USA TODAY International Edition
Steyer pushes voter registration to aid Gillum
Both parties working hard in Fla. battleground
Supporters of Republican Ron DeSantis and Andrew Gillum are deploying widely different strategies to gain the advantage once the vote-counting begins. Democrats appear to want to enlist an army of new voters to win in November, while Republicans want those casting ballots to focus on what they say is Gillum’s “failed” record as Tallahassee mayor. Tom Steyer’s multimillion-dollar investment in Gillum’s gubernatorial campaign is coming to an app or campus near you even as GOP operatives point to murder and mayhem in the city Gillum runs. The Republican Party of Florida declined to answer questions about the party’s get-out-the-vote efforts but rather pivoted to criticize Gillum. “We are focused on making sure voters know about Andrew Gillum’s record on crime, his radical agenda and an ongoing FBI investigation,” said Meredith Beatrice, spokeswoman of the Republican Party of Florida. Florida elections are decided by razor-thin margins – a single percentage point in the past four statewide contests. The past two years have seen the Democrats’ numerical registration advantage shrink even as the number of independent voters has spiked. Steyer, through his NextGen America political committee, is trying to stem the tide. He has spent about $2 million organizing voters to help Gillum win the August primary. Now the California billionaire says he will spend $5 million more on the fall campaign. On Wednesday, NextGen launched a million-dollar ad campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The commercials will run through mid-October. Another million dollars is earmarked toward young black voters. It will help pay to train students in grassroots politics – like this weekend’s Black Joy Brunch at Florida A&M University. The Color of Change PAC event organizes and trains volunteers in the fundamentals of a campaign, how to go door-todoor and how to talk to neighbors about politics. “We organize in teams,” said Shannon Talbert, national field director for the Color of Change PAC. “And these are student-based teams that are accountable to each other,” she said. “We need strong participation from the students this election to make sure the word is spread.” Although there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, the Democrats’ edge continues to shrink. Since the 2016 election, Democrats have a net loss of 42,000 voters, while Republicans show a net gain of 44,000. According to the Division of Elections, while registration for the Democratic and Republican parties remained largely flat during the past two years, registration among no-party-affiliated voters has exploded. NPA registration increased by more than 400,000 voters to 3.5 million. Democratic registration stands at 4.8 million, while the GOP counts 4.5 million registered voters. The last Democrat to win a statewide election in Florida was former President Barack Obama in 2012, when he posted a 0.9 percent victory. Four years later there was a 7 percent drop in the African-American vote (a drop in the number of votes larger than the Obama victory margin), and President Donald Trump carried the state. A spokesman for the DeSantis campaign said it is focusing on traditional get-out-the-vote tactics to mobilize its supporters. “We knock on doors, we wave signs, and we focus on the issues,” said Stephen Lawson, spokesman for the DeSantis campaign. “We’re doing any and everything to make sure that we are registering Republicans.”