For many in the LGBTQ community, Florida feels like a lost cause. Republicans have expanded their grip on state government, anti-LGBTQ legislation has poured out of Tallahassee, and even longtime allies have switched parties.
But Joe Saunders isn't ready to surrender.
The longtime LGBTQ advocate believes Florida remains the nation's most important political battleground for LGBTQ rights — and that what happens here will shape the future of equality across the country.
"There is no option but hope,” he said recently in a wide-ranging interview with OutSFL. “We need to fight like hell here because this is our home."
Saunders, a former state representative and longtime Equality Florida leader, recently became the first executive director of Equality Florida Action PAC, the organization's political arm. He'll oversee endorsements, voter engagement and campaign strategy as the PAC works to break Republican supermajorities in Tallahassee and expand LGBTQ political power statewide.
Each election cycle, the PAC screens more than 1,000 candidates, endorses hundreds, and runs turnout programs reaching more than 1 million voters. It has built a voter file of 1.4 million pro-equality voters and is widely considered Florida's largest LGBTQ political committee.
Saunders believes Florida has become the place where political ideas are tested before spreading across the country.
"As they've made Florida the incubation lab for the worst ideas. That's true for the resistance too,” he said. "Florida knows Project 2025 because we've been living with it since 2022.”
Florida may have fallen off the list of presidential battleground states, but Saunders believes it remains the country's most important proving ground for LGBTQ rights. That's why Florida matters.
“Everything that we stop in Florida, we stop forever, everywhere,” he said. “They come here to cook up the things that they want to bring to scale."
So how does Saunders hope to change Florida's political trajectory?
It starts in the legislature. Currently Republicans hold super-majorities in both chambers.
One of Saunders' top priorities is breaking those supermajorities in Tallahassee. Republicans currently control 26 of 40 Senate seats and 84 of 120 House seats. Flipping just five House seats would end the GOP's veto-proof majority.
There is reason for optimism. Earlier this year two Democrats flipped legislative seats from red to blue in a March special election.
Saunders is realistic about the challenge. While political observers often talk about flipping legislative chambers, he believes ending the Republican supermajority would itself represent a major victory for progressives. Republicans currently hold a roughly 1.5 million voter registration advantage statewide.
For Saunders, House District 101 in Hollywood represents exactly the kind of race that could chip away at the GOP's supermajority.
Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel switched parties after winning reelection as a Democrat in 2024, creating an opening Democrats hope to reclaim. Equality Florida Action PAC has endorsed Todd Delmay, executive director of SAVE and a longtime LGBTQ advocate.
In fact, Saunders first met Cassel at a Dolphin Democrats, the local LGBTQ democratic club function and said he could spend a lot of time talking about her “betrayals” of Democratic and LGBTQ voters.
Instead he said he’d rather talk about Delmay: "I spend more time talking about what I think Tallahassee's going to be like with Todd Delmay in that seat."
"When Todd wins, he doesn't start learning how to do that job,” Saunder said. “He's been doing it for 20 years in this state."
Saunders called Delmay's candidacy an example of the PAC's emphasis on "action over promises," noting Delmay's decades of LGBTQ advocacy, including his role as a lead plaintiff in Florida's marriage equality lawsuit.
“We have to have LGBTQ lawmakers in the Capitol who understand the assignment,” he said.
Beyond breaking the supermajority, Saunders said the PAC hopes to expand the LGBTQ Legislative Caucus from four to six members, win key municipal races and continue defeating Moms for Liberty-backed school board candidates.
Saunders said many observers underestimated the anti-LGBTQ organization's rise but argued its influence has already begun to wane.
Saunders pointed to the PAC's School Board Protection Project, noting that its coalition defeated 73% of Moms for Liberty's endorsed and priority candidates in the last election.
Despite the many setbacks for Democrats and Progressives in Florida Saunders insists that even when they lose it’s still instructive.
"It is in the trying that the sauce gets made,” he said. “The fight for a progressive Florida is a generational one."
Saunders said that philosophy also shapes the PAC's endorsement process.
"It's one thing to show up in election season and promise things, but what is your record?,” he said.
He noted that their endorsement process gives points to a candidate’s record.
Regardless of challenges of winning in Florida, Saunders remains hopeful.
"I think the pendulum we all hoped would swing last election cycle is here," he said. "I really believe we have not scratched the surface of what's possible in the assertion of our community's political power."
For Saunders, turning that potential into political power starts with participation. He urged voters to visit EQFLPAC.org, download the organization's voter guide and get involved in races at every level of government.
Florida’s primary election is on on August 18.
