ORLANDO, Fla. — Democratic firebrand Alan Grayson announced Tuesday he is running for Congress again, this time to succeed Val Demings as she runs for U.S. Senate.
The decision by Grayson, who has represented parts of Central Florida twice in Congress between 2009 and 2017, inserts a prominent white name into a Democratic congressional primary that so far had drawn largely Black candidates, including gun rights activist and Black Lives Matter protester Maxwell Frost, state Sen. Randolph Bracy, attorney Natalie Jackson, pastor Terence Gray and investor Jeff Boone.
“There’s a lot of room for improvement in people’s lives,” said Grayson, a former member of the House, in a statement. “We are fighting inflation to the death. I want lower taxes, lower tolls, and lower rent, and all those things can be accomplished. I have a record of getting good things done. Someone has to fight for the benefit of ordinary people.”
Grayson’s move could also potentially have a roiling effect on a Democratic Party that has largely been united in viewing Demings’ seat as a Black district despite a controversial GOP gerrymander.
“My intent is to try to keep it [a Black] access seat because it is important to our community,” Orange County Democratic Chair Wes Hodge said in April. “But, you know, someone can show up at noon on the last day of qualifying with 10 grand in their pocket, and boom, they’re on the ballot.”
Grayson, 64, is jumping into the race just days before the qualifying deadline of noon Friday.
He has a long history in Central Florida politics, running unsuccessfully in a Democratic congressional primary in 2006 before winning a seat in 2008.
But after losing his seat in the GOP wave in 2010, he ran again in a different seat and won two more terms in 2012 and 2014.
He left his seat to make an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 2016. His wife, Dena Grayson, ran to succeed him but lost the Democratic primary to U.S. Rep. Darren Soto.
Grayson tried to primary Soto in 2018, but the oft-bitter campaign ended with Soto victorious over his challenger. Grayson then ran as a write-in against GOP U.S. Rep. Bill Posey in 2020 and had been running for U.S. Senate this year until he switched to run in Demings’ seat.
District 10, which Demings represents, was one of two Black-represented seats targeted by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ congressional maps, approved in a special session by the Legislature in April and the subject of a lawsuit.
District 5 in North Florida, represented by U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, was basically eliminated while District 10 was redrawn to still favor Democrats but include less Black voters.
District 10, which had previously had included almost all of the Black neighborhoods in western Orange County, was shifted east in the new map to include downtown Orlando, Winter Park, and the area around the University of Central Florida.
Black neighborhoods in western Orange were then split between District 10 and the Republican-leaning district to the west, which includes parts of Lake and Sumter counties and much of The Villages.
While Black voters are no longer a plurality in the newly redrawn District 10, the fight against DeSantis’ map largely united the party in trying to preserve Black representation in the seat.
Black state House Democrats, led by Rep. Travaris McCurdy of Orlando and Angie Nixon of Jacksonville, held a sit-in protest to delay a vote on the maps. They and other Democrats marched to the front of the house chanting, “This is good trouble. This is necessary trouble,” and wearing “Stop the Black Attack” T-shirts under their street clothes.
