DeSantis after the governor suspended Monique Worrell in 2023, sent out an email to his staff on Monday morning that suggested there was a legal fog surrounding whether Worrell could return to her post. Worrell soundly defeated Bain last month. Bain’s email triggered a big backlash, especially from Worrell and central Florida Democrats, but it raises the ongoing question as to what the governor will do once Worrell returns to office next month.” ALACHUA COUNTY — “This county has an ambitious climate agenda. That’s not easy in Florida,” by Sachi Kitajima Mulkey for Grist. “In Republican-dominated Florida, where DeSantis has scrubbed several mentions of ‘climate change’ from the state’s laws, Alachua County’s ambition looks like an easily popped bubble. Even though a large majority of Floridians say they want action on climate change, the state has become increasingly hostile toward many such policies. Recent headwinds, like state laws written to override local ones, precarious federal funding, and a battle over a local utility threaten to derail the county’s efforts.” — “Haiti gangs kill more than 180 mostly elderly people in Capital,” reports The Wall Street Journal’s Kejal Vyas.
| | | | A message from Instagram:   | | | | | TRUMPLANDIA AND THE SWAMP | | CHANCES DIMMING FOR DESANTIS — “Ron who? How Trump allies brought Hegseth back from the brink,” reports POLITICO’s Meridith McGraw and Natalie Allison. “Days after signaling she continued to have serious concerns about confirming Hegseth, [Sen. Joni] Ernst on Monday sounded a different note. She described their conversation Monday afternoon as ‘encouraging,’ said she would ‘support’ Hegseth through the process, touted some of the commitments he made to her about what he would do in the role and suggested she would only take allegations against him seriously if they come from named accusers. "The change in tune followed an aggressive push for Hegseth by top Trump allies and supporters, as well as a defiant performance by the Defense secretary nominee that has Trump’s team bullish on him getting confirmed … the palpable shift demonstrated how grassroots pressure, combined with the influence of Vice President-elect JD Vance, helped bolster Hegseth only days after Trump was drawing up contingency plans to tap Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis instead.” ALTHOUGH — Trump and DeSantis did discuss the possibility of LARA TRUMP being appointed to the Senate, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Alex Leary.
| | CAMPAIGN MODE | | | | 
Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) appears before the House Rules Committee at the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 22, 2023. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP | GAETZ ANNOUNCEMENT COMING TODAY — That’s according to former Rep. MATT GAETZ and his wife, GINGER GAETZ. The firebrand Republican has been teasing a run for governor and talking about certain policies he backs, and Zach Everson of Forbes spotted a new federal political action committee that appears tied to him, called Florida Firebrand PAC. Gaetz gave few hints on Monday other than continuing to explicitly rule out his old seat, posting on X that, “I’ll still be in the fight — just from a new perch.” On Monday night, Kristen Holmes of CNN reported that Gaetz would be announcing that he was becoming an anchor on the conservative One America News Network.
| | | DATELINE D.C. | | FLORIDA LED — “House Republicans’ steering committee recommended Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) on Monday to become the next chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, two people familiar with the decision” told POLITICO’s Jordain Carney and Olivia Beavers. “The decision still needs to be ratified by the full conference." FOR SENIORS — The signup period for Medicare ended over the weekend, and WUSF put together a guide of changes to expect from coverage, from higher monthly premiums to caps of $2,000 for how much seniors have to pay for prescription drugs.
| | | | Billions in spending. Critical foreign aid. Immigration reform. The final weeks of 2024 could bring major policy changes. Inside Congress provides daily insights into how Congressional leaders are navigating these high-stakes issues. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | ...HURRICANE HOLE... | | — The bill for damages from Hurricane Helene will cost Leon County and Tallahassee $15.4 million, reports Arianna Otero of the Tallahassee Democrat. — FEMA will fully reimburse the cost of debris removed after Hurricane Helene, reports Florida Politics’ A.G. Gancarski.
| | ODDS, ENDS AND FLORIDA MEN | | — Walt Disney World’s ticket prices are going up as the theme park continues to add new rides, reports Florida Politics. BIRTHDAY: Jeff Greene, real estate investor and Democratic candidate for governor in 2018.
| | | | A message from Instagram: Instagram Teen Accounts: automatic protections for teens
Parents want safer online experiences for their teens. That's why Instagram is introducing Teen Accounts, with automatic protections for who can contact teens and the content they can see.
A key factor: Only parents can approve safety setting changes for teens under 16.
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