HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — She made her way past a man in a coconut-shell bikini top and a burly guy in a parrot-head hat, and then the candidate trying to become Florida’s first female governor began swaying to an escapist island tune being played onstage in her honor. Just days before a stubbornly close primary election, the show stood a chance of helping win over an undecided Democratic voter or two.

“What would Jimmy Buffett do?” Jimmy Buffett hollered as he belted out “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” a testimonial to situations in which it is always happy hour. “I’d vote for her, that’s what I’d do!”

The crowd cheered for Gwen Graham, the former Tallahassee congresswoman and senator’s daughter seen by national party leaders as a formidable contender to break the Republican Party’s 20-year hold on the Florida governor’s mansion. A mainstream Democrat, Ms. Graham is a former P.T.A. mom with a golden pedigree who could appeal to the moderate women who have been abandoning the Republican Party since the election of President Trump.

“Help is on the way,” she promised the audience.

But this is Florida, where political races, much like Floridians, run a little wild.