Good Wednesday morning.
Another poll of the U.S. Senate race shows little daylight between U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and his Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Val Demings.
The Impact Research poll found Rubio would get 49% of the vote to Demings’ 46% if the election were today. The three-point gap falls within the poll’s margin of error, which is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Demings’ competitiveness is built, in part, on strong support from independents. The poll found she holds a 13-point lead over Rubio among third- and no-party voters, 50%-37%.
With more than a decade in statewide office, Rubio does hold a significant advantage in name ID — about 94% of those polled said they had heard of him.
However, Demings has started to catch up after spending millions on TV ads over the past few months. About two-thirds of those polled said they had heard of the third-term Congresswoman.
The polling memo asserts that Demings’ name ID has “a lot of room to grow as more voters tune into the race and Demings continues to hold an advantage in TV ads.”
She has indeed spent far more on TV ads than the incumbent — ad buy data shows her campaign has spent around $15 million cycle-to-date. On its own, Rubio’s campaign has spent about $3.25 million, but including ad buys from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a handful of GOP-aligned PACs brings the spend to about $9 million.
The Impact Research poll was commissioned by the Democratic Governors Association and was conducted Aug. 12-18 and has a sample size of 800 likely General Election voters.
—”Marco Rubio slammed after saying he paid off student loans by writing book” via Fatma Khaled of Newsweek
Pro-Rubio PAC books $696K into broadcast ads — A political committee known as Stand Up To China has spent another $695,670 on broadcast ads in the U.S. Senate race. The committee has previously aired ads attacking Democratic candidate Demings by trying to tie her to the Joe Biden administration’s record on China. According to AdImpact, the new buy covers ads that began airing Aug. 25 and will continue through Sept. 9 in the Orlando and Miami media markets.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis said during a stop in Live Oak that some county Supervisors of Elections “just don’t care about election laws” and are encouraging felons to register and vote.
His message received some pushback, with Steve Bousquet claiming that the Governor doesn’t have any proof that’s happening.
Well, he kind of does.
During the same stop, the Governor mentioned the time that the Alachua Supervisor of Elections office sent staff to the county jail to help prisoners get registered to vote.
The house call resulted in 10 people who were registered eventually being charged with voting illegally.
One might note that many people in jail are convicted of misdemeanors and not felonies, and therefore they still have the right to vote. And one would be correct.
But many inmates that were registered were, in fact, ineligible to vote because they had not fulfilled all the requirements under Amendment 4. And FDLE noted that the visit “deviated from the typical jail procedures” related to voting education.
Sure, you can blame part of that on the vagaries of the implementing bill, but that doesn’t mean the Supervisor of Elections office did their due diligence. In fact, it proves the Governor’s point — they didn’t care enough about the law to take the time to understand it and correctly explain it.
— SITUATIONAL AWARENESS —
—@RepBrianMast: To me, serving in Afghanistan was worth it. For 20 years, we gave our enemies a beating. The withdrawal and situation on the ground today is a slap in the face, but was failure of leadership, not a failure of those on the ground.
—@BryanDGriffin: If you get your news from the @nytimes, you’d get a Times reporter interviewing a different Times reporter about FL being a ‘right-wing laboratory’ because *checks notes* you can’t talk to young kids about sex in school and people made their own health decisions during COVID.
—@MDixon55: .@GovRonDeSantis said he will be rolling out his tax package for the 2022 legislative session in next few weeks Governor’s budget and associated tax cuts are generally something rolled out just before Session begins, which next year is March
Tweet, tweet:
Just found out Katie is now 4 years cancer free! Praise God! Many thanks to @GovRonDeSantis and @CaseyDeSantis for their work to advocate for cancer research, along with all the heroes at @MoffittNews #CancelCancer pic.twitter.com/w7sxNEl4Cn
— Jimmy Patronis (@JimmyPatronis) August 30, 2022
Tweet, tweet:
This one gives me all the feels… one week later and it still feels so good! We haven’t skipped a beat, on to November! ???????????? pic.twitter.com/JUGDu8lPEo
— Lauren Book (@LeaderBookFL) August 30, 2022
Tweet, tweet:
Orlando residents as Halloween Horror Nights begins this week pic.twitter.com/rSWefW2HfG
— Katie Rice (@katievrice) August 30, 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 — 8.31.22 appeared first on Florida Politics – Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..
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