Weekly political notes from The News Service of Florida
By Jim Turner, The News Service of Florida. All rights reserved; see terms.
TALLAHASSEE — Tuesday’s general election is the only poll that really matters. But the predictions keep rolling in from all directions.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political-prognostication site from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, moved the Florida governor’s race this week from “likely Republican” to “safe Republican.”
“In Florida, the questions are more about the size of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) margin and if he will run for president than whether he’ll lose to Charlie Crist (D),” J. Miles Coleman, a Sabato’s associate editor, wrote.
The Democratic Governors Association, in a fundraising pitch Sunday, said it is “facing an unprecedented number of toss-ups” and put the Florida contest at 47 percent for DeSantis to 46 percent for Crist.
The political website Real Clear Politics, in aggregating polling data, had U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., up 8 percentage points over Democratic challenger Val Demings and DeSantis at plus 12.3 percentage points over Crist.
Recent polling from the progressive think tank Data for Progress had DeSantis leading by 12 percentage points and Rubio up 7 points.
Meanwhile, after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a redistricting plan pushed by DeSantis, Republicans are projected to increase their seats in Florida’s congressional delegation from 16 to 20. As a sign of a pending red wave, Sabato on Wednesday moved the redrawn Congressional District 23 in South Florida from “safe” Democratic to “likely” Democratic.
The district became open when Democrat Ted Deutch decided against seeking another term. Democrat Jared Moskowitz, a former state House member and former director of the state Division of Emergency Management, is running against Republican Joe Budd, a wealth manager.
“This change really has little to do with the race itself; it’s just about wave potential, particularly in Florida,” Sabato noted.
The national election analysis website FiveThirtyEight gave Democrats a 53 percent chance of holding the majority in the U.S. Senate, while the U.S. House would go to the GOP.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in appearances Sunday on CNN and ABC that Republicans could come out of the election with at least 52 U.S. Senate seats.
DEVIL INCARNATE OR DYSTOPIA?
As he campaigned Tuesday in South Florida for Crist and Demings, President Joe Biden labeled DeSantis “Donald Trump incarnate” and criticized Republican efforts to block price caps on prescription drugs and a proposal by Scott that calls for all federal programs to be reauthorized every five years.
“You’ve been paying Social Security your whole life, you earned it. Now, these guys want to take it away,” Biden said in Hallandale Beach. “Who in the hell do they think they are?”
Meanwhile, as he entered the final week of his re-election campaign, DeSantis said he’s kept Florida from a “woke” Democratic dystopia that continues to threaten the state and nation. He has focused heavily during the campaign on his efforts to reopen the economy and schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You would have had people lose businesses in record numbers. You would have had massive numbers of jobs lost forever,” DeSantis, who appeared Tuesday in Escambia County, said of what would have happened if he didn’t win the 2018 governor’s race. “You would have had crime running rampant throughout our streets. You would have had kids locked out of school instead of us being the focus of freedom throughout, not just the United States, but throughout the western world.”
Most of the oxygen of the final weekend of the campaign will get absorbed by rallies featuring DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, who could square off in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
Trump will take part in a rally in Miami to support Rubio, while DeSantis is set to hold an event in Sarasota.
‘NO PLACE IN FLORIDA’
DeSantis’ office pointed to actions he has taken to protect the Jewish community, as it responded to criticism that he had been silent about anti-Semitic messages seen across Jacksonville on Saturday, including at a college football game he attended.
A news release from the governor’s office Monday said DeSantis “rejects attempts to scapegoat the Jewish community — it has no place in Florida.”
The statement added that “through legislative proposals, laws, and decisive executive action, Governor DeSantis has a proven record of supporting the Jewish community and fighting anti-Semitism and the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Florida.”
The statement followed calls for DeSantis to denounce anti-Semitic messages that referred to rapper Kanye West, now going by Ye. One of the messages was displayed on the exterior of TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville, which hosted the football game between the University of Florida and the University of Georgia.
Before the governor’s office put out the news release, Democrats pounced on what they perceived as DeSantis’ silence. Crist blamed DeSantis for having a hand in the rise of anti-Semitism.
“While anti-Semitism is spreading in our state, Gov. DeSantis refuses to condemn it — even when it’s broadcast on the side of a stadium he is in,” Crist said. “It’s a disgusting and absolute failure of leadership.”
Other Republicans quickly denounced the anti-Semitic displays.
Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry tweeted Sunday that the city is “made better” by diversity and condemned the “cowards” and “their cowardly messages.”
TWEET OF THE WEEK: “Ben Sasse said he is well aware of the political controversy that surrounds him at the university. He said he wouldn’t speak on political topics at any UF event, take political contributions or support political candidates. He calls this ‘a declaration of political celibacy.’” — Isabella Douglas (@_issadouglas) digital managing editor for The Independent Alligator, referring to U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican selected this week to become president of the University of Florida.