Florida readies for rare red wave, along with rare red moon. And Trump baits DeSantis

It’s Monday, Nov. 7, and tomorrow Election Day is finally here. More than 2.4 million votes have already been cast in early and mail-in voting in Florida, and now it’s up to voters to arrive at the polls Tuesday, even as a tropical system may be forming offshore.

It’s going to be a very unusual day — not because it’s the end of a brutal election season but primarily because in the morning hours of Election Day, a total lunar eclipse will occur. The rare blood moon will not happen again for centuries.

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

The final days also marked when the feud that has been simmering between former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for weeks spilled into the open. At a rally in western Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump lobbed one of his famous disparaging nicknames at DeSantis, referring to him as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

‘Ron DeSanctimonious’: The former president did not repeat the insult in an hour-long speech in Miami, although he encouraged the crowd to “elect Ron DeSantis as your governor.” Florida’s governor, who was not invited to Trump’s rally for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, held a dueling rally across the state in Hillsborough County at the same time. DeSantis did not respond to the taunt, but it was a signal that the tensions were real and that, to Trump, DeSantis’ rising national status may be a threat to his re-election plans.

‘Do it again’: At the Miami rally, Trump spoke of his first term and teased the Miami crowd, saying: “In order to make our country successful, safe and glorious, I will probably have to do it again.” As some chanted “four more years,” he told them to “stay tuned” and mentioned a rally in Ohio on Monday night.

It’s not a stretch to expect Trump to announce his re-election bid soon. Axios reported last week that Trump’s inner circle “is discussing announcing the launch of a 2024 presidential campaign on Nov. 14 — with the official announcement possibly followed by a multi-day series of political events, according to three sources familiar with the sensitive discussions.”

Victory lap: In Miami-Dade, the county where two years ago Trump made stunning gains among Hispanic voters, Florida Republicans were taking a preemptive victory lap over what they hope will be similar results Tuesday night — enough to possibly flip the once-Democratic stronghold red.

Red wave, red moon? By the end of early voting Sunday night, Republicans held a 6,000 vote edge in the county. More than 180,000 Republican-registered voters and slightly more than 174,000 Democrat-registered voters had cast their ballots, according to the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections. Nearly 107,000 people with no party affiliation have also voted. The numbers were enough for Rubio to exclaim at the rally with Trump: “Even the moon is going red on Tuesday.”

Final arguments: DeSantis and his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist, meanwhile, spent the weekend criss-crossing the state to make their final argument to voters before Election Day.

Crist campaigned in South Florida with running mate Karla Hernandez-Mats and visited an early voting site in Miami as “Souls to the Polls” events kicked off. DeSantis held rallies in Hillsborough, Sarasota and Lee counties, predicting that Republicans in the Legislature will secure super-majority status in both chambers on Tuesday, and make gains in local school board races.

At his events, DeSantis offered few specifics about what’s ahead if he wins re-election. “We will continue to fight the woke corporations,’’ he told a crowd in Sun City Center on Sunday shortly before Trump spoke in Miami. He suggested the fight will extend to education and medicine, but he offered no specifics.

Biden and Crist: President Joe Biden also was in Florida last week, making a last-minute appeal to voters to reject DeSantis and Rubio, calling them “extreme” and saying his administration’s accomplishments, access to abortion and democracy itself are at stake if Republicans regain power in Washington.

He met with donors for Crist in Golden Beach, and called the race to unseat DeSantis “one of the most important races in the country.” Polls increasingly indicate that will be a long shot as Florida GOP has increased its voter registration edge over Democrats for the first time in state history.

How badly disadvantaged is Crist? He raised $31 million to DeSantis’ haul of nearly $200 million, which he used to pummel Crist with relentless television ads. Among the donors is Nevada real estate magnate Robert Bigelow, who gave DeSantis a single check of $10 million. The new class of mega donors, whom the governor has actively recruited, has also made it possible for the governor to emerge to the top of a prospective 2024 Republican field.

Radio and rumors: What seemed to start as a simple, senseless brawl on a Hialeah street has become a political tempest, as well as a lesson in how Spanish-language radio in Miami influences political narratives, whether or not the known facts support them.

The first person to publicly say that politics was behind the vicious beating of Christopher Monzon, a Republican canvasser, was Rosa Peña, a contributor to Miami’s top Spanish-language radio station, Radio Mambí. Peña blamed paid “anarchist elements and leftists” for the attack, following a short interview she did on the air with Monzon’s father, Reynaldo Cedeno.

Mic Check Miami: What’s transpired since that interview is a case study in the enduring and unique influence of Spanish-language radio in Miami. A video has emerged that cast doubt on the original claims, as well as those amplified by Rubio in a tweet to his 4.4 million follows.

For more information, take a look at Mic Check Miami, a project by the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald, in conjunction with Florida International University, examining Miami Spanish-language radio to see how narratives take shape and how misinformation can sometimes flourish.

SOME RACES TO WATCH

HD 115: Republican Alina Garcia, a Tallahassee veteran who has worked as an advisor to former Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, and then-state Rep. Marco Rubio, is in a race against Democrat Christie Cantin Davis, a local businesswoman. The election will fill the seat to replace Republican state Rep. Vance Aloupis in the Miami-based district.

HB 119: Whoever wins the seat to represent the district representing unincorporated South Miami-Dade, either Republican Juan Carlos Porras, 25, or Democrat Gabriel Gonzalez, 22, will be among the youngest to serve in the Florida state House.

SB 36: Florida Democrats’ effort to unseat Republican state Sen. Ileana Garcia hit a snag in June when state Rep. Michael Grieco dropped out of the race, forcing the party to find a new challenger to take on the Cuban-American Miami native and founder of “Latinas for Trump.”

The party quickly landed on Raquel Pacheco, a small-business owner who has twice run unsuccessfully for the Miami Beach City Commission. Pacheco owns a translation company and is the former president of local advocacy group Miami Beach United. Past voting data from the redrawn district suggest Garcia’s seat should be hotly contested but Garcia is dominating the fundraising battle — raising about seven times as much money as Pacheco.

FL 27: Two candidates fighting for votes in South Florida’s most competitive congressional race are trying to appeal to voters by sparring over endorsement of former Colombian President Ivan Duque and as they fight for Colombian-American votes. One problem: He has endorsed neither of them.

Annette Taddeo, a Colombian American and Democratic state senator vying to replace Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, published two videos last week highlighting the former conservative leader’s supportive comments about her. Salazar, who is Cuban American, tweeted out a photo showing her shaking Duque’s hand.

For more, take a look at the Miami Herald’s 2022 Voter Guide.

Voter suppression worries: Fears of voter suppression are rising before the midterm election in Florida. Republicans are joining forces with members of the extreme-right conservative group the Proud Boys on the campaign trail and as poll workers, and ex-felons whose voting rights were restored worry about retaliation from a new Florida election crimes office created by DeSantis. Although evidence of intimidation is on the rise, it’s not as bad as other states, like Arizona.

Shifting burden: A week after DeSantis announced the arrests of 20 people for alleged voter fraud, his administration quietly made a change that some say could help the state go after more people.

Starting in August, Floridians on probation have been required to sign an updated form placing the burden on them to determine if they’re eligible to vote. Some voting advocates, who have been critical of Florida’s broken system for determining voter eligibility, said the warning could be helpful. But the changes also make it easier to shift the responsibility for verifying eligibility from the state to voters.

This seems a bit late: U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz last week asked the Postal Service Inspector General to review a Miami-Dade processing facility ahead of Election Day, after reports of mail ballots that went uncounted in a 2021 election.

‘Burn in hell’: In a series of emotional and occasionally fiery statements, survivors and families of victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting faced the court and levied their final judgments on convicted killer Nikolas Cruz. The judge formally sentenced Cruz to life in prison on Wednesday.

Migrant flight details: Records released last week shed new light on the behind-the-scenes dealings between Florida procurement officers and the vendor who ran a migrant relocation program, confirming that before DeSantis could say he kicked migrants out of Florida, he had to pay to fly them in.

The documents also showed that the president of Destin-based Vertol Systems Company Inc. was not only on the plane when his company flew migrants out of Texas to Massachusetts on Sept. 14, but he and the governor’s “public safety czar,” Larry Keefe, were intimately involved in the plan to justify using Florida funds for the covert operation.

New lawsuit challenging gender law: After a federal judge rejected an earlier attempt, students, parents and teachers have filed a revised lawsuit seeking to block a new Florida law that restricts classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation. The challenge, filed Thursday in the Northern District of Florida, argues that the plaintiffs have suffered “concrete harms” from the Parental Rights in Education bill, dubbed by opponents as the “don’t say gay law.”

Doctors now face ban: Florida Board of Medicine and the Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine finalized rules last week prohibiting doctors in the future from providing treatments such as puberty-blocking medications, hormone therapy and surgery to transgender people younger than 18. The boards’ actions Friday came after the Florida Department of Health in July filed a petition seeking a rule-making process on the contentious issue of treatment for gender dysphoria.

On the issue of housing: Local governments continue to search for options in the absence of answers at the state level. For example, Miami-Dade County commissioners last week approved legislation making it easier to add apartments to suburban homes, a change backed by housing advocates to create more affordable rentals.

Gas break ends: On another pocketbook issue, gas prices, Florida motorists are paying more at the pump this month after the end of the month-long gas tax “holiday” enacted by the governor and the Legislature. The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas the last day the 25.3-cent gas tax holiday was took in effect was $3.29. That price was only about a dime cheaper than at the start of holiday on Oct. 1.

Flags in classrooms: The Miami-Dade School Board is expected to consider this month a measure that will allow only the American flag and the official motto of the State of Florida — “In God We Trust” — be displayed in classrooms and on school district grounds.

The idea, while still up for discussion, could mean that flags from other countries may be banned from hanging year round in a world history class, for example, or a rainbow flag to celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month would be prohibited.

Falwell movie lawsuit: Miami lawyer Gordon Bello, an ex-friend of ‘pool boy’ Giancarlo Granda, sued Hulu last week over Billy Corben’s new movie on Jerry Falwell Jr. sex scandal called “God Forbid.” Bello wants the court to block Hulu from airing the documentary, alleging that audio recordings aired in the video were made without his knowledge.

Thank you for reading. Miami Herald Capitol Bureau Chief Mary Ellen Klas curates the Politics and Policy in the Sunshine State newsletter. We appreciate our readers and if you have any ideas or suggestions, please drop me a note at meklas@miamiherald.com.

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