>>This week on NewsNight, early voting gets underway in the midterm elections as Floridians head to the polls with races for governor and U.S. Senate on the ballot.

A look at the key statewide contests, the closest races in central Florida and the issues at play for voters.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight, where we take a closer look at the big stories impacting central Florida and how they affect all of us.

Joining us this week in the studio, Scott Maxwell, columnist for The Orlando Sentinel.

Thanks for coming in, Scott.

>>My pleasure.

>>Talia Blake 90.7 WMFE Morning Edition host over there in 90.7 and Christopher Heath from WFTV covers politics, for Channel 9.

Thank you for coming in, Chris.

Thank you, guys for being here.

All right.

First tonight, two statewide races this election that are being watched not only in Florida but around the nation.

Congresswoman Val Demings is challenging incumbent Marco Rubio for Florida's US Senate seat up in the midterms and Governor DeSantis is facing Congressman Charlie Crist.

The two took part in their one and only debate of the campaign this week in Fort Pierce.

>>Ron, you talk about Joe Biden a lot.

I understand you think you're going to be running against him.

I can see how you might get confused, but you're running for governor.

You're running for governor.

And I have a question for you.

You're running for governor.

Why don't you look in the eyes of the people of the state of Florida and say to them, if you're reelected, you will serve a full four year term as governor, yes or no?

Yes or no, Ron?

Will you serve a full four year term if you're reelected governor of Florida?

It's not a tough question.

It's a fair question.

He won't tell you.

>>We did not agree on the candidates asking each other questions.

>>Is it my time?

>>Governor, it's your turn.

>>Well, listen, I know that Charlie is interested in talking about 2024 and Joe Biden, but I just want to make things very, very clear.

The only worn out old donkey I'm looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist.

>>Well, you can find a link to the full debate from WPEC and Sinclair on our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

Well, we spoke earlier with Chris Muro, political scientist at Eastern Florida State College.

>>Republicans have held the governor's mansion for 28 years.

Will that trend cease in 2022?

The answer is is no.

Ron DeSantis is remarkable in the sense that he is dominating Tallahassee right now.

The legislature, the House and the Senate have acquiesced on every single major policy initiative that the governor has has pursued.

They've basically turned over governance, to - to Ron DeSantis.

And the legislature is not leading.

They are following the governor.

And that is a unique situation.

The last time that you can go back and say anything even remotely close to that happening was during the first term of Jeb Bush.

But we've seen nothing like this.

Ron DeSantis really does have a stranglehold on state government.

The legislature believes this is a winning formula.

Ron DeSantis has raised $187 million just this year, which is record breaking for gubernatorial elections.

>>A winning formula.

Well, I'm sure Crist supporters would disagree with that assessment, but the polls seem to show DeSantis as the favorite to win.

Chris, let me come to you first on this.

The Democrats think Congressman Crist has a path, and what does he have to do in the final days?

I mean, we're looking at right now more than a million Floridians have already voted and that is the ballots that we've already counted.

And there's still more in the mail.

There's people voting every single day.

This this cake's baked.

Let's just let's be honest here.

I mean, we're with less than two weeks until the actual Election Day.

This thing's done now.

We just have to figure out what the numbers are going to look like.

Democrats will tell you they still feel like there's a path to victory.

If we can get the youth to turnout, if we can really energize people around the question of, you know, reproductive rights.

We can move this thing forward, DeSantis has vulnerabilities on all the social issues he went after.

And instead of dealing with property insurance, none of that has resonated in the last couple of weeks.

Hurricane Ian coming in and kind of putting a pause on the campaign for two or three weeks did not help Charlie Crist.

So basically at this point, Crist could still technically win, but right now, this thing, this thing's pretty well cooked.

>>Yeah.

You mentioned reproductive rights, Charlie.

That came up in the debate quite a lot.

We also saw Governor DeSantis try to tie Charlie Crist to the president a lot.

What were your takeaways from the debate?

>>I mean, I wasn't really surprised.

It was, as expected, a lot of shade back and forth.

I don't really think that debate changed voters minds, as Chris was saying, like this cake is baked at this point.

I think this was more of a show for people to see.

But I don't think it changed many minds.

And they kind of standard with their parties what they've been saying the whole time.

So yeah, it's what was as expected.

>>What do you think Scott, did it change any minds?

>>It's hard to see that it did, especially because there was only one of them.

This is one of the biggest states in the nation, and it's the first time I can remember in the 25 years I've been in Florida, there's only been one debate that was strategic for Ron DeSantis.

He basically needed to not pass out on the stage, and he was probably going to keep this ten point lead.

The clip that we just watched with Charlie Crist getting DeSantis staring into space for 10 seconds was great.

I mean, it was everything Charlie Crist could have wanted.

I don't think voters care.

I mean, though, Marco Rubio got pounded, he said 10,000 times, I will not seek reelection.

He said that I would after he lost for president, not only did he run, he won an almost a landslide.

I'm just not sure those issues really change races.

>>I mean, do debates make a difference now, Chris?

I mean, is it going to change the dynamics.

>>In a very, very close race?

It can.

I mean, I'm old enough to remember when Charlie Crist debated against Rick Scott and it was a very tight race.

Scott was an unpopular governor coming off his first term.

The polling seemed to indicate that Charlie Crist had a slight advantage, maybe even a solid lead.

And then there's this debate down in south Florida.

And, you know, Rick Scott refuses to take the stage because Charlie Crist has a fan.

And it's the big you know, we're all sitting around going, oh, this thing's over.

You know, Rick Scott is done for.

Flash forward a couple of weeks.

Rick Scott gets reelected.

Debates can torpedo a campaign, but it's very rare.

You've got to have one of those Rick Perry.

Oops moments to really, really mess it up.

But even then, I don't know at this point, I think voters have kind of retreated to their corners.

>>That was a while ago.

And the fan got its own shout out this week at the debate in Fort Pierce.

Scott the Senate race.

Congressman Demings told the AP this week that her party's midterm message isn't resonating as she'd hoped.

What are you hearing from Democrats?

>>I think Democrats have a lot of challenges.

And one of the stats that I often share with people talk about the uphill challenge they have.

Democrats have not ousted an incumbent Republican from a statewide office in more than 30 years in the state.

And for most of those 30 years, there were more Democrats registered than there were Republicans.

That's not the case anymore.

So any time you go into a statewide race in the state that is increasingly voting red, a state that voted for Donald Trump two years ago when most of America backed away from him.

By the way, we went double down here in Florida.

It doesn't look good.

But I do think Val's chances look slightly better than Charlie Crist, even just today.

This week, there's some weird developments on the Rubio campaign bringing in Donald Trump to come rally for him.

Yeah, that's that's an odd choice in a general election where it almost makes you wonder if this was Donald Trump's idea more than it was Rubio's.

Trump is isn't a real unifying force.

I do sense a little bit more of scrambling on the Rubio team than you do on Team DeSantis.

>>Yeah, I think a lot of people would agree with that.

Well be sure to join the conversation on social media.

A lot of you have been sharing your thoughts on the big issues this election.

You can find us at WUCFTV on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Well, let's dig a little deeper into the issues on the state level in this election.

First, I want to play two ads running in the race for Senate, one from Congresswoman Demings, the other from Senator Rubio.

>>The radical left will destroy America if we don't stop them.

They indoctrinate children and try to turn boys into girls.

They allow illegal aliens and drugs to flood America.

And if you speak out, they banned you on social media and they call you a racist.

Congresswoman Val Demings, she supports all of this.

She votes with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time.

I'm Marco Rubio and I approve this message because I was raised by people who lost their country.

I'm not going to let us lose ours.

>>I'm Val Demings.

As a police officer, some of the worst cases I worked were sexual assaults.

It's outrageous to mandate what a woman can and can't do with their body.

Marco Rubio wants to decriminalize abortions with no exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

Well, I know something about fighting crime, Senator Rubio.

Rape is a crime.

Incest is a crime.

Abortion is not.

I'm Val Demings and I approve this message.

>>Congresswoman Demings hitting Rubio for supporting Senator Lindsey Graham's bill for a 15 week abortion ban.

Chris abortion has been a key issue for progressive since Dobbs.

Is it still the motivating factor that Democrats believe?

>>They sure hope it is.

A USF survey came out this week and it basically looked at the top issues abortions fourth, and it's a distant fourth to behind, you know, behind immigration, behind inflation, behind jobs, the economy, all of that's ahead of it.

So it's a motivating issue for people that really care about it.

So within that chunk of people who really care about abortion, they really, really care about it.

But a wide swath of Americans, a wide swath of Floridians about 600 Floridians in the survey from USF, it's just it's the fourth most important issue.

Yeah, it'll motivate.

But, man, Democrats were hoping it'd be one or two.

It's just not there in Florida right now.

>>Scott, what you think?

>>Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

I think Democrats got a lot of hope from Kansas when this pretty red state voted basically to keep abortion legal.

And the issue that sort of Chris, got at right here is when you ask the American public only about abortion, that that issue goes really strongly to the Democrats.

However, that's not the only thing on the ballot.

Now, I've told voters, if you care about abortion, you should vote like it.

The Republicans in Florida have made it very clear they want to take it further.

But for a lot of people, even women, it still remains theoretical.

They may support the right to choose, but they're not.

They don't envision themselves or their children maybe having an abortion in the next year.

They do see the price at the pump.

They do see the price at the grocery store.

Talia, a minute ago we heard Rubio in that ad address the culture wars.

Is the Florida GOP, do you think, believe these issues, particularly in schools as we've seen over the DeSantis term so far, do they believe that's still driving Republican voters as we near Election Day?

>>Yeah, to an extent.

I mean, even during that debate between DeSantis and Crist, DeSantis was touting the fact that he banned critical race theory, saying, you know, I don't want to teach our kids to hate each other and I don't want to teach them to hate this country.

So, yeah, to an extent.

But just as Chris and Scott kind of alluded to, that's not those issues are not at the top of everyone's list.

There are things like inflation that are way more important to people on their everyday life, that they're thinking about ahead of this election.

>>Pocketbook issues.

Yeah, I mean, Scott, issues like the teaching of gender, as Talia just referred to, sexual orientation and race in schools came up in that debate.

Did Congressman Crist, do you think succeed in his attacks on those issues, which have really been a priority for the DeSantis administration?

>>Yeah, I think that's one of the issues that is pretty baked.

I don't think anybody's going to watch debate and come away with it with with a different opinion on the “Dont Say Gay ” bill.

The Republicans and Marco Rubio in the as the ad you just saw are still banking on it.

I mean, I think it's kind of remarkable that right out of the gate, the first thing in his ad, as he basically says, Val Demings, a woman who's been a cop around Orlando for 30 years.

Like one of her primary goals is to turn your son into a daughter.

So, I mean, they're thinking it will resonate.

What it usually does is it gets out of base.

And I don't think it sways people in the middle.

And traditionally, Republicans in the state have been much better at getting their people to the polls than Democrats have.

>>I mean, Talia, you mentioned it just now.

The economic issues that does consistently poll as the most important issue with inflation.

We're seeing gas prices come down a bit from the people that you talk to, economists that you talk to.

I mean, do people still see that as a key issue for them?

>>Oh, absolutely.

I mean, even though gas is coming down a bit, it's still expensive.

And even if you're saving a few bucks at the pump, you're using that money to go to the grocery store to spend more on your everyday food, things like transportation, all that stuff is so expensive that it's in front of people's faces every single day.

It's a problem they're dealing with daily.

So until you can get affordable housing together until you can get gas prices down until you can make food affordable again, no one's really thinking past those issues.

Like those are really the main issues people are dealing with on an everyday basis.

>>And it's a good point.

Affordable housing, such a critical issue in our community for sure.

Chris, I want to turn to immigration a minute because this is also featured in the campaign.

A lot of Telemundo poll this week shows Hispanic voters favor DeSantis over Crist and approve of the migrant flights that the state of Florida organized in Martha's Vineyard.

How much are Hispanic voters helping Governor DeSantis, especially in places like Miami Dade?

>>You know, Florida Hispanic voters?

It's one of the things where, you know, I cut my teeth covering politics in Texas.

And when you say, you know, the Latino vote or the Hispanic vote in Texas, you're talking about mainly Mexicans.

You come to Florida, it's everywhere.

You know, it's it's everything from, you know, Haitians to Cubans to Venezuelans to, you know, you're from the Dominican Republic to Mexicans.

It's so it's a it's not a monolithic group.

And it's really hard to speak to which one you're talking to and which where their priorities in different places.

And on the immigration thing, you know, you show the ad from Marco Rubio and he comes out talking about how immigration such a problem.

You know, I see these ads and I say to myself, well, you've been in Congress for 12 years now.

You had an immigration bill.

What is Congress done about immigration?

We keep hearing about this every two years that immigration is broken.

Let's do something.

Nothing gets done.

I'm thinking back to in my lifetime, the last time I remember a president and a Congress dealing with immigration in substantial way.

We're talking Reagan.

>>Oh, Rubio opposed his own immigration bill.

>>He was for it before he was against it.

Yeah.

And so, I mean, you look out at this and this seems to be one of those issues where immigration it's a great campaign issue provided you never actually do anything about it once you're elected.

And this cuts both ways because both parties love to talk about immigration, what we're going to do, nobody ever does anything when they get to D.C. >>Senator Rubio, of course, was at the center of the discussions about bipartisan immigration reform.

Scott I mean, a judge ruled this week that the governor had had failed to comply with Florida's public records laws on those flights.

But we're probably still not going to know much until after the election.

>>No, this was a strategy of delay until after the election, and it looks like it's going to be successful.

I think there was a day when voters and the public would find it maddening that their elected officials were hiding public information from the public.

Hiding how?

What they were doing with tax dollars.

And by all indications, this was an inappropriate use of tax dollars.

Even if you agree with the idea of flying using tax dollars to fly migrants, it specifically said in the statute it was to fly migrants from Florida, not not from Texas.

But the governor has done this repeatedly.

We've sued them.

And, by the way, one every time they go like that.

Yeah.

The Orlando Sentinel has not Talia and I. Yeah, the city and the Sentinel has several times.

Every time we have, we've ended up getting the public records, but they've delayed.

They spend money.

They paid our legal bills, which is a massive waste of money.

So that's sort of par for the course for this governor.

>>Part of the strategy for sure.

One area of agreement between DeSantis and Crist this week, though, was the death penalty.

Both said they believed the Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz, should have been given a death sentence.

Governor DeSantis says he'll push now for a change in the law that currently requires unanimous jury approval in such cases.

Let's hear from two voices on this.

First, Jared Moskowitz, a former Democratic state representative who's running for Congress and attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

And then we'll hear from Ngozi Ndule from the Death Penalty Information Center?

>>Unanimous vote in this instance failed.

But I don't know that that necessarily means we now revert backwards, because if we revert backwards, right, that's when we get worried that we might put someone to the death penalty that otherwise should not have gotten it.

So, you know, there could be something in the middle that needs to be done.

Quite frankly, you could create a rule when it comes to the death penalty that is different, where if there are multiple victims, so if there are somebody who's guilty of killing for the sake of this conversation, six people or more.

Right, which we'll call mass murder, five people or more, which will we'll consider mass murder.

Maybe there's a different test.

Maybe there is a lower bar for for that sort of thing.

So I'll look I'll leave that to the folks in the state to decide.

But it is clear that in this case, the unanimous, the requirement for the jury to be unanimous failed.

The families of Parkland.

>>Three jurors found that the mitigator - mitigating - the mitigating circumstances outweighed the aggravating circumstances.

They looked at issues in Nicholas Cruz's background, mental illness and those issues, and they found that those issues, in fact, made it reduce the culpability and may death penalty the death penalty, not the appropriate sentence.

So even though this was a result, that was surprising to many, it still is a demonstration of the way that the capital punishment system works.

>>Well you can find both those interviews in full on our website wucf.org/newsnight.

Scott you've written about the death penalty in Florida and how the Florida voters feel about it.

>>Yeah, it's sort of been one of my passion projects and I have to say that I'm a pretty seasoned political guy.

I watch debate.

I don't sort of get too worked up about much that one moment in debates and a little bit of chills down my spine because this state was one of the last in America to require unanimous death penalty.

This state also has had more overturned death penalty sentences.

We've gotten it wrong.

We've put people on death row incorrectly more than any other state.

So to see that turn back is a little chilling.

Polls show that this is increasingly not popular.

The death penalty people may have moral reasons, but more and more we see evidence of states getting it wrong.

So the public is generally not a fan of the death penalty.

But you will see no major candidate running for a major office in a state like this that doesn't support it.

In the primary, when both Nikki Fried and Charlie Crist came to the Orlando Sentinel editorial board, it was the first question I asked and both of them said they support it.

>>Yeah, it's interesting that Jared Moskowitz kind of alludes that there are social justice issues Talia when it comes to the death penalty and equal application of that penalty.

>>Right, right.

And you got to think that a lot of times who are who makes up most of the prisons in general, who is mostly sitting in jail, is it a person of color or is it their white counterpart?

Nine times out of ten, it's a person of color.

So nine times out of ten, they're the ones facing this.

And those are the communities being affected by this.

>>If I could just add one other thing.

It is unequal on several levels.

It is always brown people more likely to be convicted than white.

As you said, it's also men more than women.

Women are never it is always poor versus rich.

And it depends on where you live.

You are much likely, more likely to be sentenced to die in the South, for instance, than you would be for the same crime up north.

>>Some of this has to do with how not just the US Supreme Court has been remade in the last decade, but also the Florida Supreme Court.

Two cases that basically paved the way for requiring unanimous decision to Ring v Arizona and then Hurst v Florida.

Both of those went to the US Supreme Court.

Supreme Court basically point to the Sixth Amendment and said, you cannot put this in the hands of a judge.

It goes to the jury because that is who your jury of your peers is deciding.

Now, the Florida Supreme Court has backtracked a little bit on this and said, well, we might have gotten some of this wrong and kind of cleared the way for this.

I would imagine anything that gets filed will get challenged in the Florida Supreme Court, which is obviously much more friendly to the Republicans because it's been remade.

But then to the U.S. Supreme Court and it's hard to say how that court will break, because even though it has been remade somewhat in the last four or five years, does it backtrack on two cases that both pretty much say under the Sixth Amendment?

It is the jury.

>>Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what the legislature does in the end.

Of course, there are many races and ballot amendments that we don't have time to talk about here on the program.

But you can find a link to the Orlando Sentinels excellent write up of all the statewide and local contests at our website wucf.org/newsnight So let's talk about some of the key races and issues on the ballot in central Florida.

I want to start with the penny sales tax in Orange County that Mayor Jerry Demings has been pushing for to pay for transit infrastructure.

Here's Mayor Demings earlier this year talking to NewsNight about why he thinks it's a good idea.

>>There's no question that in order for us to fix the challenges that we have with our current transportation system, it's going to cost billions of dollars in order to do that.

And we really only have one good option here.

And it's an option that is environmentally friendly.

It will create jobs and it will improve the transportation network that we have here in the area.

>>Mayor Demings there.

Scott, Jerry Demings says there's only one option when it comes to raising money for transit improvements.

Not entirely clear that that's the case, though.

>>No, it is not.

The state races has for billions of dollars in hotel taxes.

And there's a strong argument to be made that under existing law, some of that money could already be spent, especially if it was spent in the tourism area for things like busses where we were hotel housekeepers sometimes spend 3 hours a day having to take bus rides because there aren't direct routes.

And even if they didn't do that, local legislators could work with local officials to change the law to allow it to be spent.

Other communities have done that.

We have not done that here in Orange County.

So the mayor is a largely because the tourism industry doesn't want to the mayor is saying the sales tax is the only option.

That's going to be interesting to see how that breaks during this economy.

>>Yeah.

And your former colleague Jason Garcia has done quite a lot of a lot of writing on that issue.

Talia, what would an additional penny on the sales tax mean for Orange County residents for the calculations?

>>Yeah.

So it's going to raise it from six and a half percent to about seven and a half percent.

So let's say, for example, your lunch is $5 and the tax on that's like $0.33 about the new tax would be, say like $0.38.

So it's going to go up a little bit, but you're only going to get taxed on the first.

I believe it's like $5,000 worth of products.

Now, I do want to mention, though, that this is something that voters are going to feel first before they actually see the results, so that you're going to feel the tax increase right away.

You're going to start seeing the money coming out of your pocket right away, but you're not going to see transportation issues get fixed right away.

So this might be one of those long game situations.

And with inflation hitting people's pockets so hard, this is one of those things that it's kind of up in the air.

Because you want me to pay more taxes for what in the immediate - what's going to happen tomorrow?

>>And that's always going to be the issue with big infrastructure projects for sure.

Chris, I want to switch to some of the down ballot races.

Florida's seventh Congressional District, this is areally interesting one to me, it has been redrawn.

It was Stephanie Murphy's seat, of course, is this likely to be a GOP pickup with the new boundaries I thought.

>>It was designed to do when they designed the new maps, when the governor handed them to the legislature to approve, it was basically drawn up to be a 20 to 8 split.

You might see one surprise, but it won't be in central Florida.

These districts were all drawn to basically say whoever emerges from the primary is going to be your member of Congress.

This has gone from being about a D2, D+2 D+3 seat when it was more of Orange County and Seminole under Stephanie Murphy to now it's Seminole in Volusia.

It's basically gone to like about an R+5 at this point.

So yeah, Cory Mills has the inside track over Karen Green an upset could happen, but the district was drawn to elect a Republican.

>>And of course, Cory Mills defeated State Representative Anthony Sabatini in his primary race.

Talia, what about on the state level?

Democrats and Republicans have been spending heavily in state house district 37.

This is Carlos Guillermo Smith's seat.

Republicans see an opportunity for a pickup there.

Could that happen?

>>I don't know.

It's kind of hard to say.

Now, that district that now covers part of Seminole County did vote for Joe Biden during the last presidential election, but it was pretty close.

So, you know, it's it's on the fence.

It could go his way.

It could not.

>>Yeah.

But those redrawn boundaries again, Scott in the Senate, what about district ten which has been a center that ghost candidates scandal that you guys at the Sentinel have been covering from the very beginning?

Jason Brodeur has been outraising his Democratic opponent quite a lot, but the Democrats seem to have a slight registration advantage.

You watching that one this time around?

>>I am watching that.

Yes.

The voter does have a lot of money.

The big the business interests really want him to stay in office.

If you had to look at like a buffet of political scandals, Jason Brodeur has basically had a bite from every one on the table.

I mean, there's been dark money.

There's that goes there's the ghost candidate.

His own vice president at the Seminole County Chamber of Commerce has already been convicted for his role in this thing.

So Republicans are spending big money trying to paint his opponent, Joy Goff-Marcil, who, by the way, she's a former Maitland counsel, woman and mother.

And she's pretty moderate in the grand scheme of things.

But they're they're trying to paint her is this radical socialist.

They're nervous Democrats have an advantage.

I thought Jason might be the one sort of Republican incumbent who might lose.

But if Rick Scott taught us anything, the power of money and advertising is immense and they are spending a boatload of it on that race.

So that one, I sort of viewed that race as the bellwether.

I think we're generally expecting this to be a red wave.

If Jason Brodeur hangs on to a seat that's going to be redder than some Democrats would like.

>>Really interesting midterms to watch.

Before we go, we wanted to let you know about a special hour-long edition of NewsNight next week.

Looking at the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, the emergency response, the human impact and the lessons learned going forward.

So be sure to tune in for that next Friday, November 4th at 8:30 p.m. here on WUCF.

Well, that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Scott Maxwell from the Orlando Sentinel.

Talia Blake 90.7 WMFE, Christopher Heath from WFTV, Channel 9.

Thank you guys for coming in.

Really appreciate it.

We'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

From all of us here at WUCF, take care and have a great week.