Local delegates to last week's democratic national convention in Chicago are back home in the region. After nominating Vice President Kamala Harris as their candidate, Jeff Nall, president of Emerald Coast Equality, was one of the delegates from the state's first congressional district. He spoke with WUWF's Sandra Averhart to share his experience.
Jeff Nall: It was amazing. The energy was palatable. You could just feel it. You could see it. It was positive. It was patriotic. It was forward-thinking, and it was unifying. It was just really the experience of a lifetime. As I may have told you, when I signed up to file to run, because delegates are elected, I knew it would be a big experience. I've always been a huge supporter of President Biden, you know, through my advocacy work. I'm very familiar with a lot of different issues, not just one that might be closer to me. So I felt like I had the knowledge and experience to participate in this. So I knew it was going to be important. I knew this was my chance. Little did I know what was going to happen before we actually left town.
Averhart: Nall is referring to President Biden's unprecedented decision to pull out of the race. It changed the nature of the work delegates had to do before the convention.
Jeff Nall: And it was a very, very busy period because, you know, someone has to earn the vote of the delegates, and that's what Vice President Harris said. She wanted to earn that. And so we basically had two rounds of voting.
Averhart: Ultimately, Harris was the only candidate, and she received overwhelming support from the delegates in the final round of voting, which Nall says had to be completed by Aug. 7, an important deadline for some states to finalize their ballots.
Nall: Some years in the past, they've been kind of lenient, but in the world of legal maneuvers that we live, we just wanted to make sure that was done.
Averhart: What are some of the most exciting or most memorable things from the convention for you?
Nall: Well, I particularly like the roll call. I've been kind of on the dry side, from what I understand or I've observed, and that was obviously not the case with, this on Tuesday night. We didn't know where to look. You know, you're looking for. Where are they seated? What's the song? What in the world is going on? So that was great. But then the speakers were fantastic, you know, and I think they did a good job. When I mentioned unifying, I wasn't talking about just Democrats and the different, you know, big tents. So we have different pockets, shall we say. And sometimes they get along better than others. But it was unifying in that way. But it was also unifying for our country and as Americans. We had speakers that are obviously Democrats, but there were Republicans, there were independents.
Averhart: Then, of course, speak to the historic nature of this convention.
Nall: I mean, such an opportunity, you know, to be able to — me be able to cast a vote, to nominate the first woman of both African American and (South) Asian descent, I mean, that is just huge. That's enough in itself. But the way they celebrated blended families, there were just a lot of things that we typically don't see.
Averhart: There was more to the convention than just the prime time, all-star lineup of speakers. Talk about some of the meetings you were able to attend.
Nall: Yes, we kicked off each day. We would go pick up our credentials at 6:30 a.m. and then the Florida delegation would have a meeting by itself, and then we would have different speakers come in. And I thought it spoke very well of Florida, because in the current climate that we live in the state, you know, you might think we might not get the A-listers, but we had Gov. Gretchen Whitmer come by, Rep. Jamie Raskin, (and) Gov. Andy Brashear. And then we went to the daytime meetings that were called caucuses or councils. One I went to was the rural caucus. I felt like that was connected to Congressional District 1. And how you really do have to take care of all citizens, whoever's elected. You talk about areas like Century. (I) also went to the women's caucus, big, ally for, you know, reproductive freedom movement. And we all had our men for choice signs, lapel pins, and Gov. Tim Walz, who, of course, our VP candidate, came by, and he's very, very supportive of women's rights.
Averhart: What were your impressions of him? Cause we're all in a getting to know you phase with him.
Nall: He seems just kind of like what he came through in his speech. It's like somebody, you know, or somebody like him. I think he's very relatable, long story short.
Averhart: So now, coming back home, what are you going to be sharing with members of the party here locally?
Nall: Well, one, I want to encourage people to run for a delegate, and that's something that I think we had, to educate people on because I had to educate myself back in January when I was encouraged to do this. I want to make sure that everyone knows that they have that opportunity to have that experience on the other end. You know, we will be going and sharing our experience with the local party meetings and things like that. There's several I've been invited to so that we can bring some of this enthusiasm as I'm home. There will be events where we may be asked to be some level of surrogate to kind of spread that message as a delegate. that part I'll be learning more about. So I'll keep you posted, but we've got 70-some-odd days to get it done, so I'm sure we'll be busy.
