First Lady Jill Biden puts on a brave face during a recent campaign event with U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Val Demings (D., Fla.) and gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist (D., Fla.) in Orlando.
Photo:
Paul Hennessy/Zuma Press
It seems that no matter how many times the national press corps instructs Floridians to deplore their Republican political leadership, Sunshine State voters are still refusing to obey. Now exasperated national Democratic donors are abandoning the state entirely. Within the state, residents have increasingly decided not to get involved with Democrats in the first place.
Emily Mahoney reports for the Tampa Bay Times that Hispanic voters in particular have been migrating to the GOP:
According to recently released state data, about 58,000 more Hispanic voters registered with Florida’s Republican Party between 2020 and 2022, resulting in growth that far outpaces the party’s gains among voters of all races. In the same period, Democrats lost about 46,000 registered Hispanic voters. That’s not far off from the rate of its overall statewide losses as the party sheds numbers…
In the Florida governor’s race, a recent Telemundo/LX News poll of likely Hispanic voters found Gov.
Ron DeSantis
leading Democrat
Charlie Crist
51% to 44%, a major swing to the right from similar surveys conducted in 2018 and 2020 by the same polling firm.
Fifty percent of the Hispanic voters polled also said they approved of DeSantis’ chartering of flights of Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, compared to 43% who disapproved.
Lawrence Mower reports in the Miami Herald that Democrats running for state cabinet posts are “struggling” and that fundraising has been “anemic.” Mr. Mower’s report also suggests a lack of team spirit among the donkeys:
When Democrat Naomi Blemur announced earlier this month that Hurricane Ian was forcing her to suspend her campaign for Florida’s agriculture commissioner, the response from some in her own party was harsh.
“I was unaware she had a campaign,” tweeted Democratic strategist Steve Schale.
“Same,” responded Democratic state Rep.
Allison Tant
of Tallahassee…
Blemur, a first-time candidate from North Miami, did not respond to requests for comment. On Friday, she said on her campaign website that she was being “discriminated against by leaders and independent organizations within my own party.” (During the primary, some Democrats withdrew their endorsements after her past
posts calling abortion a “sin” resurfaced.)
Cancelling someone for expressing a widely held religious belief doesn’t seem helpful if one hopes to build a majority political coalition. At the moment Democrats in Florida don’t seem to be building much of anything. Mr. Mower reports on former state Rep. Adam Hattersley, who is running to be the state’s chief financial officer and is successfully containing his enthusiasm:
“It does not feel like an election,” Hattersley said. “Nobody seems to focus on it. Nobody seems to know what’s going on.”
It’s fun when candidates get caught up in the excitement of the closing days of a campaign. Jonathan Weisman reports in the
New York Times
on national Democrats’ enthusiasm for U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Val Demings:
As for Ms. Demings, neither Senate Democrats’ super PAC nor their official campaign arm, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, had spent much of anything in the last reports to the Federal Election Commission.
Hmm. In February this column wondered if Florida should no longer be considered a swing state. Now it seems a lot of Democratic donors have already made up their minds. Matt Dixon and Gary Fineout report for Politico:
Less than two weeks before the election, Democrats are signaling that key races are slipping away from them. They point to ominous signs and missed opportunities, including the party’s message on abortion rights and gun control that isn’t resonating…
Most worrisome for Democrats, national organizations and donors have all but abandoned their candidates — setting off fears that Florida is no longer viewed as competitive.
What’s striking is how many local Democrats are going on the record to air their grievances even before seeing November’s results. The Politico report continues:
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat who represents part of South Florida, noted that President
Joe Biden
has visited the state only twice since becoming president — both during times of crisis instead of specific campaign events. Biden is scheduled to hold a fundraiser and get out the vote rally with Crist in South Florida on Nov. 1, just days before the election. Demings is scheduled to join Biden at the rally.
“What have Democrats done? Not enough,” Pizzo said.
The report even spots cracks in a foundational Democratic stronghold:
“I think Ron DeSantis will win Miami-Dade County,” said Evan Ross, a longtime South Florida-based Democratic consultant. “Democratic voters are not at all excited or motivated by Charlie’s campaign. Right now, I think it will be close, but I think DeSantis beats Crist here.”
At least Democrats can take solace in the fact that someone seems to have persuaded Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist, not to visit the state before Election Day. The Associated Press reports that his Florida visit “is no longer planned.” A Sanders road show is the last thing Democrats need right now. Many of the state’s immigrants live in the U.S. precisely because they had to escape the terror of “democratic socialists” in other countries.
The blood-curdling specter of Sandernista governance is a big reason Republicans ran so well in Florida in November of 2020. Earlier that year Patricia Mazzei reported for the New York Times:
Comments from Senator Bernie Sanders praising aspects of the Communist Cuban revolution drew a forceful rebuke on Monday from Cuban-Americans, Florida Democrats and several of Mr. Sanders’s opponents, who cast him as too extreme in his views to represent the party as its presidential nominee.
Mr. Sanders’s remarks threatened to undercut his candidacy in the nation’s largest presidential battleground state as he seeks to build momentum on a broader scale after a series of early primary victories. In Florida, Mr. Sanders stands to alienate not just Cubans but also a far more diverse group of Latinos, including Colombians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, than the ones he won overwhelmingly in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses.
“I’m totally disgusted and insulted,” said Lourdes Diaz, the president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus in Broward County, who is Cuban-American. “Maybe this will open people’s eyes to how super, super liberal and radical Bernie is. I’m not going to defend him anymore. I’m over it.”
Keeping Mr. Sanders out of Florida is a positive step for Florida Democrats and suggests a good slogan in this season of Halloween:
Not as Scary as We Were in 2020!
Another positive step for Democrats would be to tolerate candidates who express religious beliefs.
As for Republicans, there appears to be almost a perfect correlation between criticism from national media and applause from Florida citizens.
***
James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”
***
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