Senator Taddeo has a long history of Democratic Party leadership at the local, state and national level. She served as the Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chair from 2012 to 2014, when she revitalized the party with the goal of electing Democrats throughout the county, led major coordinated campaign efforts, and brought people together to ramp up voter registration numbers. And she worked with Obama’s re-election campaign when we expanded turnout, and helped deliver decisive margins out of Miami-Dade that drove his win in Florida. She raised resources to fund a county party office year-round with an executive director as well as a field and communications director. She founded the Blue Gala, a very successful annual fundraising event that lives on today. This led to training and recruiting candidates and flipping seats from red to blue, including electing Daniella Levine-Cava, who subsequently became the County’s first woman mayor.
From 2013 to 2016, she was an Elected DNC member and Vice Chair of the FDP, served on the Executive Committee of the DNC, was the DNC Hispanic Caucus Chair for all southern states and led the founding of the DNC Small Business Owners Council.
Annette is a frequent TV & Radio political commentator on national and state issues in English and Spanish and has hosted her own Sunday political show on CNN Latino called Taddeo2Day.
In 2014 she was the first Latina in Florida to run statewide when she was selected as Governor Charlie Crist’s running-mate for Florida Lt. Governor. The Crist/Taddeo ticket was one of the closest Governors races in the country that cycle, coming within 1% when they overwhelmingly won the Hispanic vote and made history by winning the Cuban-American vote.
In 2017, in a huge upset with national implications, Annette was elected State Senator for District 40. It was the first time in Florida’s history that a Democrat flipped a seat from red to blue in a special election, as well as the first time voters sent a Latina Democrat to serve in the Florida Senate. She was subsequently re-elected to a full 4-year term in 2018.
She is running for Florida Democratic Party Chair to rebuild our party infrastructure, not just thinking in terms of two-year cycles but long term, by registering and mobilizing voters, organizing in local communities, county parties and Democratic clubs and caucuses, recruiting candidates and rebuilding our brand. Senator Taddeo’s experience makes her uniquely qualified to empower grassroots activists with a seat at the table and bring together volunteers, elected officials and donors to focus on organizing the building blocks that will make our Florida Democratic Party stronger from the ground up for long term change.
