As race tightens, candidates zero in on Florida
The presidential campaign has been running at full throttle in Florida for most of the summer. Now, it’s about to get turbocharged.
Voters can expect even more personal appearances from Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and their vice presidential running mates; a greater volume of TV ads from both sides; and stepped-up outreach from canvassers working the phones, knocking on doors and interacting on social media.
Both sides covet Florida voters because the prize is so big: the largest state that could go eitherway in November.
“We are sitting at ground zero in American presidential politics,” said former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham.
Speaking recently to a group of Demo---
crats in Pembroke Pines, the former governor and unsuccessful candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination said no one “would question the fact that Florida, with 29 electoral voters and a highly competitive series of presidential elections, is the single battleground state of the greatest importance in the country.”
South Florida
Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties are critical to both sides. More than one in four Florida voters live in South Florida, which can determine the statewide outcome.
Clinton is certain to win the region. But the critical part of the election math is her margin of victory. Multiple Democrats said she needs to come out of the region with 200,000 to 250,000 votes more than Trump if she has any hope of overcoming the Republican advantage elsewhere in the state.
For Republicans, the objective is to minimize the size of the Democratic win in South Florida, either by persuading potential Clinton voters to stay home or maximizing the number of votes for Trump.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaking last mon that a Republican Party event in Boca Raton, said the party needs to gear up, “especially in these counties here in southeast Florida.”
“I don’t care if your
precinct is not going to vote Republican. It’s counted in one big pool,” he said. “Every vote counts. Literally every single one,” Rubio said, reminding Republicans that 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney lost Florida “by less than a percentage point. A little under 80,000 people decided the outcome of the election in 2012. And we have to be prepared for the fact that the outcome could be that close [again]. Except this time if it’s going to be that close, it’s got to be 80,000 in our favor, not 80,000 in theirs.”
In Florida, the difference between Romney and President Barack Obama in 2012was 74,309 votes.
Broward Democratic Chairman Mitch Ce as ar said his party needs to win big in the region. “If the three South Florida counties are not able to produce enough of a margin to offset north Florida, Florida will tip to the reality show star,” he said, referring to the time Trump spent hosting the TV show “The Apprentice .”
In what she termed a “call to action,” this week, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, told Broward Democrats that “we are the county that carries presidents to their inauguration on our shoulders, and we have to make sure that we do everything we can to get the kind of turnouts that we have historically had here.”
Candidate appearances
Expect a lot of visits from the candidates. “This is his backyard, his second home,” said Karen Giorno, senior political adviser and chief Florida strategist for the Trump campaign. Trump, who lives part-time at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, “knows how important Florida is.”
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, said it was no accident that Clinton introduced him as
her running mate at a rally at Florida International University in west Miami-Dade County. “Before there was even a VP they knew we’re rolling out the VP in Miami. They had that all planned and the VP was TBD. And thatwas not an accident.”
Florida “is a place where we’re going to spend a lot of time,” he said during his most recent visit, on Aug. 27.
The Republican vice presidential nominee, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, appeared Wednesday in Sarasota. Kaine planned to visit Pensacola, Panama City and Jacksonville on Thursday and Friday, but the trip was canceled because of Hurricane Hermine.
Campaign strategy
The Real Clear Politics average of six Florida polls conducted in August shows Clinton with support of 44.3 percent of Florida voters to Trump’ s 41.6 percent—a difference of just 2.7 percentage points. The national average of nine August polls puts Clinton ahead by 4.9 percentage points.
“We can expect to see lots of visits, lots of ads,” said Sean Foreman, a political scientist at Barry University. “For amoment, it looked like we might get a reprieve, when it looked like Clinton might have a notable lead in the [Florida] polls. Nowthat Florida has tightened up again, Trump’s going to give it everything he’s got to win Florida.”
The most visible part of the campaigns is television advertising. Clinton and groups supporting her have been on the air in the Sunshine State and so has Trump, who has largely eschewed advertising during his unconventional campaign for the presidency.
TV commercials are only part of the equation. They’re important, Rubio told the Republican audience in Palm Beach County. “You’ve got to get your message out.”
But, headded, a campaign is “largely won one door at a time, one phone call at a time. Because when people see you’re excited about a candidate or a campaign it becomes contagious. And other people want to learn about why you’re so excited.”
For the next five weeks, registering voters is a top priority. Democrats and Republicans want to get as many people on the voter rolls by the Oct. 11 deadline to register for the Nov. 8 election. After that, the campaigns will push as many people targeted as likely supporters to vote early, either through mail-in ballots or in-person early voting.
Kaine said the Clinton campaign has a “very ambitious goal” for voter registration. Giorno said the Democrats should be “very nervous” because Republicans have been “outpacing the Democrats on voter registration.”
From August 2014 to August 2016, Republican voter registrations in Florida have increased 6.5 percent. No party affiliation/independent registrations are up 6.8 percent. Democratic registrations are up just 1.9 percent.
Both campaigns harvest contact information from people who are interested enough in one of the candidates to attend a campaign rally. Those people are used to reach out to their families, friends and co-workers.
Besides working to mobilize South Florida Democrats, Foreman said there’s another potential pool of voters Clinton could pickup. “There is a large contingent of [Jeb] Bush voters who are not going to vote for Trump,” he said.