With the election just six weeks away, Florida’s LGBTQ Democrats are trying to raise enthusiasm and money. At the moment, they seem to be doing both.

On Sept. 20, they gathered for the official grand opening of the Get Out the Vote center at Tropics Grille in Wilton Manors. The packed room featured a who’s who of South Florida Democratic candidates or their surrogates. In all, three mayors, a member of congress, and a slew of down ballot candidates showed up to rally the faithful and gear up for the last six weeks of the campaign.

Mayors Dean Trantalis, Fort Lauderdale; Scott Newton, Wilton Manors, and Mitch Rosenwald of Oakland Park each took the podium and stressed the need to support all candidates, including the ones who don’t run TV ads.

Ally Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, affectionately known as the Godmother of the LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus, came prepared and lit up the room from the moment she took the podium.

“I have been proud to wear that moniker, to earn that moniker,” she said.

The main call to action is to get people registered by Oct. 7, the deadline to register to vote in November. The Supervisor of Elections will have people at the GOTV center this Saturday and next Saturday to help people register.

The next goal is to win their votes and get them to the polls.

After the rally, Rep. Wasserman-Schultz said that Broward County is a gold mine of democrat votes, and the hard work starts here. “We have to go out through door knocking and phone calls and text messages plus significant digital messaging.”

A member of the Harris-Walz campaign told the crowd that the campaign now has 80 paid staffers working in Florida, which is several dozen more than many political observers expected.

Democrats need to flip five seats in the state House and three in the state Senate in order to shed their super-minority status.