Good Friday morning.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings has pulled even with incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio according to a new poll conducted by Change Research.
The poll, conducted Aug. 2-5, found both candidates with 46% support among likely General Election voters, with the remainder undecided. The measure was commissioned by EMILY’s List, an organization backing Demings that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights.
It is the second consecutive poll commissioned by partisans that characterize the General Election race as essentially tied. A poll released earlier this week by Progress Florida and Florida Watch, two progressive groups, had Rubio and Demings both at 45%.
No major, nonpartisan groups have released polling on the race in recent weeks, though the last such poll released — conducted by Center Street in July — showed Demings on an upswing but still 8% behind Rubio.
Beyond the top-line numbers, the poll provided additional good news for the Demings campaign, showing it has made gains in name ID and that voters are more likely to be hearing positive things about the likely Democratic nominee than they are negative.
Rubio, meanwhile, appears to be underperforming among White women. Though he holds a 5-point lead with that bloc, that is still 12 points below what Donald Trump managed two years ago. His margin among Republican women is also trailing the former President by 15 points.
The online survey was conducted in English and Spanish and has a sample size of 1,031 likely voters.
Here are a few other thoughts:
— Historians visited the White House last week to tell President Joe Biden why they think American democracy is … well … almost history. During the two-hour conversation, the academics said that the country may be going through its most perilous period in modern history, comparing it to the years leading up to the Civil War and the rise of fascism.
— According to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, voters have mixed feelings about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, with party affiliation largely determining their sentiments. The survey found 49% of voters approve of the raid while 37% disapprove and 13% have no opinion. However, the action has 84% support among Democrats while only 15% of Republicans approve.
— There’s a new trend in fundraising: “club memberships.” As Hailey Fuchs writes for POLITICO, lawmakers have started offering lobbyists more direct access and one-on-one time by selling tickets to small gatherings. The prices range from $1,000 on the low end, to $5,000 on the high end.
— Campaign emails just got an all-access pass to your inbox thanks to a Federal Election Commission decision. The federal campaign finance watchdog approved a Google program that will let political emails through spam filters on Gmail accounts. The FEC ruling said the bypass would not be an impermissible contribution to political committees.
— Twitter wants its users to keep it civil this election season. The social media platform has announced a series of changes to its “Civic Integrity Policy” that it believes will protect civic conversation and prevent the spread of misinformation. Steps include “pre-bunks” and applying labels to misleading tweets.
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Congrats to Shannan Dunaway of The Fiorentino Group and Jim Boxold with Capital City Consulting on their beautiful wedding nuptials in Paris.
— SITUATIONAL AWARENESS —
—@AhtraElnashar: Stunning how rapidly mis/disinformation is already spreading. AG (Merrick) Garland “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.” He did not approve the actual warrant. The actual warrant itself was authorized by a federal court.
—@AaronParnas: Merrick Garland called Trump’s bluff. Plain and simple.
—@EWErickson: Personal theory: They used classified documents as the excuse to search but were really looking for January 6-related materials. They didn’t find them. So, they’re now pushing back claiming it really was the classified docs all along.
—@RealJacobPerry: Turns out it’s quite easy to trick MAGA World into stepping in the piles of shit the rest of us see quite easily
—@DavidAFrench: The core of the Trump movement is Very Online, and like all Very Online movements it jumps on talking points and messages that can seem weird and wrong to normal folks offline. Defunding or dismantling the FBI is not something normal folks will buy.
—@NateSilver538: I mean the change is within the margin of error which doesn’t really match the “THIS IS HUGE THE FBI JUST HANDED THE NOMINATION TO TRUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!” punditry we’ve seen all over this platform this week.
—@NikkiFried: No Floridian is above the law.
—@GovRonDeSantis: In Florida, we believe veterans have a wealth of knowledge and experience they can bring to the classroom, so we created a new program to help veterans become teachers. We stand by our veterans and want them in our classrooms.
Tweet, tweet:
.@BetoORourke to a Greg Abbott supporter who laughed when the gubernatorial candidate mentioned the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: “It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.” #txlege
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) August 11, 2022
Sunburn is authored and assembled by Peter Schorsch, Phil Ammann, Daniel Dean, Renzo Downey, Jacob Ogles, and Drew Wilson.
The post Sunburn — The morning read of what’s hot in Florida politics — 8.12.22 appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
This article originally appeared here and was republished with permission.