Progressives heartened by Gillum’s rally to win

Andrew Gillum’s stunning victory over Gwen Graham for the Democratic nomination for governor was no surprise at all for his supporters in the progressive and African American communities.

Now the Tallahassee mayor has to shift to taking on Republican U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 6 in a race between candidates who won by rallying true believers and could feature little of the usual pivot to the center Florida voters are used to in the general election.

“We as a party fail to win governor’s races year after year after year,” said state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, one of Gillum’s earliest supporters, referring to the Democrats’ five-election, 20-year losing streak. “We have to give our voters something to vote for, not against. ... We won’t be able to win if we moderate our views and make candidates seem like Republican-lite.”

Tension between the two camps already

broke out Wednesday, after DeSantis, 39, said on Fox News that Florida voters should not “monkey this up” by voting for Gillum’s agenda. He also referred to Gillum — an African American — as being “articulate.”

Democrats called the remarks a racist allusion, while the DeSantis campaign denied any racial intent and called the criticism “absurd.”

But a Fox News anchor later stated, “We do not condone this language.”

Gillum also immediately responded to a tweet by President Donald Trump calling Gillum a “failed socialist mayor,” telling Trump the country and state need “decency, hope, and leadership” and asking the president to tag Gillum the next time he tweets about him so Gillum can see it.

Gillum, 39, has been a regular presence on social media, relying on Twitter and Facebook to overcome a huge spending gap between his campaign and his betterfunded Democratic opponents, including former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, who both outspent him 5 to 1.

Gillum, though, also had help from liberal billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer. Steyer not only injected a late influx of cash for Gillum but also funded NextGen America, one of the key voter registration groups this year at the University of Central Florida. He also outright endorsed Gillum.

He won every county with a major city in Florida except for St. Petersburg in Pinellas County, including huge margins in Jacksonville and victories in what were considered Levine’s home base of Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

In Orange County, Gillum won about 41 percent of the vote to Graham’s 31 percent. He also won 61 percent of the county’s precincts, including big percentages in the precincts around UCF and the majority African American precincts in west Orlando and Pine Hills, where Sunday was the traditional “Souls to the Polls” day for early voting.

In July, Orlando political consultant Lonnie Thompson said Gillum was an inspiring candidate for African Americans but needed to put in the work to reach out to voters beyond social media — and he did.

“I think he made the effort to reach out to real folks,” Thompson said. “He went on a bus tour in the last week, and he reached out to communities that don’t usually hear from candidates.”

In Orange, Gillum trailed Graham in mail-in voting, which began in late July, but pulled ahead of her in early voting beginning Aug. 16 and outpolled her on Election Day almost 2 to 1.

Gillum’s late surge, missed by most of the last polls that had Graham winning by a comfortable margin, was helped by appearances with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, IVermont, at UCF and in Tampa.

State Rep. Kamia Brown, D-Ocoee, was one of the first lawmakers to endorse Gillum in July 2017. She said she thinks the last-minute surge of support in early voting helped, especially in Fort Lauderdale’s Broward County, but it was also Gillum’s ability to offer voters an alternative to the moderate Democrats the party has nominated in the past.

“We had a candidate that spoke everybody’s message. We had a candidate that worked not only Orange County but throughout the state,” Brown said. “In my 15 years in politics, I have not really seen, in my generation, a candidate like Mayor Gillum.”

Brown said she thinks Gillum can once again overcome a better-funded rival in the general election as he did in the primary, “but also we’ll have the support of the Democratic Party. I think right now it’s important for everyone within the Democratic Party that we support him.”

Graham supporters at her concession speech at The Social in Orlando cheered when she said Gillum’s name, which Smith also took as a positive sign going forward.

“There’s an eagerness to immediately consolidate behind the Democratic nominee,” Smith said.

Democratic consultant Dick Batchelor, however, cautioned about a strategy that doesn’t go beyond rallying progressive supporters.

Though both parties saw record turnout, with voting by more than 1.4 million Democrats and almost 1.6 million Republicans, almost 27 percent of registered voters in Florida, about 3.5 million, are independents.

“You really need to go, not so much to the right, but to the middle,” Batchelor said, adding he would advise Gillum to ask Graham to be his running mate. “If DeSantis really only appeals to base Trump voters, it would be making a mistake for Andrew Gillum to only appeal to his base. Voters between the 40-yard lines [ideologically], they’re going to the polls. And you’ve got to appeal to them.”