Time now for our weekend briefing with a focus on Florida politics
as voters their head to the polls in Tuesday's primary, Democratic
voters will decide who takes on Republican governor Rhonda Santis
in November and which candidate will go up against Senator Marco
Rubio this fall? We've got Gary Fine out with us. He covers Florida
politics for Politico. It's good to have you here.
And let's start with this race that is sure to draw the most national
attention. That's Democrats deciding who's going to face off against
Ron De Santis. So, as you know, we have Democratic Congressman Charlie
Crist. He used to be a Republican used to be the governor of Florida.
He is up against the state's agriculture commissioner, Nikki Freed.
So how is that race shaping up?
Well, it's been very interesting. When Nikki Freed first came on
the scene four years ago, She was the only Democrat to get elected
statewide back in 2018 when Rhonda Sanders narrowly won and she sort
of became the face of the Democratic Party, and everyone naturally
assumed that she was going to make a run for governor. And she did
that. But what happened is is that Charlie Crist, who ran for governor
in 2014, against Rick Scott, and lost as a Democrat, decided to also
jump into the race and what's What's interesting is that Chris has
managed to out raise her and he's got
A lot of endorsements from establishment traditional Democrats. And
right now, you know some of the polls. There's a couple of those
shown freed.
Edging up, But lot of the polls have shown Crist ahead. And right
now it looks like he is possibly going to be the nominee going up
against Rhonda Santis in an election which there could be a lot of
money spent, and governor DeSantis as he tries to make a name for
himself On the national stage. This past week, he announced criminal
charges against 20 people for illegally voting in 2020. So this is
the first major public move from his controversial new election Police
unit and then Florida has a new election law. As you know, that makes
it
Harder to request and turn in absentee ballots, and it makes it easier
to challenge votes that are cast. So how is that expected to affect
the outcome? Not just on Tuesday, but in November
Well, I think that's what we're going to wait and see, kind of, you
know, in terms of how well that's going to play out.
Yeah, The thing is, is that there were some things that they delayed
the effect now one of the big things that they didn't do, And it's
interesting to Santa's. In his press conference the other day, I
mentioned that boy he had really wanted to do it for this cycle.
But didn't which was basically cancel everyone's vote by mail requests
require everyone to do it again. They didn't do that. They kind of
grandfather. Everyone in
So I'm not sure if we're going to see the full effect, But there
are some people who had to provide additional identification. If
you were on the books long enough and you kind of registered before
you had to give a full amount of idea information you're having to
be. You're having to give that now and and so I think that all that's
going to play into how we go into the into the fall.
Um, there's also some rules relative to what they call line warming
activities and what can take place outside of polling places heading
up onto election Day. So this is going to be a test. This is, you
know, in terms of what is going to be the impact of these changes,
and there's also been changes to drop boxes. They're no longer called
Dropbox is in Florida. They have a new name, secure intake ballot
stations, but there drop boxes, But they've changed the rules as
to, you know, make it abundantly clear. They have to be supervised
and
It can only be used during certain hours, and voting rights advocates
make the case that this is all various forms of voter suppression.
Let's talk about the Senate race because you've got Democratic Congresswoman
Val Demings. She's all over Florida's airwaves with her eye on a
general election matchup against Senator Marco Rubio. And you've
got a committee supporting Demings that's raised nearly $48 million.
We should say, Of course, money isn't always determinative in politics,
because Rubio has the advantage of being an incumbent, and he has
huge name recognition. What's the state of play there?
Well, that has the potential to be probably one of the more interesting
and potentially most competitive races on the ballot here in in Florida.
As you point out, she's done a very good job raising money. Uh and
she has been using that to go up on the air. She has
So far outspent Marco Rubio on television ads. But you can make the
argument that to us to your point. She needed to introduce herself
to a lot of voters, even though she was on the short list for vice
president. Uh, is she still not known at at statewide like Marco
Rubio is obviously he ran for president against Donald Trump, and
he lost and he ran for re election in 2016.
So so there's going to be a lot a lot of play a lot of interest.
I think in that race, I think the big question becomes
Is how much of a play or Democrats nationally going to make, You
know they've got competitions going all across the country, and,
you know, the plain fact is is very expensive to play in Florida.
And the question is, Do you take your money and use it in the state
like Georgia like New Hampshire? Someplace where your money is going
to go further because you don't have to spend as much or are you
going to use it to knock out Marco Rubio and I also think that part
of that is
Going to play into is where are the Democrats heading into the final
weeks? How big how big of a deal is Florida? Do they need Florida
to hold onto the Senate? Florida is a big state with a lot of media
markets. Gary find out Thanks So much for your reporting and your