That disparity is on display in Florida’s 2016 open-seat Senate race, which is open only because its current holder, Marco Rubio, emerged as one of the top contenders for president and is not running for re-election. The Democratic frontrunner is, like Crist, another GOP refugee: Patrick Murphy, who until 2011 was a registered Republican, but was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 2012. The party’s paucity of formidable statewide candidates “didn’t happen overnight,” said Scott Arceneaux, executive director of the Florida Democratic Party, pointing out that Republicans have controlled the statehouse for nearly 20 years. “You got a whole generation of folks who weren’t locally elected to office . . . the result is that our bench is a lot shorter than theirs.” The problem is evident at the presidential level as well: Hillary Clinton faces thin opposition while the Republican field is so crowded that TV networks have to limit the number who will participate in the main debates to ten. The function of any party, Joe Trippi told me, is to develop winning candidates. “Go local, go small, put a lot of energy into recruiting and finding people,” Trippi said. “Because later on, they are the people who are going to be able to get $20 million contributed online.”

“You don’t have to go to the political parties anymore—you can pack your tent within any camp,” said DNC vice chair Donna Brazile.

As an example, Florida Democrats point to first-term Representative Gwen Graham, who was one of only two House Democrats in the country to unseat a Republican incumbent in 2014. The daughter of Bob Graham, who is still popular in Florida as a former senator and governor, she won by running as a moderate who could connect with the white Southern voters of Florida’s Panhandle and frequently invoked her father’s legacy. Or, as Smith put it to me, “Recruit candidates that look like their district.”

In central Florida that means finding Hispanic candidates to run. When Clifford Davy and Michelle Stile, two local Democratic activists, took over the Young Democrats in Orange County this past March, they realized how weak the political infrastructure had become. “There wasn’t an actual structure at all,” Davy told me. And there easily could be: Orange County is home to the University of Central Florida (UCF) and Valencia College, one of Florida’s largest community colleges, which have a combined enrollment of 120,000 students. Minorities make up more than 40 percent of UCF’s student body and 60 percent of Valencia’s. Large schools such as these can be a major resource for future Democratic voters, volunteers, staffers, and candidates. Obama’s campaigns tapped into these pools of enthusiastic young people, but local Democrats have not, Davy told me. “We didn’t have any chapters at these large institutions,” he said. There is a Young Democrats group at UCF, but participation remains negligible. “UCF is, what, like, 60,000 kids?” said Davy. Stiles nodded: “And we’ve got ten people who show up.”

The ultimate hope of any of these groups is to build relationships with voters that don’t rely on the charisma of an individual candidate. That’s what the old political machines used to do: Organize the base, even when the national spotlight was elsewhere. Such organizing efforts are particularly important in places like central Florida, which has a high concentration of voters with no longstanding ties to either party and who aren’t used to voting as often. Puerto Rico holds general elections only once every four years, and participation rates are extraordinarily high. Puerto Ricans in U.S. elections, however, tend not to turnout in such large numbers. Osceola County, just south of Orlando, had the third-lowest voter turnout in the state in 2014; Orange County was the fourth-lowest. No one is calling for a return to the old patronage model, but something—anything—has to replace it if Democrats want to perform in elections as the demographic trends suggest they should.