Why Does Ron DeSantis Seem So Determined To Make His Pandemic Even Worse For Floridians?

 

Florida Man

On Thursday, Florida reported another 2,541 COVID cases and another 172 deaths (by far the worst in the U.S.). Only 7 full countries had more deaths on Thursday than Florida:

• India- 1,144
• U.S.A.- 942
• Brazil- 818
• Mexico- 601
• Argentina- 390
• Colombia- 178
• Iran- 175

Yesterday, Florida reported another 2,847 new cases-- bringing the state's total to 695,887, third worst after much bigger California and Texas. In fact, Florida now has 32,400 cases per million residents, compared to Texas' 26,243 cases per million and Califoirnia's 20,249, which is below the national average (21,767). Florida has 417,626 active cases, are than any state by far. In short, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, aided by Trump and a Republican-controlled legislature, has turned Florida into a COVID-basket case.

Yesterday DeSantis decided to make his pandemic worse by allowing restaurants at operate full capacity and preventing even the worst hit cities and counties from ordering businesses to close. This while new daily cases are spiking like mad in a dozen counties. Yesterday these were the 10 counties reporting new cases worse than some entire states!

• Miami-Dade- 503
• Broward- 191
• Palm Beach- 157
• Orange- 157
• Hillsborough- 155
• Duval- 120 (where Trump hel;d a super-spreader event Thursday night)
• Alachua- 98
• Polk- 96
• Brevard- 92
• Leon- 88

DeSantis announced that all restaurants in Florida will be allowed to operate with at least 50 percent capacity regardless of local rules. Additionally, the governor says local governments will have to justify any capacity restrictions between 50 and 100 percent. Those would require state approval... The governor says he will not allow local governments to close restaurants. As he has stated this week, he does not believe restaurant closures have made a difference in limiting the spread of COVID-19... [B]ars will be allowed to operate with at least 50 percent capacity, just like restaurants.

Meanwhile, DeSantis' boss, Donald, is reported to have "lost patience" with Dr. Robert Redfield the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventio, "as well as with the other public health experts on his coronavirus team because their sober messaging on the future of the pandemic clashes with his rosy assessments.

Trump believes that breakthroughs are not coming swiftly enough, according to people familiar with the President's thinking. Trump's frustrations have caused some to question whether Redfield is on the chopping block, but a Trump adviser said they did not expect the President to make major staffing changes before the election.

The ever-looming threat, Trump's public undermining of the CDC chief and Redfield's tendency to fold to the White House are taking a toll on CDC staff, from top to bottom, employees say. Some have questioned whether their work is making a difference and others have even considered resigning-- and whether the sagging spirits may be hampering pandemic response.

Eight current and former public health officials described for CNN a crushing environment at the agencies charged with the coronavirus response brought on by a President intent on contradicting critical public health messaging and downplaying the threat of the virus, politically motivated pressure from the White House and baseless allegations from political appointees that government scientists are part of a disloyal "deep state."

"The morale is as low as I've ever seen it and we have no confidence in our leadership," a CDC official said. "People are miserable and it's a shame because this pandemic is still flying away and we still need a robust public health response."

Inside the White House, Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci have struggled to compete with the growing influence of Trump's new favorite coronavirus adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no public health or infectious disease expertise whose views are wildly out of step with leading public health experts. Birx has told people around her she is "distressed" with the direction of the task force and is uncertain how much longer she can continue to serve as the coronavirus task force coordinator.

And at the FDA, the agency's top career officials penned a Washington Post op-ed earlier this month reasserting the agency's independence and commitment to science amid political pressure from the White House and "deep state" allegations from the President.

In a nod to the dispirited mood engulfing his agency, Redfield registered his disappointment during a Senate hearing on Wednesday with since-departed top Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Michael Caputo's wild accusations that CDC scientists are part of a "deep state" engaging in "sedition."

Back to Florida for a moment. Matt Dixon reported at Politico that on Friday Bloomberg announced that he’s blanketing Florida airwaves with a $40 million TV ad buy, the first since he pledged to spend $100 million there to defeat Donald. "The massive buy, being made through the Bloomberg-funded Independence USA PAC, comes the same week that nearly 5 million vote-by-mail ballots are being sent to Florida voters in the the start of what effectively is a month-long Election Day in the nation’s largest swing state."

Bloomberg told Dixon that "This fall, the path to the presidency goes through Florida-- and with mail-in ballots going out this week, voters will soon start deciding who gets its 29 electoral votes. That’s why we’re doing everything in our power to tell the story of Donald Trump’s failed presidency and why we need Joe Biden as the next president of the United States."

Florida Republicans can't stop his ads but they are trying to stop him and others for paying the fines of felons so they can vote. Former Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson, one of the first supporters of the idea of re-enfranchising felons who had served their time, told me that "The threat to investigate Bloomberg is the best illustration so far of the psychopathology of the Florida GOP. Florida voted by almost two-to-one in favor of the principle that no one can take away your right to vote, even if you’re a convicted felon. That’s one of those 'INALIENABLE' rights-- a right that you cannot lose-- that the Founders said was 'endowed by the Creator.' But to the Florida GOP, that’s just LOL."





NPR reported yesterday that Ashley Moody, Florida's crackpot, right-wing attorney general, urged on by Matt Gaetz, the furthest right of the Florida congressional delegation, is demanding law enforcement agencies open an investigation into Bloomberg's contribution to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. The Republicans are whining that Bloomberg and other contributing to the Coalition are trying to buy their votes.

Northeast Florida state House candidate Joshua Hicks, endorsed yesterday by President Obama, isn't buying DeSantis' bullshit. "Last I checked, the pandemic is still present," he told me, "we haven't found a cure, people are still getting sick and dying. Yet, today's decision to reopen Florida by Gov. DeSantis was another example of his severe incompetence and his obvious need to please Donald Trump. This decision made by the Governor places lives in danger-- young and old-- and he's playing political games with all of our lives. It's shameful and unbecoming of a Governor. Instead of addressing this virus head on, the Governor has been spreading lies and hiding the facts from the people. He continues to do so and I look forward to holding him fully accountable when I'm elected to the Florida Legislature on November 3rd. Or, he added... as The Atlantic put it Thursday: "In present-day politics, we have one party that consistently seeks advantage in depriving the other party’s adherents of the right to vote."

Bob Lynch is a state House candidate in Miami-Dade, running against one of DeSantis' top allies in the legislature, Daniel Perez. Bob told me yesterday that "You have to remember that Ron DeSantis is doing this AFTER doing nothing to shore up our state’s unemployment, deliberately making it hard to access Federal PUA money, and not rejecting the extra $300 a week in Federal unemployment assistance. So what choice do people have who work in the restaurant industry? Go to work and get sick while bringing the virus into your home or stay home and get no assistance and risk starvation? If we had had a comprehensive state and Federal response since he beginning of the Pandemic we would not be facing this brutal decision.  We should have acted like other modern countries and paid people to stay home. Instead, the Republicans just want to send people to their deaths while providing immunity to business owners that don’t follow whatever messed up version of the CDC guidelines appear from day to day. There is no gray area on the science here. Dining indoors helps spread the virus. The negligence is criminal. The GOP has a very fluid position on states and local rights. They are all in favor of them as long as The will of the people is bent to their vision of what’s 'best'."

Lynch said that "Residents of Florida already overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative in 2018 to restore voting rights for felons. There was no provision for a poll tax to make them pay their fees. Michael Bloomberg, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan have honorably stepped in to assist in this effort as many ex-felons can’t even find out what they will be required to pay to exercise their Constitutional rights. Overturning the will of the people is nothing new in Florida. It happened with Medical Marijuana, it happened with disenfranchising felons, and it will happen again. Hopefully not with the results of the election in November. DeSantis will not provide a critical check on the Trump Regime and Florida Republicans will never provide a check on DeSantis. Our only hope is to vote them all out and elect Democrats who believe in science and the constitution. People will continue to die due to Ron DeSantis’ decisions."

If Rachel Brown wins her state Senate race in Lee County on November 3 you will read the next day that the Democrats, despite the party leadership-- and particularly despite Gary Farmer-- have flipped the chamber from red to blue. This morning Brown told me, referring to DeSantis and his puppets in the legislature, that "they are sacrificing people, school children, for the sake of 'normalcy.' A leader does not pretend everything is ok. A leader deals with an issue head on and is honest with their people. It was absolutely devastating, revolting, apocalyptic... the news. Now that the schools have adapted in these tough times, now this? Now they will have to deal with parents not sending their kids to school with a mask? ... Now it's not safe to go to the grocery store... or go out and vote? That was their plan all along. Discusting."

Florida Republican Party And Voter Suppression-- It's Who They Are

 

In 2018, Florida voters passed Amendment 4, which ended the state’s lifetime ban on voting for most former prisoners, giving the right to vote to something like 1.4 million more Floridians. It was a lopsided referendum-- 5,148,926 (64.55%) in favor to 2,828,339 (35.45%) opposed. If you think that overwhelming support would end Republican Party opposition to this kind of expansion of voting rights... you just don't understand the Republican Party and the nature of conservatism. With the connivance of Trumpist Gov. Ron DeSantis-- America's most despised governor-- the GOP-controlled legislature passed a poll tax, forcing "people with felony records pay 'all fines and fees' associated with their sentence prior to the restoration of their voting rights." Last year Judge Robert Hinkle of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida threw out the bill but DeSantis appealed the decision to a right-wing controlled appeals court-- the 11th circuit-- ruled the law constitutional. Court battles continued, with Republicans still refusing to submit to the will of the voters and earlier this month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law on a 6-4 ruling, handing a significant victory to Trump, DeSantis and their puppet legislature. Politico noted yesterday that "One of the judges who voted to uphold the law is Barbara Lagoa, who is now a contender for the U.S. Supreme Court after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg."

Gary Fineout wrote that "The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition had previously received support from people such as NBA superstar LeBron James before the ruling. But coalition leaders say that the court ruling has sparked a huge outpouring of aid and they have now taken 44,000 donations in total. 'This outpouring of support for returning citizens is reminiscent of the type of support we received from people from all walks of life during our Amendment 4 campaign,' said Desmond Meade, executive director of the coalition. 'Just as in our campaign, this effort is about placing people over politics. The democracy that we envision is not one where an American is forced to choose between putting food on the table or voting.'... [They've] now raised more than $20 million to pay off outstanding court debts before hitting the registration deadline in less than two weeks."

Bloomberg, who is helping finance the Democratic efforts in Florida, is one of the big donors. Michael Vick and John Legend are two others. In a joint contribution, MTV, Comedy Central and VH1 kicked in $250,000. And the Miami Dolphins Social Impact Committee donated $100,000 last week.

Bloomberg’s decision to funnel money into paying off court debts came shortly after he also pledged to spend $100 million to help defeat President Donald Trump in Florida. Trump narrowly won the state with less than 113,000 votes and a defeat in the Sunshine State would likely doom his re-election.

Florida’s voter registration deadline is Oct. 5 and as many as 775,000 felons may have outstanding court debts-- which include fines, fees and restitution-- that preclude them from registering under the law passed last year by the Republican-controlled state Legislature.

Neil Volz, the coalition’s deputy director, said the group had already paid off fines and fees for nearly 5,000 people so far and averaged to about $1,000 per person. He said that the average could drop because “our goal is to help as many people as fast as possible” but he said the infusion of new help could lead to 20,000 people having their legal financial obligations paid off.

These extraordinary efforts by the Democrats are all about beating Trump and replacing him with moderate Democrat Joe Biden. The Republicans certainly want to save Trump's presidency, but they are even more interested in mainstaining their own power by holding onto congressional and state legislative seats. I asked some of the Democratic candidates running down-ballot races what the expanded voting rights would mean in their own campaigns and how they feel about the latest stunts. Everyone's busy campaigning today, but in between campaign stops, Joshua Hicks, the progressive Democrat working to replace Trump-DeSantis enabler Cord Byrd in a state House district that includes Nassau County and part of Deval reminded me that "Amendment 4 was passed by the voters with a clear majority. My opponent Cord Byrd, and his Republican friends schemed and passed a modern day poll-tax to prevent Americans who have served their time from being able to vote. It's un-American and it's wrong. But it's not surprising. That's what they do because if more people vote, they lose. My opponent is the guy who believes in QAnon and is fine with his supporters waving confederate flags during civil rights protests over George Floyd's murder. So it's not surprising he continues to support efforts that violate Floridian's voting rights and civil rights. This November, we have a chance to send a message-- let's place equality over racism and bigotry. Candidates in Florida need your help now more than ever... we need the resources to take advantage of the climate. Help place Democrats in the Florida Legislature, who will fight to enact Amendment 4 as it was meant, so we can stop the GOP from violating our civil rights."

How Toxic Will DeSantis Be-- Not To Mention Trump-- For Down-Ballot Republican Incumbents In Florida?

 

COVID Ron with COVID Don

Polling shows that Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is the second most hated governor in the U.S. Just 29% of Floridians say he's handled the pandemic well (and that includes the 4% who think he's handled it "very well"). Who's worse? Iowans say Kim Reynolds, who only had 26% willing to say she's done a good job on the pandemic. As of yesterday, there were 685,439 cases in Florida-- 31,914 cases per million residents, the worst in the country outside of Louisiana. Florida has active 453,331 cases (worst in America by far), which means there will be more deaths added to DeSantis' already dismal 13,324.

DeSantis is one lucky-ducky he's not up for reelection in November. Still, he's dragging other Republicans down the drain even while not on the ballot. So yesterday, he took a cue from his lord and master and decided to play the Law & Order card. Reporting for CNN, Gregory Lemos and Allen Kim wrote that DeSantis released a sweeping set of proposals on Monday, probably unconstitutional, that would dramatically crack down on people who attend protests that turn violent or disorderly by threatening them with a mix of felonies and increased jail time.

DeSantis said the proposal, which was introduced at a Monday press conference-- called the Combatting Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act-- would impose stiff criminal penalties for actions such as blocking roadways, disrupting restaurants or toppling monuments.

"You see videos of these innocent people eating dinner and you have these crazed lunatics just screaming at them and intimidating them on a public accommodation," DeSantis said. "You aren't going to do that in state of Florida."

Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, responded to the proposal in a statement, calling it "undemocratic and hostile to Americans' shared values."

"This effort has one goal: silence, criminalize, and penalize Floridians who want to see justice for Black lives lost to racialized violence and brutality at the hands of law enforcement," Kubic said.

Among the proposals is a measure allowing motorists to be waived of liability should they happen to kill or injure a protester with their vehicles while "fleeing for safety from a mob."

The governor said the legislation also enables the state to use RICO liability against anyone who organizes or funds these kinds of "disorderly assemblies," and he cited the handling of Portland's protest as an example of what not to do.

...According to the governor's office, the next legislative session commences in March 2021 but committees will begin meeting later this year to begin the process of crafting the language of the bill and finding sponsors.

I asked some of the candidates running down-ballot how they think DeSantis' cooked up "law & order" scheme is likely to impact their own races. Janelle Christensen, president of the Florida Environmental Caucus, isn't a candidate but she sure was as disturbed by DeSantis' grandstanding as many across the state were. "As Floridians watch their homes flood in the aftermath of Hurricane Sally and are forced to evacuate in the middle of a pandemic," she said last night, "DeSantis ignores their plight. Instead, he moves to pass a law that potentailly violates our First Amendment rights and crushes home rule."

Adam Christensen (no relation-- other than their shared determination to protect the environment of the state they both love), is running for the congressional seat Ted Yoho has been pushed out of-- more on that anon. Adam got right to the point: "It’s like a 2 year old throwing a tantrum. The man wants to make murder legal as long as it’s done with a car.  We simply don’t have time for his foolishness."

Just north of Adam's congressional district, Joshua Hicks is favored to oust a Republican incumbent representing Nassau and part of Duval. Joshua told me that "This 'proposal' is just an election year stunt by the Governor because this team knows Donald Trump is in trouble in Florida. This attempt to silence the voices of Floridians across the state is a pathetic and unconstitutional attempt at a power-grab. Listen, protests should remain peaceful, as we demand justice and an end to systemic racism across the country. But this proposal simply has one goal: to silence and penalize anyone who wants to speak out. That's not okay. As a member of the state legislature, I will oppose this unconstitutional legislation from DAY ONE. My opponent would support it-- because he supports everything the Governor does. We need leaders; not followers. I believe the governor's attempt to silence our voices will actually do the opposite this November: it'll fire up more young voters to go to the polls, helping Democrats win up and down the ballot, and electing Joe Biden our next President."

And down at the southern tip of the state, Bob Lynch, is challenging Trumpist power-monger Daniel Perez in a swingy Miami-Dade district the Florida Democratic Party preferred to leave without a challenger. Today Lynch told me that "On one hand, it will be music to the ears of a sizable percentage of my district, which includes radically right-wing Cubans whose Spanish language propaganda and fear mongering about the socialist/communist,s rivals anything you will hear on Fox News, OANN, or evening QAnon. On the other, Latinos in Miami-Dade County are quickly starting to see through this bullshit. The state is falling apart, unemployment is a disaster, traffic is a mess, and DeSantis left older Floridians to die as a sacrifice to the economy. Castro and Chavez/Maduro were brutal dictators, they share far more in common with Trump, the Saudis, Erdogan, Netanyahu, and President Xi than anyone else.  The brutal scare tactics that Trump Mini-Me And Fisher Price Fascist, Ron DeSantis, is employing are a distraction from his disastrous time in the governor’s mansion. We need to focus on races like mine because taking out a sycophant like my opponent offers Floridians the opportunity to provide a crucial check on the incompetence and corruption of Ron DeSantis. All of the Florida Republicans fall in line with Trump/DeSantis and every less one of them in office means leas dead Floridians."

Professor Cindy Banyai is the progressive Democrat running for open congressional seat in southwest Florida-- and it didn't take much for her to see right through DeSantis' scam. "This is nothing more than an election year ploy from a floundering politician trying desperately to grease his way to favor with Trump. This clearly limits our Constitutional right to free speech and assembly and provides an unnerving amount of power to persecute critics. I'm also concerned about the encroachment on home rule with such state level budget mandates. Between this and Trump's DOJ declaring New York, Seattle, and Portland "anarchist jurisdictions" we should all be worried about the United States becoming a facist dictatorship under martial law. There has never been a more important time to elect countervailing voices to the Florida legislature and US national offices."

When Will It Be An Unambiguous Rout?

How would the media sell ads if the narrative of the 2020 election was just "anti-Republican tsunami ahead" every day? And how would the two parties motivate their bases to turn out if that was the story?


New York Magazine's Alex Carp looked to Frank Rich for an explanation of how to navigate a news cycle on steroids. He noted, as many of us have, that, "Just as the revelations in Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting on Donald Trump’s insults to veterans have begun to fade from the headlines, details from Bob Woodward’s latest book on the president, including his intentional downplaying the risks of coronavirus and lies about how it is transmitted, have begun to appear. Will either of these reports have long-term impact?"

And what about Michael Cohen’s tell-all memoir, which was on constant rotation on MSNBC during the brief interim between Goldberg and Woodward? And whatever happened to The Times reporter Michael Schmidt’s book of a week earlier, with its revelation that Mike Pence was put on standby alert during that murky unscheduled Trump stopover at Walter Reed? The cavalcade passes by so quickly it’s hard to gauge what long-term impact any revelations have. We hardly got to know the Fontainebleau hotel pool boy who brought down the randy architect of Trump’s Evangelical base, Jerry Falwell Jr., before we moved on.

If the voluminous press coverage of the widely distributed advance copies are to be believed, Woodward’s Rage is adding details and Trump’s own blithe recorded confirmation to a horrific story that we already knew: The president deliberately falsified and downplayed the epic severity of the pandemic. As Jennifer Szalai writes in her Didion-worthy dissection of Rage in The Times, the book’s portrait of Trump would be “immediately recognizable to anyone paying even the minimal amount of attention.” In a blow-by-blow account in April, for instance, The Times reported that “throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus,” both “top White House advisers” and experts in Cabinet departments and intelligence agencies were telling him the lethal facts and sounding constant alarms.

That’s why by this late date Trump’s indifference to matters of life and death has long since been baked into most voters’ verdicts on this president, including his own voters. Even as the Woodward revelations started to pour out, Trump was brazenly showcasing his immutable callousness and narcissism in public view, violating local mandates (as well as White House guidelines) on mask wearing and social distancing at a rally in North Carolina and conspicuously ignoring the devastation, pain, and suffering as fire tore through America’s most highly populated state.





National and battleground-state polling on the presidential election has remained largely stable since before either party’s conventions. One wants to believe that Woodward and Goldberg will move the needle, transforming a Biden lead that still leaves Democrats anxious into an unambiguous rout. In the immediate aftermath of Goldberg’s Atlantic piece, the White House’s panicky, all-hands-on-deck pushback suggested that the Trump campaign was worried. Even Melania Trump’s Twitter account was immediately enlisted in an overnight effort to denounce the article as fake news. But again, you have to wonder if The Atlantic’s additional anecdotes can move voters who have long since absorbed Trump’s contempt for generals, for John McCain’s wartime heroism, and for the Gold Star parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain killed by a car bomb in Iraq.

What gives one a bit of hope about the Woodward book’s ability to sway some of the few still-persuadable voters is the recordings. Trump just couldn’t stop himself from performing for the most bold-faced name among reporters. While we can’t rule out that he may yet claim, as he did about the Access Hollywood video, that the recordings are a hoax, the sheer volume of his verbal diarrhea makes it unlikely that anyone will fall for it except his QAnon faithful. To get voters to listen to them all, Sarah Cooper may have to bring out a box set.

Does Fox News show the results of their polling on the channels? Fox's polls are legitimate-- nothing like the Republican Party manipulated polling that Rasmussen and Trafalgar do. The most recent Fox polls show Trump losing in key battleground states: down 8 in Wisconsin, down 9 in Arizona, down 4 in North Carolina-- and dragging Republican incumbents down with him, with Arizona Senator Martha McSally (R) losing to Mark Kelly by 17 points and North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (R) losing to Cal Cunningham by 6 points. Fox's most recent national poll had Trump losing by 5-- 51-46%.

And what about the ultimate swing state, Florida? The RealClearPolitics polling average has Trump losing by 1.2%, although that average includes concotted polling from Trafalgar. Florida is always going to be close. Trump can't win the presidency without its 29 electoral votes; Biden can. But the Biden campaign isn't taking any chances. It was big news yesterday that Mike Bloomberg is about to pour $100 million into Florida. Trump freaked out immediately:

Michael Scherer reported that this "massive late-stage infusion of cash" could reshape the presidential contest in a costly toss-up state central to Señor Trumpanzee's reelection hopes. $100 million goes a long way-- even in Florida, a state where TV ads still seem to work. I wonder how that kind of spending is going to effect down-ballot races. I asked some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates running for Congress and for the state legislature.

Kathy Lewis' district will determine whether the Florida state Senate is controlled by the Democrats or the GOP. Last time she ran-- against an incumbent who has retired (and with ZERO help from the Florida Democratic Party-- she scored 46.5% and nearly ousted a right-wing nut. This time she's up against a Trumpist and looks like she can flip the seat. She told us this morning that "An infusion of cash in the Florida Senate District 20 Democratic campaign will be the boost we need to flip this critical Florida seat. The SD-20 seat may well determine if Democrats get a say in Florida redistricting for the next decade. I am running a truly grassroots campaign, and this money could be the lift that pushes Democrats to a position of power in Florida."

Joshua Hicks, the progressive state House candidate running for a Nassau-Duval county seat told me he thinks "most candidates in Florida will welcome Bloomberg spending $100 million on GOTV efforts. It's sorely needed in an expensive state, and could be the difference between a Trump re-election or a Biden presidency. That said, it would be nice if Bloomberg or any major donor would invest in actual down-ballot candidates as well. The 140 Democratic candidates running throughout Florida are doing real work on the ground, contacting and turning out real voters-- even in tough districts-- but sadly, many are being ignored. Hopefully Bloomberg's investment will trickle down into the districts where it is needed and where moving even a couple thousand votes can make a big, big difference for the statewide results. We are all in this together and I am glad Bloomberg is finally arriving at the party."

Cindy Banyai won her primary in August and is contesting an open congressional seat in southwest Florida. (In the primary she got 28,749 votes and the Republican victor, Byron Donalds, won 23,480 votes. "We are going to need to get out the Democratic vote," she told me last night, "as well as win the hearts and minds of independent voters and non-Trump Republicans. Investments made across Florida will help us defeat Trump and flip down ballot districts from red to blue, ensuring the voice to the people is truly heard. Grassroots candidates like me can really make our dollars stretch. Television ads make a huge difference, but cost a lot up front. An influx of funds for television could really help us flip this district and defeat the latest aspiring Trump sycophant."

Bob Lynch, way down in Miami-Dade and also running for a state House seat held by a Republicans said that "The thing that gives me the most hope is that almost all of Bloomberg’s decisions are data driven. And I don’t mean Robby Mook and the guys who read Moneyball in college and thought political campaigns were as easy as playing fantasy baseball data driven. Bloomberg is the real deal. Mike built his empire on data. The Bloomberg service we use on Wall Street is incredible in its breadth, depth, and sophistication. There is no doubt that he crunched all the numbers and decided that Florida was a good investment. The fact that he is doing this so late in the cycle is great news as it will leave the GOP scrambling to assemble a counter strike. Spanish language television ads will make a huge difference and close the gap between Democratic outreach and the GOP’s advantage in tv ads. I’ve been watching almost all of the NBA Playoff games on TNT and it still amazes me to see how many personal injury lawyers advertise, in laughably bad Spanish, during the commercials. But they try. I’ve yet to see a Biden ad in Spanish, despite spending last month religiously watching European soccer on Telemundo. If the Bloomberg effort surgically targets Latino areas on channels and programming they watch, it will pay dividends. If they follow the same tired playbook that sunk Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum, it will be a colossal waste of money."

Lynch continued that he's "hoping it will help my district, HD-116, which is 90% Hispanic, at the top of the ticket but it is still unclear how that will affect down ballot races. Ideally, Bloomberg would have plugged into the unprecedented slate of down ballot candidates 90 for 90 and The Florida Democratic Environmental caucus recruited to run in almost every race, but that doesn’t seem to be the plan. We know our communities far better than out of state consultants who were deployed to Florida. $100 million is a lot of money and Bloomberg’s operation has always been far more efficient than the DNC or state party. I remain both hopeful and skeptical. The ground work still needs to be done on the local level. Mailers, text, phone banking, targeted digital (Facebook and YouTube). Myself and my fellow candidates will continue this effort and do our best to draft in Bloomberg’s wake."





Fergie Reid and Janelle head, respectively, 90 For 90 and the Florida Environmental Caucus-- and they were responsible for recruiting dozens of Florida candidates in seats the Florida Democratic Party is always happy to cede to the GOP without a fight. Reid told me that it's great news that Bloomberg is spending $100 million in Florida to help assure a Biden/Harris Democratic victory there. "Much of this money," he said, "will be spent on T.V. ads and statewide GOTV efforts, possibly targeted at specific regional voter populations. An historic slate of 140 Florida Democratic 2020 state legislative candidates will appear on the ballot. 84 of these are challenging currently GOP held seats. Around $2 million of this planned $100 million dollar expenditure should be spread throughout these 84 districts. Dems need to flip 3 state Senate seats and 13 state House seats to 'share power.' Flips of 4 and 14 respectively would give Dems an outright majority in both chambers. The Florida Senate and House Dems are currently playing to flip 2 & 19 respectively; which means 63 challenger contests are being almost completely ignored by the party bodies with oversight of these races. 63 state legislative contests equates to roughly HALF of the STATE of FLORIDA! Mike Bloomberg would do well to invest in this half of the state, using these candidates contests as the vehicles."

Janelle Christensen couldn't agree more. She said that "If Bloomberg deigned to give $140,000, that would be $1000 per Democratic candidate running in the state legislature. Each one of those candidates could use that money to reach at minimum 2,000 NPA or new voters. 

Bloomberg made the decision to focus his final election spending on Florida last week, after news reports that Trump had considered spending as much as $100 million of his own money in the final weeks of the campaign, Bloomberg’s advisers said. Presented with several options on how to make good on an earlier promise to help elect Biden, Bloomberg decided that a narrow focus on Florida was the best use of his money.

The president’s campaign has long treated the state, which Trump now calls home, as a top priority, and his advisers remain confident in his chances given strong turnout in 2016 and 2018 that gave Republicans narrow winning margins in statewide contests.

“Voting starts on Sept. 24 in Florida so the need to inject real capital in that state quickly is an urgent need,” Bloomberg adviser Kevin Sheekey said. “Mike believes that by investing in Florida it will allow campaign resources and other Democratic resources to be used in other states, in particular the state of Pennsylvania.”

The last Republican to win the White House without Florida was Calvin Coolidge in 1924, and a loss of the state’s 29 electoral votes would radically shrink Trump’s paths to reelection. With Florida in his column, Biden would be able to take the presidency by holding every state that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 and winning any one of the following states: Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, all of which Biden leads in current public polling averages.

In recent weeks, polls in Florida have narrowed, with the Cook Political Report recently shifting the state from “lean Democrat” to “toss up.” A Washington Post average of public polls since August finds Biden up by one percentage point in the state, well within the margin of error. While he has been doing better than past Democratic candidates with Whites and seniors, Biden has struggled among the state’s Latino population, which Republicans have focused enormous resources on courting over several election cycles.

“If you have the ability to make sure that you are able to speak directly to all of these different communities and where they live then you are going a long way to securing the states for Biden in this election,” Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) said. “I’m glad that Mike Bloomberg recognized this and is prepared to make an investment to make sure that every one of those communities will be aware of the importance of this election.”

The spending will focus mostly on television and digital ads, in both English and Spanish.

Bloomberg’s aim is to prompt enough early voting that a pro-Biden result would be evident soon after the polls close. Florida, unlike other swing states, reports almost all early ballots shortly after voting ends.

Democrats and Republicans have worried that early results will dictate public perceptions of who will ultimately win the election. In many states, the first reported votes are more Republican, but the numbers turn more Democratic over time as more mail-in and early votes are added to the tally.

“It would give lie to what we expect to be Trump’s election night messaging that Democrats are stealing the election, because unlike other battleground states, Florida counts its absentee ballots on or by Election Day,” Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson said. “We think Florida is incredibly close but winnable.”

A recent report by Hawkfish, a voter data firm funded by Bloomberg, predicted that even in a scenario where Biden wins 54 percent of the final vote, partisan differences in mail voting preference could lead to an initial count that shows Trump winning with 55 percent of ballots tabulated nationally on Nov. 3. In public polling, Republican voters have reported far less interest in voting by mail or voting early than Democrats.

A prominent Democratic consultant in Florida, not aware of the Bloomberg decision, said Saturday that Democratic outside groups have mostly focused on Midwestern states because of the prohibitive cost of advertising in Florida. This person, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, estimated that it would take $15 million to $20 million to significantly move Biden’s numbers among Latinos, and $60 million to $70 million to get on television across the state over the next 51 days and have a real impact.

Between March 24 and Sept. 11, the Biden campaign and Democratic groups outspent Trump and Republican groups in the state on television by a margin of $42 million to $32 million, according to data from a Democratic tracking firm. But future reservations suggest that gap is set to narrow, in part because of increased investment by wealthy Trump backers operating independently of his campaign.

Preserve America, a new super PAC backed by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, announced $30 million in spending in seven states this month, including Florida, with more spending expected to be announced soon.

Bloomberg’s advisers described the spending plan as “nine figures” and declined to say how much higher than $100 million Bloomberg might be willing to go, if at all. They said Bloomberg is hopeful that his commitment will push other wealthy Democratic donors to further open their pocketbooks for other states in the final months of the campaign. Bloomberg’s money will be spent through Independence USA, his own super PAC, and other Democratic groups.

Between November and March, Bloomberg spent more $1 billion on his own failed bid for the Democratic nomination, including about $275 million on ads that criticized Trump. When he endorsed Joe Biden, he announced that he would “work to make him the next President of the United States.” Bloomberg subsequently received a prime speaking slot on the final night of the Democratic convention this year.

But just what Bloomberg, who is estimated to be worth more than $50 billion, planned to do with his money has remained a significant source of suspense among Democratic strategists. After flooding local and state Democratic Party accounts with money during his campaign, Bloomberg transferred about $20 million in cash and prepaid office leases to the Democratic National Committee, taking advantage of a provision of campaign finance law that allows candidates to donate leftover money. He also spread his money to benefit state and local Democratic candidates.

A group he helps to fund, Everytown for Gun Safety, has pledged to spend $60 million on elections this cycle, and he has committed another $60 million to help preserve or strengthen the Democratic House majority. Swing Left, a group focused on winning state legislative seats, and Fair Fight, a voter protection effort led by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, have also received millions. Bloomberg has not yet announced any spending to help elect a Democratic Senate, after allotting $20 million to the effort in 2018.

Vote By Mail Tirades Are Starting To Bite Trump-- And Down-Ballot Republicans-- In The Ass

With Trump forces-- whether in the U.S. or Russia-- having prepared to steal the election by hacking voting machines in a few pivotal counties, news of heavily-promoted absentee voting, which has always been friendlier to Republicans than Democrats, sent Trump into a months-long rage. And all his carrying on against vote-by-mail, even though he and his family normally vote by mail themselves, many of his most devoted followers have decided to not vote by mail.

One of the first indications of what that was going to mean to Republicans-- not just Trump-- came back in early April when Wisconsin Democrat Jill Karofsky, who was endorsed by Bernie, ousted far right sociopath Daniel Kelly, who had been endorsed by Trump (a virtual kiss-of-death) from his seat on the state Supreme Court. She didn't just scrape by either. The final vote in this "50/50 state" that Trump won in 2016 was 855,573 (55.2%) to 693,134 (44.7%).

Absentee voting hit a record high that day. Of 1.5 million votes cast, 1.1 million were by mail. NPR reported that "[A]t least 71% of votes cast last Tuesday were absentee. In the 2016 general election in Wisconsin, and in 2018's midterms, fewer than 30% of votes were cast absentee. And in 2014, fewer than 20% were." How does 1.1 million absentee ballots compare with absentee voting in past spring elections?

• 2019- 89,218
• 2018- 129,811
• 2017- 103,373
• 2016- 247,052
• 2015- 102,723

In other words, almost double the number of people voted absentee in 2020 than in the previous 5 years combined! And with many Republicans following Trump's anti-vote-by-mail rants, Karofsky ran up a huge margin. Normally, Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin are extremely close and less than a percentage point divides winners and losers.

Yesterday, reporting for Politico Alex Isenstadt shows how Trump is being hoist on his own petard now. "Democrats are amassing an enormous lead in early voting," he wrote, "alarming Republicans who worry they’ll need to orchestrate a huge Election Day turnout during a deadly coronavirus outbreak to answer the surge. The Democratic dominance spreads across an array of battleground states, according to absentee ballot request data compiled by state election authorities and analyzed by Democratic and Republican data experts. In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Democrats have a roughly three-to-one advantage over Republicans in absentee ballot requests. In Florida-- a must-win for President Donald Trump-- the Democratic lead stands at more than 700,000 ballot requests, while the party also leads in New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa."

Even more concerning for Republicans, Democrats who didn't vote in 2016 are requesting 2020 ballots at higher rates than their GOP counterparts. The most striking example is Pennsylvania, where nearly 175,000 Democrats who sat out the last race have requested ballots, more than double the number of Republicans, according to an analysis of voter rolls by the Democratic firm TargetSmart.

Though the figures are preliminary, they provide a window into Democratic enthusiasm ahead of the election and offer a warning for Republicans. While Democrats stockpile votes and bring in new supporters, Trump’s campaign is relying on a smooth Election Day turnout operation at a time when it’s confronting an out-of-control pandemic and a mounting cash crunch.

“A ballot in is a ballot in, and no late-campaign message or event takes it out of the count,” said Chris Wilson, a GOP pollster who specializes in data and analytics. “Bottom line is that means that Biden is banking a lead in the mail and more of the risk of something going wrong late is born by Republicans because our voters haven't voted yet.”

...[T]he data also shows that Democrats are attracting new supporters in small but potentially significant numbers in states they narrowly lost in 2016.

In Pennsylvania, which Trump won by just 44,000 votes four years ago, Democrats have built a lead of nearly 100,000 ballot requests from voters who didn’t participate in the 2016 election but are preparing to vote by mail this year, according to TargetSmart’s figures. In Michigan, where Trump won by fewer than 11,000 votes (and where voters do not register by party), the firm’s model shows that Democratic-aligned voters have a nearly 20,000-person advantage among non-2016 voters signing up to receive ballots. In Wisconsin, which Trump won by 22,000 votes, Democratic-leaning voters who skipped 2016 have made nearly 10,000 more requests for this election than their GOP counterparts.

Republicans are also encouraging supporters to vote absentee. Through telephone calls, digital advertising and mailers, they have prodded Trump backers to vote early or by mail. The pro-Trump outside group America First Action, meanwhile, has been following up with voters to ensure they are turning in their ballots.

Yet Trump-- much to the frustration of senior Republicans-- has undermined those efforts with repeated attacks on mail-in voting. The president has used his recent public appearances and his Twitter feed to savage voting by mail as a process that can’t be trusted.

“It's a case of what Trump actually says mattering a lot more than what his campaign does. The campaign is working hard to get absentees requested and, soon, returned; but Trump bashing mail voting repeatedly makes strong Republicans much less likely to do it,” Wilson said.

Democrats, who were widely criticized for running a lackluster turnout operation four years ago, say they are capitalizing on a wave of anti-Trump energy to bank ballots. The party used its convention to press early voting, with prominent figures like former first lady Michelle Obama imploring people to cast ballots as soon as possible.

They point to Florida as a major bright spot. Democrats lead Republicans in vote-by-mail requests 2.1 million to 1.4 million, according to a GOP consultant who is tracking the figures. At this same point in 2016, Democrats trailed Republicans in requests.

“While Trump is busy kneecapping Republican efforts to sign up his supporters to vote by mail with debunked claims about absentee voting, Democrats have a massive grassroots army focused on turning out voters early and on Election Day, and we're already seeing strong results and real energy-- including among first time voters," said Michael Gwin, a Biden campaign spokesperson.

Joshua Hicks' state legislative campaign in Florida's Nassau and Duval counties is encouraging voters to request their vote-by-mail ballots as are the local parties, along with the Biden campaign. Hicks' campaign has been putting a great deal of energy into reaching out to Democrats who missed either the 2016 or 2018 election, encouraging them to request a ballot and Joshua told me that they have been seeing real progress. In Florida, Democrats have a massive vote-by-mail advantage, and during the primary in August, you saw Democrats return these ballots in big numbers. "Here in Duval County," he told me, "Democrats outvoted Republicans in the primary on August 18th-- thanks in large part due to our efforts to get people to vote-by-mail and return their ballots. Here in Duval and in Nassau counties in my district, we have designated mail ballot 'drop boxes' in case people do not trust the mail system... I hope Democratic and anti-Trump voters across District 11 here in Northeast Florida and really across the country will request a vote-by-mail ballot and fill it out immediately when it arrives and place it back in the mail. But more importantly, we all must vote. Whether it is by mail, early or on Election Day, we must strengthen our Democracy by turning out the vote and rejecting Donald Trump once and for all. We are working hard to encourage people to vote-by-mail and to vote early here in Florida. Ballots start going out in Florida on September 24th and the earlier you send it back in, the quicker it counts. We can't take this election for granted."

Bob Lynch is the Democrat taking on Trumpist Daniel Perez in a swing state House district in Miami-Dade. Vote by mail seems to have a different set of challenges for Democrats in his area. "Given all of the information about Russian penetration of various levels of our elections system in Florida," he told me earlier, "you’d think there would be a bigger desire to Vote By Mail. The reality is that we have lagged behind most of the state in VBM applications. The reason behind this is largely cultural. My district is unique in that have a large proportion of immigrants, first generation, and second generation Americans. Almost all from countries with a longstanding and deeply seeded issue with strongmen and fraudulent elections. Participating in Democratic elections is often seen as a family activity to be celebrated by everyone going out to exercise their right to vote. Donald Trump has not helped things out by his continued unfounded accusations of rampant fraud in Vote By Mail. Couple that with slowed down processing times with the Miami-Dade USPS and we don’t have a good situation. The GOP’s Soviet style and Russian aided propaganda machine has once again been deployed to make people believe the opposite of what is true. Maybe if the media gave more attention to experts like Jenny Cohn, who has worked tirelessly to expose the vulnerabilities of wireless modems present in Miami-Dade County voting machines, we wouldn’t be in a situation like this. Yet here we are. Trump’s assault on Vote By Mail is not the accidental rantings of a delusional madman. I’m hoping that the larger state level advantage Dems have in VBM will win the day. However, more my particular race and in a county as important as MDC, we are proving the age old adage that all politics is local."

Adam Christensen is a candidate for Congress on the other end of Florida, up north. Vote by mail is a major part of his campaign. "By now," he told me today, "we all know the power of absentee voting and vote by mail. If you have an absentee ballot you are far more likely to vote than someone showing up at the polls. After speaking with Alan Grayson early into our campaign, it became clear to me that this was an opportunity that we had to take advantage of and if we were successful it would help to close the gap in the number of votes we needed to win. The goal of a campaign is to run up the score in places you will win and cut the margins in places you won’t. With that in mind we got to work.

1- Our phone banking operation has included information and links for getting every democratic signed up to vote by mail (even before the  primary). We have increased these efforts especially in the rural areas.

2- We have progressive firepower coming from across the nation to achieve this. Humanity Forward and Done Waiting have both announced their support and thrown their phone banking operations behind us to help register as many Democrats for VBM as  we can before time  runs out.

3- CHASE THE BALLOTS: With this firepower it gives us the ability to call everyone that has a ballot to make sure it gets in. We have up to the day information about who has and who has not turned them in. Grassroots firepower, with more effective methods. GAME CHANGING

"When a playbook doesn’t work," he concluded, "you throw it out. The way Democratic campaigns were traditionally run in Florida is over. We are rewriting the playbook because the way things have been done doesn’t work. Adapt or Die, and the Republican Party is dying."

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

If The GOP Continues To Block Aid, States Like Florida Will Start Going Bankrupt

NPR issued a depressing report yesterday: States Are Broke And Many Are Eyeing Massive Cuts. One of the sticking points in coming to an agreement over the pandemic rescue package is that the already passed House bill, the $3 trillion HEROES Act, contains around a trillion dollars for state and local governments. The Republicans would like to see that come down a bit-- to zero.

NPR noted that the "pandemic could swipe roughly $200 billion from state coffers by June of next year... Record-high unemployment has wreaked havoc on personal income taxes and sales taxes, two of the biggest sources of revenue for states. Hawaii's and Nevada's tourism industries have crashed, and states like Alaska, Oklahoma and Wyoming have been hit by the collapse of oil markets. From March through May of this year, 34 states experienced at least a 20% drop in revenue compared with the same period last year.

With dwindling cash, cuts to education, health care and other areas are inevitable in many places. State leaders have described the situation as "unprecedented," "horrifying" and "devastating." Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, compared his state's budget cuts to the Red Wedding scene in HBO's Game of Thrones.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said, "Responding to this crisis has created a multiyear budget crisis unlike anything the state has ever faced before, more than three times worse than the Great Recession."

For example, so far that state has cut nearly $190 million from higher education. Programs designed to reduce crime in Baltimore also took a hit, as did foster care providers and public defenders.

And state leaders everywhere are getting nervous as the economy shows little signs of a swift recovery.

In March, Congress worked quickly to pass an aid package worth $2 trillion-- called the CARES Act-- which offered relief to state and local governments, individuals, small and large businesses, and hospitals affected by the coronavirus crisis.

But language in the law requires that funds go to expenses related to COVID-19 and not to plug holes in budgets, with few exceptions (though some state leaders have used creative accounting to make the money work the way they want it to).

Republicans and Democrats in states such as Maryland, California, Michigan, Iowa, Georgia, New York and Illinois have asked Congress for additional funds that they say are critical to stay afloat.

Others don't agree. Last week, more than 200 state lawmakers signed onto a letter from the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization of conservative lawmakers, opposing further federal money for states. The letter reads, "The American people are being forced to make difficult but fiscally responsible decisions during the pandemic, and states need to do the same."

The Democratic-led U.S. House passed a bill to inject more money into states, but many Republican lawmakers say any new money has to be for items directly related to the virus, not to pay down deficits in the states.

California has gone as far as preparing a contingency budget: If additional federal money does not come through, the state will have to furlough state workers and slash funding for state universities and courts. It would also mean that K-12 school districts and community colleges won't receive nearly $12 billion in upfront state payments at a time when costs could be at an all-time high.

"The federal government has a moral, ethical and economic obligation to help support the states," said California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.

Florida was one of the states hit hardest-- from the coronavirus itself-- and by the economic and financial side-effects. Sometime this week, Florida will cross the half million cases mark, something only California-- which has a much bigger population-- has done. Florida has 23,156 cases per million residents, worse than New York and New Jersey. The only states worse off are Louisiana and Arizona, although Mississippi is catching up. Florida reported 245 more deaths today, bringing the state total to a rapidly increasing 7,402.

In a state that depends on tourists, what happens when there are few to none? After months of stalling and insisting that lawmakers would not need to return to Tallahassee to balance the budget, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis recently approved the largest financial vetoes in Florida history, canceling out more than $1 billion in spending for the upcoming fiscal year.

The state's revenue shortfall has ballooned to nearly $2.1 billion since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Unemployment in the state has soared to Depression-era levels and Medicaid rolls have swelled. Only some of the cuts are being supplanted by federal relief funds.

Florida initially avoided worst-case scenarios but is now seeing a surge in coronavirus infections, mere weeks after attempting to reopen shuttered businesses. Democrats, locked out of decision-making, have railed against DeSantis. "Just lead, damn it. Just lead," said state Democratic Rep. Janet Cruz.

Despite calls to roll back reopenings, DeSantis is holding firm, saying, "When you have a virus that disproportionally impacts one segment of society, to suppress a lot of working-age people at this point, I don't think would be very effective."

Florida progressive Katherine Norman

The Republican controlled state legislature is hoping voters don't notice that they aren't doing anything to help mitigate the catastrophe. I asked some of the sharpest Democrats running to replace them in November, like Katherine Norman, who is running for the state Senate seat currently held by Joe Gruters, co-chair of Trump's reelection campaign and chairman of the Florida Republican Party. "Florida's elected officials and long time Trump sycophants are banking on our complacency," she told me this morning. In my race in Sarasota and Charlotte County most people I speak to don't even know who our State Senator is. Little do they know. While the Florida GOP leaders operate to advance this administration on single voter issues to the detriment and neglect of constituents in District 23 and all Floridians, they also drive us toward the complete devastation of this entire nation, toward the existential crises of climate change and the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. While we hold moments of silence for the over 7,100 Floridians dead from COVID-19, Joe Gruters goes door-knocking. Taking group photos maskless, fistbumping volunteers building a red army in Tampa. How could any responsible leader in a COVID epicenter go door knocking while interacting in a group maskless? What could possibly motivate an elected official to risk the literal lives of citizens? Joe Gruters' entire career centers around his total and complete idealization of Trump."

"When we choose to endorse an individual versus ideals, policies, and vision, it is a dangerous slippery slope." Norman continued. "We must hold individuals and especially elected officials accountable for their actions. We cannot decide to endorse an individual that fails to live up to the standards they purport to represent. If elected officials do not live up to their promises, even within one's own party, they should be held accountable. This should be a normalized, accepted, and even promoted part of the political process. Our local leaders should be loyal to our districts, our counties, our communities. They should represent our values. This has been part of my experience in the Democratic Party as a candidate for the Florida Legislature. At the sometimes detriment of unity, the Democratic Party is inclusive, allowing for everyone to have am equal voice. This means we judge and evaluate the morals of many different perspectives which can lead to more diverse opinions within our party. I am incredibly proud of this facet of the Democratic Party. Democrats seek to be the party that strives for ideal human rights-- for one, for all. We do not strive for blind loyalty. We are the party of the people. Unfortunately, when Gruters sold out in late 2014, he decided to choose blind loyalty either because he is completely and utterly selfish, happy to exploit the political process to his financial gain, or because he is too completely ethically vacant and inept that he doesn't actually realize how devastating this administration's actions are. Either way this is a dangerous individual happy to claim to represent constituents' values while not fit to be representing the interests of constituents anywhere. How can he represent Sarasota and Charlotte County when he is forced to represent Trump?"

Jared West, also a progressive Democrat running against an entrenched Trumpist incumbent, told me that morning that "According to Rep. Sam Killebrew (HD41), he’s proud of the state budget and Florida is in a good place. But then again, he also voted against having a special session to fix unemployment, expand Medicaid, and auto enroll Floridians in vote by mail. He also spent 80+ days during this crisis ignoring his constituents and hiding in his multi-million dollar home and not speaking about or helping at all. He left paper unemployment applications outside of his locked district office-- that’s the extent of what he’s done to help during this crisis. And he won’t do anything else, because he’s so deep in bed with businesses. He’s raised over $50,000.00 and only one donation of $250.00 is from a person, but he does have over 6 donations of $1000 from Walt Disney World, and donations from predatory companies like Amscot. He doesn’t care about the people of Florida, and as his constituents lose homes and 25% (pre coronavirus) are food insecure, he hasn’t done a damn thing to fix it."

Anselm Weber is running strong for an open red-leaning district in southwest Florida. He told me that whichever of the two Republicans who will face him after their primary "has made his whole campaign about supporting the Trump agenda without any attention given to Floridians facing eviction, low wages, or who have lost health insurance. They chickened out of a League of Women Voters' forum with me, probably because they knew I would give massive pushback against their ludicrous 'plans.' They would rather us go back to work while putting the working class through massive health hazards than do basic relief measures. It is desperation mode in the sunshine state, yet the state and the GOP would rather do socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for low income residents."

Progressive Democrat Joshua Hicks is running in a northeast Florida state House district that includes all of Nassau County and part of Duval. He told me that "Earlier this year, when the coronavirus was starting to impact Florida, my opponent, Cord Byrd, had an opportunity to place people over politics. He had an opportunity to support a special Legislative Session that would have addressed the ongoing crisis going on in Florida. With so many Floridians struggling right now, especially small businesses and those who lost their jobs at no fault of their own, he had an opportunity to place the district first. He failed. My opponent voted against a special session to expand Medicaid, address Florida's broken unemployment system, and protect the right to vote during the pandemic. This was just the latest example of Cord Byrd’s failed leadership in District 11. He pays lip service to constituents, but when it comes to working on concrete solutions which provides the people immediate relief, he says no. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue. It’s about helping families who are struggling at no fault of their own. We have an economy that’s devastated. Unemployed workers and small businesses still need relief. We’re in the middle of a global health crisis and uninsured Floridians need healthcare. Sadly, my opponent only cares about what's best for him, not the people he represents. That's why I'm running to beat him this November. We need someone in Tallahassee who will place the people first and address the issues that matter most. It's time we 'cut the cord' on Cord Byrd in Northeast Florida."