Florida Democrats Poised to Lock out Biden’s Challengers in State Primary

The Florida Democratic Party appears poised to limit the number of candidates in its 2024 presidential primary contest to just President Joe Biden, effectively handing him a victory in the state contest and narrowing his primary challengers’ chances to win their party’s presidential nomination. President Biden currently faces primary challenges from Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and self-help author Marianne Williamson. Until recently, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had also challenged President Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination but decided to launch a new presidential campaign as an independent candidate. Under state law, each respective political party is in charge of deciding and submitting its own list of presidential candidates to the Florida secretary of state, to be placed on the presidential preference primary ballot. Parties must finalize and submit these candidate lists by Nov. 30 in the year preceding a presidential election. State laws further state that if a party only submits one presidential candidate’s name, a party primary contest is not held....