FLORIDA, USA — Florida's primary election is scheduled for Aug. 23, and the focus of many Democrats will be deciding who will challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in the November.
Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist are the Democratic front-runners, and participated in a debate Thursday night. Watch the full debate below.
Nikki Fried is a lifelong Floridian. She worked as a public defender in Alachua County and later became a government affairs advocate for the marijuana industry. Now, as agriculture commissioner, she's the only elected Democrat currently holding a statewide office in the state.
Charlie Crist is a longtime politician from St. Petersburg. He was Florida’s governor from 2007 to 2011 and was elected as a Republican before changing parties. In 2016, he flipped a Republican seat and was elected as the Democratic Congressman for Florida’s 13th district.
Florida is a closed primary election state. This means that in order to vote, you must be a registered member of a political party and then may vote for respective party candidates or nominees.
The deadline to register for the primary election is July 25, and eligible individuals can register or update their registration here anytime before that.
The early voting period is Aug. 13-20.
In Florida, you can also vote by mail. The deadline to request that a vote-by-mail ballot be mailed is no later than 5 p.m. on Aug. 13. It must be returned and received by the Supervisor of Elections no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day.
The send deadline is July 9 for absentee ballots for stateside and overseas uniformed service members and overseas civilian voters.