Here’s the latest news out of Florida courtesy of Rasmussen Reports latest poll:
Incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson and retiring Republican Governor Rick Scott are in a virtual tie in the hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Florida.
The first Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone and online survey of Likely Florida Voters finds Nelson with 45% support to Scott’s 44%. Five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate and six percent (6%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording,
click here.)
By the way, Nelson is on the air reminding Hispanic voters how close Scott is to Trump:
Amid suggestions he’s underperforming with Hispanic voters, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson‘s re-election campaign is airing a Spanish-language ad that says his Republican challenger, Gov. Rick Scott, and President Donald Trump are “muy buenos amigos.”
Nelson’s campaign released the new ad Wednesday night along with an ad in English that notes — as Democrats also did in 2010 and 2014 — that Scott was CEO of hospital chain that paid a $1.7 billion fine for Medicare fraud.
Democrat Charlie Crist won the Hispanic vote by 20 points when he unsuccessfully challenged Scott in 2014, according to exit polls. But a recent Quinnipiac University poll shows Scott leading Nelson among Hispanic voters in a race that’s tied 49-to-49 overall. A Mason-Dixon poll in July gave Nelson only a 5-point edge among Latino voters.
The ad aimed at Latino voters features Nelson speaking briefly in Spanish (“Soy Bill Nelson, y apruebo este mensaje.”) before showing seven still images of Scott with Trump, who according to exit polls lost the Florida Hispanic vote by a 62-to-35 percent margin to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
By the way, Scott and his fellow GOPer, Ron DeSantis (R. FL) are distancing themselves from Trump on this:
President Trump appears to be alone in his baseless assertion that Hurricane Maria's death toll was inflated "by the Democrats in order to make [him] look as bad as possible."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who is currently running for Senate and aligns with Trump on most issues, tweeted Thursday that the president is wrong in his claim — though he stopped short of offering pointed criticism of Trump for making it. Trump had suggested without evidence that the death toll in Puerto Rico was much lower than the roughly 3,000 an independent study had determined. Scott noted this and added that he saw the storm's destruction firsthand.
Additionally, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida, Rep. Ron DeSantis, also backed away from Trump's theory. A spokesperson for DeSantis said Thursday that the lawmaker "doesn't believe any loss of life has been inflated," per NBC News reporter Hallie Jackson. This is particularly notable because DeSantis has otherwise established himself as being as passionate a supporter of the president as possible, as NBC News' Benjy Sarlin points out.
Regarding the Governor’s race, Andrew Gillum (D. FL) is up with his first major ad:
Tallahassee Mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is out with his first TV ad of the general election titled, “My Grandmother’s Voice.”
Gillum begins the minute-long ad recounting advice given to him by his grandmother. Gillum then explains how those messages motivate his run to be the state’s next Governor.
“I can still hear my grandmother’s voice,” Gillum begins.
“She’d say, ‘Go to school. Mind your teachers. Get your lesson. And one day, bring that education home. Bring it home for your little brother and your little sister who don’t know what an education is yet.
“ ’Bring it home for that little boy down the street that you play with. God knows where he’s going to end up. Bring it home for your mother and your father who get up every day to go out there and work on somebody else’s job.’
“It was a reminder that if we were going to get anywhere in life, we would get there together. This could be our story, Florida, written by and for anyone who has ever been told that they don’t belong, been counted out, or been told that they can’t make a difference.
“Together we can bring home affordable health care. We can bring it home for better jobs and better wages. We can bring it home for education that our children deserve. My name is Andrew Gillum. Let’s bring it home, Florida.”
Let’s bring it home and have the Blue Wave hit Florida. Click below to donate and get involved with Nelson, Gillum and their fellow Florida Democrats’ campaigns:
Bill Nelson for Senate
Andrew Gillum for Governor
Sean Shaw for Attorney General