>>This week on NewsNight as delegates gather for the DNC in Chicago, Florida Democrat place a focus on Amendment Four.

A look at what the abortion issue might mean for the prospects of both parties in November.

Plus, this week's primary elections in Florida.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello.

I'm Steve Mort.

Welcome to NewsNight, where we take a deep dive into the stories and issue that matter to central Florida and how they shap our community.

First tonight, the Democrati National Convention and what the gathering in Chicago tells us about the November election in Florida.

As the party celebrated their nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, Florida State Party Chair Nikk Fried told delegates this week that the ballot measure on abortion marked, quote, an inflection point and would make Democrats competitive again in Florida.

More on that later in the program.

But according to many commentators this week, the DNC's official seating chart, perhaps best illustrated Florida's waning influence in Democratic politics, with delegates seated way at the back of the convention hall.

Nevertheless the polls appear to be narrowing in the presidential race in Florida.

A poll from Florida Atlantic University shows just a three point gap between Trump and Harris compared to a seven poin lead for Trump in the UNF poll at the end of July.

Well, I sat down this week with political scientist Aubrey Jewett.

We talked about the primary results from Tuesday.

But we started by discussing Vice President Harris' chances in Florida in November.

>>I think the polls are accurate.

Of course, we won't know for sure until we actually have an electio and see how close it really is.

But according to most polls ever since Joe Biden stepped down, Democratic enthusias has just gone through the roof.

And that includes Florida Democrats.

When we get some more dat points, another election or two, another presidential election or two, we'll we'll know better because mayb we are really a red state now, but we really don't know for sure until we actually get those election results.

I think that from the national Democratic perspective, they know Florida is such a big state that if you really want to be competitive in terms of money and spending ads, I mean, you have to spen hundreds of millions of dollars.

And every dollar that spent in Florida is a dollar that's not spent in a state that they think is more competitive or more winnable.

>>Let's pivot a little bit to the primary elections that we saw this week.

We now have the U.S. Senate rac that it's going to be incumbent Rick Scott, of course against Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for the Democrats who won her primary.

What do you think about that race?

Is it going to be close?

We've shown a couple of se seen a couple of polls of late showing about a four point gap between between the two.

Rick Scot is no stranger to close races.

Right.

Do you think he's likely to pull that out?

>>Yeah, I would say that Rick Scott is still the favorite in that race.

He's the incumbent.

He has a history of winning close races.

He has several hundred million dollars of personal funds that he's shown in the past that he's willing to spend quite a bit of it if he needs to, to win.

So.

And of course, with the Republican registration advantage as well.

So for a variety of reasons Rick Scott still the favorite.

But for an incumbent, he's not particularly popular.

His popularity rating in Florida aren't real strong.

And we have seen some polling numbers that suggest Mucarsel-Powell is within striking distance, maybe at the very edges of the margin of error of those polls.

So I do think tha that potentially is a close race in some ways.

I think that might be a closer race than even the presidential race in Florida.

Governor DeSantis himsel was not on the ballot this week, but some of his policies were, particularly education.

He put endorsements in again for school board candidates throughout the state, three of them in central Florida.

One of his endorsements won in Brevard County.

Two others are going to go to a runoff.

And I wonder whether we can say how successful the governor has been in tryin to flip these school districts and whether or not people are buying what the Republicans are selling when it comes to education.

>>Well, I think we can compar his record for this electio to two years ago and two years ag he was really successful.

He did about 30 endorsements and about 25 of them won.

So that's a that's a great record.

This time around.

He made 23 endorsements.

And as of today, 11 people have already lost and some others are going to runoffs.

I think it shows that Governor DeSantis powers in endorsement may have peaked and they're not as strong as they were.

And particularly when you get into districts that are not ruby red.

Right.

It's one thing he made a lot of endorsements four years ago in very Republican counties.

And so then it was just a matter of swaying which Republican you know, you're going to go for.

Now you're looking at some districts that are more evenly divided.

And I think that there' a lot of people who are voting in these local elections that are a little more suspect of his motives and of the Moms for Liberty and that sort of thing.

>>You can find my full interview with Aubrey Jewet on our website, wucf.org/newsnigh along the bottom of your screen.

But let's bring in our pane now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Cheryn Stone from Central Florida Public Media, host of the Engage program over there.

Thanks so much for coming in, Cheryn.

>>Thanks for having me.

>>Appreciate your time.

Skyle Swisher writes about politics, among other things, for the Orlando Sentinel.

Good to see you, Skylar.

Thanks for having me.

>>And Alexa Lorenzo, morning host at WFTV, Channel 9.

Thanks for comin back to the program as always.

Alexa, thanks for being here, guys.

Skyle let me start with you on this.

We'll talk about the primaries in a moment, but I just wanted to get a lay of the political land, if you like, in Florida post DNC.

Do Democrats do you think appear to be making inroads in Florida now, especially if they can get a post-convention bounce or the sort of recent history suggests that winning is going to be tricky for them here?

What do you think?

>>Yeah, I mean, they'r definitely feeling a lot better.

And if you look at some o the polling, it is tightening.

One poll showe a five percentage point lead that Trump has.

Another showed a three percentage point lead.

But that's better than what the polling has been showing in the past.

When Biden was the nominee.

So there's certainly a lot of enthusiasm.

But as you mentioned, if you look at the trends last election, 2020, Florida kind of parted from the rest of the nation and Trump actually saw gains here.

>>Yeah.

Yes.

As I mentioned that UNF poll in my intro, where Trump had a seven point lead just towards the end of July.

Cheryn, I mean, how are Democrats saying that they're harnessing that energy that they think Kamala Harris is giving them in this state?

>>Yeah, I think the energy is real and is evident in the polls closing.

But how do you harness it?

How do you sustain it?

One thing that they're doin and this was specifically billed as a way to take that energy and translate it into voters is they're doing this weekend of action.

It was leading up to the DNC and it was like more than 40 events around the state of Florida.

And it was just to get people involved and they hit areas you may not necessarily think about.

They did a golf cart parade in the Villages, which we know tends to be conservative and just harnessing that excitement and seeing if they can translate it to voters.

And it all leads up to Thursday night with Kamala Harris taking the stage and they have some official watch parties, they being the campaign, the official Harris campaign in Florida.

And I was reading about it.

There's four of them.

And one of them actually is in the Orlando region.

>>And they're using volunteers, of course, and trying to harness energy is a lot cheaper than trying to bu expensive television time in a in a state like Florida, of course.

I mean, what are we seeing in other Sun Belt states?

How does how does Florida compare to, say, North Carolina, for example, when it comes to that sort of momentum shift?

>>Some of the polling show that it's neck and neck between Trump and Harri right now.

Harris is slightly ahea in North Carolina and Arizona, with Trump having the edg in Georgia and Nevada.

And this is a big shift from what we saw when President Joe Biden was the candidate in May.

He was up ten points in these states.

So we're seeing that shift no with it being so neck and neck and right now, polling is showing that what has Harris ahead in some of these states are minority groups.

She's leading with black voters in Georgia and North Carolina by a large margin.

She's leading with a narrow edge with Hispanic voter as well in Arizona and Nevada.

So it's going to come down to very, very close margins in these Sun Belt states.

>>Certainly, we expect Georgia to be a key swing state this time, much in the way that Florida used to be, of course, back in the day.

How has the GOP responded, Skyler, to this recent polling in Florida?

And does the response from the Florida party kind of line up with what you're hearin from Republicans in the state?

>>Yeah.

So in response to these polls, the GO chairman in Florida, Evan Power, sent out an email essentially saying that he he found this to be extremely alarming.

Of course, I mean, this is a fundraising email, so they're trying to get people to open their wallets, are not going to send out and say, hey, we got this you know, don't worry about it.

But when you talk to Republicans, I think they feel pretty good.

I mean, you know, DeSanti won by 20 points in the midterm elections, which also part it from the trend nationally.

The Republicans have a million voter advantage in terms of active voters.

Now, the Democrats say that number slightly advanced, skewed and exaggerated.

But when you look at the 2020 elections, Democrats actually led in voter registration.

So I think the Republicans are feeling pretty good when it comes to Florid and the presidential election.

>>Well, as we go into November, we have lots of information on the candidates and issues as part of our voter guide.

You can find that at wucf.org/vote.

Well, let's switch gears and talk about the primaries here in Florida.

And Skyler let me start with the US Senate race.

Senator Scott and the Democrats, a former member of Congress, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell both won their primaries quite easily.

What do we know about the two - how the two sides view their chances now in November?

And how is that race set up?

>>Well, I think, Senator Scott, you know, the Republicans feel pretty good because he is the incumbent.

And when you're the incumbent, that's a huge advantage.

However, with that said, I think Democrats think there's an opportunity there.

And what they're really pointing to is some of the polling in terms of Senator Scott's favorability ratings.

His favorability rating in this poll was about 35%, and nearly half said they had an unfavorable view of Senator Rick Scott.

So I think the Democrats think there's an opportunity there to maybe to unseat him.

However, I think in Florida, it's going to be a definite challenge.

>>Pretty much mirroring what Aubrey Jewett was was saying there at the top of the program.

There weren't many surprises when it came to incumbent members of Congress.

But one particular congressional race that could be interesting in November is Congressional District nine in Osceola County.

We know that Republican Thomas Chalifoux will take o the Democrat there, Darren Soto.

What are Republican saying about their chances in CD 9 when it comes to two November?

Do they do they see that as a key potential pickup?

>>I feel like I'm abou to repeat what Skyler just said.

We're optimistic, bu you always have to be cautious.

So, yes, they are optimistic about unseating the incumbent and they are touting the experience of Chalifoux, he's an Army veteran, former Osceola school board member.

Campaign.

He talked about being a businessman, not a career politician.

That said, he has also in his campaign very much tied himself to a America First agenda and a Trump supporter District nine.

Just the facts is it includes parts of Orange, Osceola, Polk County.

We're talking cities like Kissimmee, Saint Cloud, Hunters Creek.

In recent presidential elections, they went blue.

Joe Biden won it over Trump and Hillary Clinton won it over Trump prior to that.

So there are more Democrats there.

So I don't know how realistic it is despite the optimism.

>>I mean, Cheryn's right.

Alexa, but we have seen a push by Republicans, right.

In recent cycles to win over that Puerto Rican vote, which is a big part of the constituency in Osceola in recent years.

>>Absolutely.

Across the state, there's 1.1 million Puerto Rican voters who have a chance to really sway things.

And we can go on and on.

We've done several stories about the Latino vote is not a monolith.

Politics on the island in Puert Rico are not what they are here.

So it's a different dynamic when people move here to understand who they're voting for, what they're voting for, and how the process works.

Historically, when they moved, they leaned Democrat.

So we have seen recentl the Republicans make that push with the Puerto Ricans.

They know what they can d if they get them on their side, pushing issues like the economy, pushing issue like the openness to statehood.

We saw Governor Ron DeSantis' most recent election when he ran for reelection.

He grew with Puerto Rican voters.

>>Yes.

>>Marc Rubio had no issue with Puerto Rican voters, 54% of them supported him in 2022.

So we continue to see them leaning red.

>>An that push has been taking place, particularly since Hurricane Maria and our Puerto Rica population-- >>300,000 people.

>>Grew so significantly.

That's just stay in Ocala a moment if we can Cheryn.

The county's first Hispanic sheriff faced a very tough battle with fellow Democrats on the right to run in November, he did prevail, but remind us of the difficulties that faced Marcos R. Lopez.

>>There have been some significant serious ones there, many controversies.

Frankly, Osceola grand jury that didn't end up pressing charges.

I think your viewers might remember this case, the death of Jayden Byers.

He was behind the wheel in a Target parking lot and police or deputies were responding to a shoplifting call.

They surrounded him in unmarked vehicles and shot and killed him.

The grand jury was very critical of the department, saying that should not happen and that was due to a lack of training there.

So that was somethin that happened under his watch.

Another recent one is the Sheriff Lopez was accused of posting a picture on social media and it was shortly afte they found the body of Madeline Soto, the 13 year old who was murdered.

Sheriff said it was an investigative photo that had been accidentally posted on his account.

That happened hour after her body was discovered.

And then after that, the state attorney even raised questions about some inconsistent statements the sheriff made about the posting in the months that followed.

There have been some significant controversies there.

>>Let's turn to a story that you've been covering, Skyler, and that is the state attorney's race in Orange and Osceola Set Hyman won the Republican primary race there.

There's an interesting dynamic here, right, because he'll take on not only the Democrat, Monique Worrell, who was suspended by Governor DeSantis, but also the governor's hand-picked choice for that job, Andrew Bain.

I wonder where Hyman stands on Worrell's suspension in the first place and why challenge Bain who's running I think is an independent.

>>Right.

So in terms of the suspension of Monique Worrell, he said, you know, 100% supports the governor's decision and he's been extremely critical of Monique Worrell.

He says he'll be a traditional prosecutor who's going to work with law enforcement in terms of why he's running.

You know, I've asked him that.

He said he was you know, he was in the race before.

Monique Worrell was suspended.

So, you know, he declared his candidacy.

But, you know, before that happened, in terms of Andrew Bain, he's been at least my observation, he's much, I guess, more reluctant to criticize Andrew Bain.

I did ask him last night, actually, you know, what sets him apart from Andrew Bain in his eyes.

And he said that there had been some kind of community based programs that the state attorney's office has done, for instance, a literacy program.

And he his view i that they should just be focused on prosecuting crimes.

So that was like at least one distinction that he drew between himself and Andrew Bain when I spoke with him.

>>I want to talk about a couple of supervisor of elections, because these these these were important races.

The Republican supervisor of elections in Seminole County, Chris Anderson, lost.

That was after a contentious clash with his fellow Republican, Amy Pennock.

Describe the legal fight there, Alexa, just in very recent days.

>>Yeah, a lawsuit was filed by a supporter of Amy Pennock who ended up winning, and they claimed that the current supervisor there violated state law by improperly, they're accusing him of soliciting voters during the early voting sessions, using signage improperly in voting booths on some of the writing utensils there.

So this was very contentious to start.

We saw several objections, lot of arguments from attorneys.

But ultimatel it came down to a judge saying there wasn't enough evidenc to prove that Anderson violated any laws that happened the day before the primaries.

So that was over and done with in terms of he didn't violate any laws, but this, without a doubt shook up his view or voter view on who he is as a person, a political figure, his character, and then, of course, injecte more controversy and disruption for voters.

>>Very contentious race.

Skyler you wrote about the supervisor of elections race in Lake County.

There was also watch closely, the incumbent there beat a challenge from somebody who said that he didn't think that Donald Trump lost the election, election denier if you like, what happened and does it mirror defeats for other election deniers that we've seen in other races elsewhere in the country?

>>Yeah, I mean, this was an interesting race because Alan Hayes has been very outspoken in terms of defending the election system.

Had a challenger by a guy named Tom Vail who actually campaigned on a platform of making it harder to vote.

He wanted to do away with early voting.

Essentially, he just wante people to vote on Election Day.

Well, Alan Hayes wo by a pretty substantial margin, and he told me that he thinks that this just shows that people do have confidence.

You know, and the job that he's don in the election workers there.

And it kind of mirrors what we saw across the state.

I mean, there were about a half dozen election supervisors who had a primary challengers who were election deniers, an none of those election deniers emerged victorious.

And it also kind of follows somewhat of a trend that we sa nationally in the 2022 election.

So it does appear, at least for now, that a lot of these election denier are not succeeding with voters.

>>There are obviously many races we couldn't get to here, including some nail biters and races that will go to runoffs in Orange County, we'll put up links to our colleagues' full summaries of the results of Tuesday's primaries on our website.

wucf.org/newsnight.

All right, next tonight, Amendment Four is set to appear on the ballot in November in Florida.

It aims to add protections for access to abortion, to the state constitution.

This week, the Florida Suprem Court ruled against the sponsors of the amendment, including Floridians Protecting Freedom and the ACLU advocates that wanted to strike a state panel's financial impact statement attached to the amendment, claiming it was designe to encourage voters to reject it by including the potential cost to the state of hypothetical lawsuits.

Here's the ACLU's Keisha Mulfort.

>>They are lookin at the financial impact on litigation on, I believe like Medicaid and things that are not appropriate for what their position is.

So we are to look at potential local impacts, not whether or not litigation will commence years from now.

And that's what the state has done.

>>Meanwhile, some faith groups are joining the fight against Amendment four, urging their followers to vote No.

The Florid Conference of Catholic Bishops is backing Florida voters against extremism, also known as th No on Four Political Committee.

Leidy Rivas is with the Catholic Charities of Central Florida.

>>We have to really understan what the Lord the giver of life, the author of life, is sharin with us in this moment in time.

Our teaching tells us al human life is has is sacred.

It has dignit from the moment of conception, all the way til natural death to their last breath on this earth.

So we want to make sur that folks understand that and and understand what resources are available and specifically in this amendment and why why we're voting no against it.

So we're hoping that folks understand why it's so urgent in this moment in time.

>>All right, let's break this down, Skyler.

You've covered this story closely in your reporting for The Sentinel.

From your work, what is the extent of the spending and activism on this amendment from Catholic groups that we just heard from there?

>>Yes.

So in terms of financial support, when you look at the various dioceses, the Florid Conference of Catholic Bishops, they've given somewher last time I checked, about over $300,00 in direct financial support.

But they're also providing a lot of in-kind support.

You know, campaign consulting, they put together resources prayer cards for parishioners.

So they're definitely taking a very active stance on Amendment Four.

>>I mean are there any fissures, though, among Catholic groups on this or is it is a fairly unifying issue, do you think?

>>There's absolutely fissures, especially when you look at the church leadership and parishioners.

You know, Pew Researc shows about six in ten Catholics generally support abortion rights and only about one in ten Catholics support the position that abortio should be illegal in all cases.

There's also a group called Catholics for Choice.

That's very much advocating in favor of Amendment four and also taking the position that they don't feel like the Catholic Church should be getting involved financially with this issue.

>>I mean, is it legal for th Catholic Church to be involved?

Is there a tax exempt question here?

>>This is a very complicated issue.

So, yes, like religious organizations are not supposed to make direct endorsements of candidates.

So that's not really happening here in terms of political issues.

What the law says is they cannot engage in substantial lobbying.

However, they don't really define what substantial is.

And the IRS is very reluctan to get involved in these cases because, you know, churches can can argue that they have a First Amendment right to speak out on issues.

So I think the last time the IR even attempted to take action, according to an exper I interviewed, was in 1992.

So it's very it's very unlikely that the IRS would get involved and try to take action against the church on an issue like this.

>>Well, let's tal about the political realm here.

Of course, some very high profile Republican leaders in Florida politics are throwing their weight behind the no campaign, including Governor DeSantis.

Cheryn, Democrats in Florida hope that Amendment Four, as I mentioned earlier, will will drive their base to the polls.

But the subject is on the back burner on the ballot in several is on the ballot, I should say, in several states in November.

Right.

>>I kind of feel like I hav to put an asterisk by my answer because things litigated so much and there's so much changing.

But sitting here talking to you now.

Yes, there are about nine state that have or are trying and are clos to getting it on the ballot.

So voters will decid whether to have the right to abortion in place in those states, that there's some legal battles I was talking about.

It could go up to 11 states, but decisions actually just this week cleared the way for Arizona and Montan to put the right to an abortion on the ballot and put it to voters.

But I also like to point out, keep in mind that even prior to this, after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, there were seven states that already put the abortion question to voters.

California, Kentucky, Ohio, some of those states.

And one thing to not there is abortion supporters won each time there.

>>Well, let's put some some numbers on this.

A recent survey, Alexa, showed how many women get abortions and their political affiliations is a fascinating number.

What are those numbers revealing?

And could this be an insight into whether Democrats could us this issue to their advantage, do you think?

>>Yeah.

The nonprofit KFF looked into this and they di a very detailed research report.

We work with them often on these storie and the data that they pulled suggest that near equal shares of Democrats, Republican and even independent women have sought out abortions in the past.

The numbers are very close.

12% of Republican women, 14% of Democratic women and 15% of independent women.

And it went on to analyze that one in ten women who call themselves pro-lif women have received an abortion.

So for some, this was not a surprise.

For others it was a shock being so close.

They also found that in Florida, specifically, 72% of women of reproductive age believe abortion should be legal.

51% of Republican women agree.

So we could see Democrats use this data for their push.

But at this point, everyone's kind of analyzing different elements of this repor because it was so wide ranging.

>>And of course, we won't know for sure how this law will play out until people go to the polls in November >>This may not be how they vote.

>>Exactly So we'll wait and see on that.

Meanwhile, we always want to hear your thoughts on the news of the week.

Be sure to visit us on social media.

We're at WUC TV, on Facebook and Instagram, and you'll find us on X as well @NewsNightWUCF.

But that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Cheryn Stone, Central Florida Public Media, Skyler Swisher from the Orlando Sentinel, Alexa Lorenzo from WFTV Channel 9.

Thank you guys so much for coming in.

Really appreciate your time today.

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

In the meantime, from all of us here on NewsNight, take care and have a great week.