By Mary Ellen Klas / Bloomberg Opinion
Florida holds two special congressional elections on Tuesday in districts where President Trump won more than 60 percent of the votes. They’ll be closely watched to see if that margin — which months ago seemed effortless for Republicans to sustain in the president’s home state — has melted away.
Fueled by a surge of support from grass-roots Democratic donors and volunteers from across the country, Democrats Gay Valimont, a gun control activist, and Josh Weil, a teacher, are dramatically out-raising their Republican opponents and outperforming expectations in early voting.
In the Congressional District 1 race to replace former Congressman Matt Gaetz, who resigned from Congress after being nominated as Trump’s nominee for attorney general (then withdrew), Valimont has raised more than $6.5 million, three times more than Republican Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer, who has raised $2.1 million.
The numbers are even better for Weil, who is running against Republican Randy Fine, a state senator, in the race to replace Congressman Mike Waltz, now Trump’s national security adviser. Weil has raised more than $9.4 million — mostly in sums of under $200 — compared to Fine’s $987,000.
“They’re going to spend money because they’ve got no other race in the country to spend money on other than Congressional District 1 and Congressional District 6,” Patronis told the Pensacola News-Journal of these donations. And it’s true that the GOP candidates remain the favorites simply because these congressional districts have been gerrymandered to give Republicans a voter registration advantage.
But now that Trump has done things he never promised and promised things he hasn’t done — all while telling Americans they’re in for “a little pain” — both the turnout and the vote should tell us how much buyer’s remorse voters feel.
Trump has endorsed both Patronis and Fine, and although the president’s approval rating in the state has been falling, it still remains above water in Florida opinion polls.
But Democrats from across the country are using the Florida race to send a message to the president that his performance comes with a political cost.
Compared to last year, when Valimont strung together just $1.5 million and lost to Gaetz by 32 percentage points in the deep red North Florida district, the small-donor fundraising has left her with enough resources to saturate the airwaves with campaign ads, hoist billboards above major intersections, and hire enough paid staff to knock on thousands of doors.
“I’ve got volunteers coming from all over the country: Colorado, Seattle, California, West Virginia, Georgia,’’ she said. “It’s crazy.”
Weil’s campaign reports knocking on 500,000 doors, making 745,000 phone calls, and blitzing broadcast television, websites, social media with campaign ads.
Early voting began last weekend. In the most populous county in District 6, Volusia County, Democrats outperformed Republicans in both early voting and vote-by-mail returns. In North Florida’s District 1, Democrats, though smaller in registration, were keeping pace with GOP numbers.
“The tide’s turning here,” Valimont told me. “We have the largest district of vets in the state, and second nationally.” Federal programs, from veterans’ benefits and Social Security to military contracts are the lifeblood of the region and “our veterans are freaking out.”
Both Valimont and Weil blame Trump, his abdication of authority to Elon Musk, their ham-handed approach to government efficiency, and the reckless impact government cuts are having on people’s lives.
“It doesn’t matter what type of door we’re knocking on, people are unhappy because they didn’t vote for that,” Weil told the Florida Phoenix, referring to Musk’s cuts.
Republicans hold a 218-214 advantage in the U.S. House and the odds of Democrats closing the gap before the midterms are nearly impossible. But some Florida Republicans are worried that the state’s low-turnout special elections are occurring when the president has angered many constituencies and Democrats are demonstrating grassroots energy.
“I think there’s a chance one of them loses,” one high-ranking Florida Republican leader speculated to me about the two congressional contests. “And if one of them loses, all hell will, well you know.”
He pointed to Trump’s first term, when a galvanized Democratic base flipped 15 Republican seats in the House during the midterm elections and left Republicans with a tiny 50–49 advantage in the Senate.
Patronis and Fine both shrug off such talk. They say Trump’s leadership is popular.
But this is not the first referendum on Trump. In January, Democrats in Iowa flipped a state Senate seat Trump had won by 21 points. And this week, Democrats seized another in conservative Lancaster County, Pa., which had been held by Republicans for over 40 years.
So watch the margins in Florida next week. Voters could signal how much “pain” they are willing to absorb.
Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
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