Orange Crush!

In 2016, Trump won Florida's 29 electoral votes by beating Hillary 4,617,886 (49.02%) to 4,504,975 (47.82), a 112,911 margin for the Orange Menace. Numerically the key to making up for that margin involves 3 things:

• registering more Democrats than Republicans
• persuading more independents ("unaffiliateds") to vote blue
• turning out the Democratic base everywhere in Florida, not just in the blue counties like Miami-Dade, Broward, Osceola, Orange, Alachua, Leon and Gadsden. In fact in 2016, Pinellas, Seminole, Duval, Jefferson and St. Lucie counties were all within just a few points of going for Hillary.

NBC News reported over the weekend that Florida has added 2.4 million new voters since Election Day 2016, with Democrats holding an edge of 59,000 in new registrants in the two-party split. Perhaps more important, there are 858,000 newly registered independents or "unaffiliateds."

Yesterday, the Miami Herald published a piece by Alex Roarty and Alex Dougherty, Anti-Trump GOP group led by Jeb Bush aide will spend millions in Florida to help Biden. There efforts might help Biden to win Florida, which is especially significant because Trump has virtually no pathway to an electoral college win without Florida's 29 votes. And, if Biden does well enough in Florida, there are red congressional and state legislative districts on the cusp of flipping blue. I spoke with some of the candidates running in red districts to find out how significant they think this effort is, both for Biden and in their own races.

I started with our two great candidates in northeast Florida, Joshua Hicks, who's running for state Rep. and Adam Christensen, who's running for Congress. Hicks told me that "Any legitimate effort to encourage Republicans and NPAs to vote for Joe Biden helps candidates up and down the ballot. I would welcome it. In my conservative leaning district, we are making a real effort to focus on the kitchen table issues our community cares about-- regardless of political party. We expect Democrats to vote this November but to win, we need to reach across the aisle to win votes from those turned away by Trump. People are exhausted by the chaos of Donald Trump's America and they are ready to build back better. While my opponent continues to focus his attention on pleasing Donald Trump's ego, I'm reaching out to families across District 11 in Northeast Florida to make sure they know they can vote for a real candidate who cares about them. I believe, with the efforts of other groups, and with the aggressive campaign we are running in the field, voters will vote for change up and down the ballot this November."

Adam Christensen, the congressional candidate for the seat Tom Yoho is retiring from noted that "If the Biden team makes a significant push, especially in areas that Democrats did poorly in in 2018, they will be able to make up significant ground in winning back Florida. The main areas they need to focus is on are Hispanic and Latino populations that have never been reached before. In our district alone there are around 40,000 Latinos that have never had anyone ask them for their vote. The opportunity is there for Biden to sweep Florida, they just have to know where to look and put the plan in motion to do it. If they do, they will flip deep red seats like ours and deliver Florida to Democrats in a redistricting year. The stakes and opportunities could not be higher in this election."

Dr. Cindy Banyai is also running for a congressional seat, in her case for the other open seat a Republican-- Francis Rooney-- is giving up in the southwestern part of the state. "I know in my district there are plenty of people looking to get back to civility in politics and they know candidates pledging themselves to Trump will further divide us. Outreach across party lines will be crucial at this time."

Bob Lynch is running for state Rep. in a Miami-Dade swing district against GOP power-monger Daniel Perez. He told me that his is a very significant effort both in terms of its focus and the fact that the people running it actually have experience in winning statewide elections in Florida, something Democrats have only managed to do four times in my adult life (Obama twice, Alex Sink, Nikki Fried). Unfortunately, many of the cyclical losers in Florida Democratic Party politics who worked in all the recent losing statewide campaigns have been hired again by the party and by Biden. As Lynch noted "Nikki won by focusing on a lot of red districts that were ignored by the Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum campaigns. Independents are the key to winning Florida this year given the absolutely disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by our Republican government. They will naturally lean Dem but why would they register as Democrats when so many of them live in areas the party has all but conceded to Republicans. Many of these voters are seeing Democratic candidates down ballot for the first time in their voting experience. It is naive to think that there won’t be some spill over effect from targeting these voters to get them to vote for Joe Biden. It will help flip districts that the 'experts' never thought could be competitive."

Roarty and Dougherty wrote that there is some real financial capacity behind the effort. They are beginning a digit campaign this week and a TV campaign in couple of weeks.

Officials with Republican Voters Against Trump, a national super PAC, said Monday they would begin a campaign aimed at persuading politically moderate Floridians to back Joe Biden, hopeful that the support of those voters can swing the battleground state-- and possibly the presidency-- toward the Democratic presidential candidate this fall.

The effort, dubbed “Project Orange Crush,” is expected to spend $8 million to $10 million over the next two months, officials with the group say, and will include TV, social media, and digital ads. It will target nearly a half-million voters in the state, including independents and moderate Republicans who are wary of Trump but have not yet committed to voting for Biden.

“Our plan is to surgically target the key 450,000 Independents and soft Republicans who will decide the election,” said a memo from the group, obtained by the Miami Herald.

And the group is leaning on the experience of GOP operatives with deep ties to Florida politics: Mike Murphy, who twice helped Bush win the Florida governor’s office, will lead the campaign, while David Hill, a former Bush pollster, is also involved.

...“Florida is a strong hedge against any potential Trump comeback [in the] industrial Midwest,” the memo said.

Republican Voters Against Trump also conducted polling with Florida Republicans and independent voters who aren’t fully committed to either Trump or Biden. The polling, conducted in July, found that a majority of voters in certain groups-- women, independents and people age 65 and older who aren’t backing either candidate-- were leaning towards Biden. Of those polled, a majority of males and registered Republicans were leaning towards Trump. The two candidates were tied overall, the poll found.

The group said their poll results, which showed Biden leading among independents and getting 40% support from Republicans who aren’t sold on Trump, is evidence that a key group of voters can be persuaded to vote against the president with the right messaging campaign.

"The purpose was to test messages and perceptions among these soft and undecided voters," the memo said.

...Biden has maintained a small lead in every Florida poll released throughout the summer but both campaigns view the state as a toss-up in November.

At least in part, Trump's problem in Florida stems from how poorly he and his puppet governor, Ron DeSantis, have handled the pandemic. Florida is one of the states-- along with Georgia, South Dakota, Missouri, Alabama and Iowa-- where Trumpist governors are responsible for causing massive and tragically unnecessary devastation. Yesterday, Florida reported 1,885 new cases, bringing the state's load to 623,471-- 29,029 cases per million Floridians, second worst number in the country after Louisiana. Florida has 533,453 active cases, by far the most in the country. Floridians have figured out why-- and who.

Magical Mystery Cure by Chip Proser