Just hours before last night's first Florida gubernatorial debate, Andrew Gillum, the front runner, was interviewed by Adam Smith for the Tampa Bay Times and got right into DeSantis' head. Gillum, wrote Smith, "said he feels like he has a sense of DeSantis already from the Republican gubernatorial nominee's campaign. 'They have a uniquely unlikeable candidate. He's easily dislikable,' said Gillum.
Newspaper editorial endorsements don't move elections-- but they can be a signal that a wave is coming. Yesterday we saw how conservative newspapers in Maine, Texas and Iowa had endorsed progressive Democrats, Jared Golden, Dayna Steele and J.D. Scholten, not despite their progressive policies, but because of them.
Ostensibly this ad is about the Florida gubernatorial race. But even if you've never set foot on Floridians soil, please watch it, because it's about where you live and where everyone in your family lives.
Pennsylvania was one of the states targeted by Russian hackers in 2016. They helped put an illegitimate "president" into the White House by a handful of votes. In Pennsylvania it was 44,292 votes out of 5,897,174 cast. Kushner's team told the Russians to concentrate on four counties: Erie, Luzerne, Northampton, Lackawanna, Obama country in 2012, all of whom provided Trump with "plausible" wins in 2016. He took the state's 20 electoral votes by beating Hillary 2,970,733 (48.18%) to 2,926,441 (47.46%).
Writing for the National Journal this morning, Charlie Cook predicted "net gains for Democrats in governorships of between six and a dozen, and a pickup for Democrats of between 400 and 650 state legislative seats, more than the average midterm loss of 375 seats for the party in the White House.
Not sure what it refers to, but it looks goodThe NY Times/Siena poll showed good news for one of the Blue America candidates. They had Katie Porter with a substantial lead over Trump rubber stamp Mimi Walters, 48% to 43%. Unfortunately, the Times/Siena poll is the least credible polling operation I've seen since Rasumussen and their data is virtually worthless. Still...
NextGen America and For Our Future are two PACs financed by Tom Steyer. They spent $1.4 million dollars in the Florida Democratic gubernatorial primary helping Andrew Gillum overcome huge odds to beat two conservative Democrats, Gwen Graham and Philip Levine. But you ain't seen nothin' yet. Yesterday Steyer told the NY Times that he will spend more money in Florida this fall than in any other state.
Longtime Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel (retired) was on the air with John Catsimatidis yesterday and he explained what Trump, a former campaign contributor of his, has done to the political system. "It is a terrible thing because it doesn’t give Americans an opportunity to vote on the issues. It’s either you’re for Trump or against Trump...
The Republican establishment wanted Adam Putnam as their nominee for Florida governor. Putnam (AKA, Howdy Doody). But then in waltzed an obscure far right extremist congressman from the Freedom Caucus, Ron DeSantis. Trump's kind of guy. Trump endorsed him and... that was that for poor Putnam, who was in the House leadership and left in 2011 to slowly and methodically take all the needed steps towards becoming governor.
