Nikki Fried

Nicole Heather Fried (born December 13, 1977) is an American lawyer and politician who has served as the chair of the Florida Democratic Party since 2023.

Nicole Heather Fried was born December 13, 1977, in Miami, Florida, to Ronald, an attorney, and Lori, a stay-at-home mother.

Her parents divorced when she was 13, leaving Fried and her younger sister to be raised primarily by their mother, who became a preschool teacher after the divorce.

Fried graduated from Miami Palmetto High School.

Fried graduated from the University of Florida, where she was student body president and a member of Florida Blue Key, receiving her bachelor's degree in political science and her master's degree in political campaigning.

Fried became the first Democrat to win the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture position since 1998, as well as becoming the only woman elected to the position.

A member of the Democratic Party, Fried graduated from the University of Florida in 2003.

She has previously practiced various forms of law, including corporate law, foreclosure defense, and public defense.

Fried has also been a prominent lobbyist for the marijuana industry in the state of Florida.

In 2003, she received her Juris Doctor from the University of Florida.

After graduating, Fried worked at the law firm of Holland & Knight in Jacksonville, alongside Ashley Moody, a friend of Fried from the University of Florida who would later serve alongside her as the Florida Attorney General.

Unhappy working as a corporate lawyer, Fried left Holland & Knight in 2006 and became a public defender for Florida's 8th circuit court, which covers much of North Central Florida, including Alachua County.

Fried was a foreclosure defense lawyer from 2009 until 2011, when she joined the law and lobbying firm of Colodny Fass.

Among her major clients as a lobbyist were the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, the Walt Disney Company, Duke Energy, and HCA Healthcare.

In 2016, Fried established her own lobbying firm, called Igniting Florida, in Broward County.

Her main clients were the School Board of Broward County and the statewide medical marijuana industry, which had recently blossomed following the passage of Florida Amendment 2, which legalized medical marijuana, in the 2016 elections.

She won the 2018 Florida commissioner of agriculture election, narrowly defeating state representative Matt Caldwell by less than 7,000 votes out of over eight million votes cast, a margin of 0.08%.

Fried is the first woman to be elected to the position and was the only Democrat to win a statewide race in the 2018 Florida elections.

During her tenure, she redesigned gas pump stickers, promoted a Florida gun law bill, partook in Florida v. Georgia over waters within the ACF River Basin, and appointed two lobbyists for the Florida Sugar Cane League.

Fried won the Democratic nomination for Florida commissioner of agriculture in 2018, easily defeating Jeff Porter, the mayor of Homestead and R. David Walker, an environmental activist, despite her primary opponents criticizing her for her past campaign contributions to Republicans.

In the general election, Fried faced off against the Republican nominee Matt Caldwell, a state representative from North Fort Myers.

Fried ran on a platform in favor of removing obstacles to medical marijuana in Florida.

She described herself as "a fierce advocate for expanding access to medical marijuana for suffering Floridians", and called for placing regulation of medical marijuana under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services rather than the Florida Department of Health.

During the campaign, Fried also pledged to "ensure full background checks are completed on gun permits", a task which falls under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Agriculture.

Fried endorsed Amendment 4, a ballot initiative which restores voting rights for felons, excluding murderers and felony sex offenders.

On August 19, 2018, Wells Fargo announced it was closing Fried's campaign bank account because of her ties with medical marijuana.

Fried's campaign transferred the $137,000 in the account to a new bank account with BB&T.

However, on August 29, 2018, BB&T also announced the closure of Fried's campaign bank account on the same grounds.

Fried was endorsed by the Tampa Bay Times, the Sun Sentinel, and the Palm Beach Post.

Fried also received the endorsements of the Sierra Club, Equality Florida, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the Brady Campaign, while Caldwell received the endorsements of business and industry groups, including the Florida Farm Bureau, the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and the Associated Industries of Florida.

Fried defeated Caldwell by an extremely narrow margin.

While initial returns on Election Day showed Caldwell in the lead, by the completion of the count, Fried had narrowly taken the lead with a margin of just 0.06% of votes separating the two candidates.

Following both a machine recount and a manual recount, Fried ultimately defeated Caldwell by 6,753 votes (0.08%) out of over eight million votes cast.

She was also the only Democratic candidate to win a statewide race in Florida in 2018.

Prior to her election as chair, Fried served as the 12th Florida commissioner of agriculture from 2019 to 2023.

Shortly after entering office in 2019, Fried's office redesigned the Florida Department of Agriculture's certified gas pump stickers, which verify to customers the gas pump is state approved.

Previous commissioners had put their own names on the stickers for decades, but Fried was the first to put a color photograph of herself on the sticker.

Fried was selected as one of 17 speakers to jointly deliver the keynote address at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

She did not seek re-election in 2022, instead running in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election.

Fried was defeated in the Democratic primary by U.S. representative and former Republican governor Charlie Crist.