Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ campaign said Friday it has named Coral Springs Commissioner Nancy Metayer Bowen as its Caribbean vote director in Florida.
Metayer Bowen will lead efforts to engage and mobilize Caribbean communities across the state in support of Vice President Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
“We are in a pivotal time right now, especially with the momentum that we are seeing across the state of Florida, especially within the Caribbean community,” Metayer Bowen said in a phone interview.
“I am super excited,” she said. “She’s just an amazing individual and candidate, and I’m so proud to be a part of history. This is history.”
Metayer Bowen’s efforts begin immediately. The Ayisyen Pou Harris Caravan! — Haitians for Harris Caravan — is Saturday. It starts at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex in Miami and ends at an early voting site in Miami Gardens.
“We want to show people that the Harris-Walz campaign has support, especially within the Haitian community,” as well as remind people to vote in the lead-up to the Aug. 20 primary and nonpartisan elections and the November general election, she said.
Like other Democratic Party leaders, Metayer Bowen professes optimism about Harris in Florida. But it’s no longer seen as a swing state that could easily go either way in a presidential election.
It’s now Republican red, rather than Democratic blue or purple between the two parties, a challenge Metayer Bowen acknowledged. “We understand that Florida’s a red state. But I think that we’re making strides to galvanize Democrats up and down the state to go out and vote. I think this is an opportunity to turn our state purple if not blue and to show Florida is in play on a national level.”
Metayer Bowen was elected to the Coral Springs City Commission in 2020, becoming the first Black woman and first Haitian American woman to become a commissioner there.
On the commission, she’s championed environmental protection and social justice issues. Her 2024 reelection campaign described her goals as “a more equitable and sustainable future,” but she ended up not having to campaign. No candidate came forward to challenge her for reelection, so in June she won a second term without opposition.
She also has been active in the Democratic Party and a leader in the effort to win voter approval of a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution, largely through the organization Black In Repro, which advocates for reproductive rights.
Her efforts now shift to the Harris-Walz ticket and the Caribbean community. “My focus right now is to get this ticket to the White House,” she said. The new job is a paid staff position.
“I think this moment in time is an exciting time because people can finally say, ‘Oh my gosh, my president not only looks like me, but she comes from an immigrant background. She’s first generation,” she said.
Metayer Bowen said she feels a personal connection to the vice president’s story.
“I’m of Haitian descent. And I am a proud Haitian American. I come from a two-immigrant household. Both of my parents migrated to this country in the ’80s,” she said. “Being able to work for an individual who has a very similar story to mine, it’s powerful, it’s impactful. I’m not only proud to work on this campaign, but am proud to support a candidate that’s a woman that has immigrant ancestry, which is Jamaican and Indian, a Black woman who graduated from an HBCU.”
Metayer Bowen graduated from Florida A&M University, also a historically Black college and university. She also has a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Her LinkedIn profile shows she has worked in government, philanthropic and community organizing jobs. She worked for a foundation in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. In 2011, she had an internship in the White House and in the Tallahassee office of then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
Recent presidential candidates of both parties, including Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and Republican Donald Trump in 2016, have courted the Haitian American community in Florida. Metayer Brown said Haitian Americans in 2016 wanted to see what Republicans were offering.
“In the Haitian community over and over again we have candidates who come to our communities and pander. They make empty promises. And folks wanted to see what the other side could offer,” Metayer Bowen said. “I think through this administration, this Harris administration, that will be different. Especially with someone who has that immigrant ancestry, who’s coming form a two-immigrant household, and her story’s very relatable to individuals, first generation are part of the diaspora.”
In 2018, it was widely reported that Trump, then the president, used a vulgarity to describe people from Haiti and African nations, though he and his staff later denied he applied the term to Haiti.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
