- This is a production of WEDU PBS.

Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Coming up now on WEDU, candidates make their final push before election day, this Tuesday.

Republicans are winning a key Democratic county in Florida.

Newly arrived voters in the state are leaning Republican and Florida taxpayers are billed a large amount of money to transport immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts.

All this and more next on Florida this Week.

(dramatic music) - Welcome back.

Joining us on our panel this week, Rick Kriseman is the former Mayor of St. Petersburg, a former State representative and a Democrat.

Deborah Tamargo is the Past President of the Florida Federation of Republican Women.

Darryl Paulson is the Emeritus Professor of Government and Politics at USF St. Petersburg.

And Peter Schorsch is the editor and publisher of Florida Politics.com.

So, nice to have you all here.

Great to see you.

Well, election day is Tuesday and already a large number of people have voted here in Florida.

The candidates are making their last minute pitches around the state.

This week, President Biden campaigned for Democrats in South Florida, making the case that he has helped the nation's economy.

- Folks, this ain't your father's Republican Party.

This is a different breed of cat.

10 million jobs created since I took office.

A record in any administration.

- Republican, US Senator Marco Rubio, who is running for reelection against Democratic Congress member Val Demings, attacked Biden on the economy and immigration.

- Crime outta control, immigration outta control, inflation outta control, and the world laughing at us.

And if these people remain in power the way they are now, they will destroy the country.

I'm in favor of legal immigration.

I'm against illegal immigration.

What I'm really against is mass migration, chaotic migration, that puts in danger the legal immigration system.

- When you combine returned mail-in ballots and early voting, Republicans have the advantage.

Roughly 1.7 million Republicans have already cast their ballots.

Just a little more than 1.4 million Democrats have cast theirs, and about 744,000 Independents have voted so far.

So Darryl, I wanna start with you.

It looks like the Republicans have the advantage this election in Florida.

Let's talk about the number one goal of Republicans.

If they win, what are they gonna do next in Tallahassee?

And what are they do if they take control of the House in Washington DC?

- Well, if Republicans win, let's start with Congress.

I mean, the Biden agenda is pretty much kaput.

Republicans are going to quash everything that he's instituted.

A lot of his inflation programs to stimulate the economy are gonna be out.

His abortion attempt to to codify that is gonna be out.

His attack on corporate taxes, to increase corporate taxes is gonna be out.

So pretty much everything he wants is gonna be dead on arrival.

The House would likely move to impeach Biden, I think before very long.

And that's just an unfortunate thing that happens now.

Almost every administration where the party outta power moves to impeach the President in power.

And obviously, there will be attacks on Biden's son as well, and investigations.

One of the big changes is gonna be oversight in Congress, which seldom happens unless you're the party now in control and the opposite party controls the White House.

Suddenly oversight becomes a big item.

So, you're gonna see a lot more of that checking into, on every expenditure in the federal government.

It's a little bit different when you're talking about the State of Florida because Republicans have controlled the State of Florida and its government for the past 30 years.

And so what do you do if you increase your control from, you know, 60% control to 70% control?

You may have super majorities, but there's not many changes you can institutionalize.

So I think it's gonna be more of the same.

It concerns me that that probably means more restrictions on voting in the State of Florida.

I hate that.

I think Florida's taken the wrong course in that respect.

I think the Republican Party, which is the party of Lincoln, is becoming the party of Stinkin' because all of these restrictions on voting rights and especially as it affects black voters, is just counterproductive.

You know, if you can't convince people to vote for you because you've got the best programs, don't try to steal the election.

So, I think they're moving in the wrong direction.

So I do think it'll be more of what they're already doing.

More symbolic politics like the woke programs that the government has pushed, that have been very popular with his base.

- Deborah, I want to ask you about what you think of what Darryl just said, but also, the big issues this election seem to be the economy and inflation?

- Right.

- So what could Republicans do with more control in Tallahassee, more control in Washington DC?

- Well, unfortunately we'll have limited control of Washington DC, because the president can invalidate anything that's passed out of the House and the Senate, assuming that we take both.

I think, you know, one thing that we have to look at, whether it's a federal government or the state government, is we now have 5 million illegal immigrants in our country.

And they require healthcare, education, there's a cost of justice and so forth.

So the costs are gonna be extraordinary on all of our budgets.

- But the immigrants don't get free healthcare?

- Well, they do.

They can go to the emergency room, which they do.

So they get a lot of free healthcare, in addition to the fact that even the policies as we have them today under Joe Biden, they're getting hotel rooms and apartments and phones and Xboxes and so many other benefits that your average person is not getting.

Our homeless veterans, our homeless population, our elderly that have worked all their lives and they could use, you know, a better hand up.

The inflation.

You know, fortunately we live in Florida, we can do without heat during the winter.

But look at the people up north.

They, they're not gonna be able to afford their heat.

Famine, worldwide famine because why?

Because of the policies of Joe Biden have trickled around the country.

When he closed our Keystone Pipeline and opened the Russian Nord Stream, he gave the advantage to Russia.

He filled their coffers with money and now we're in a worldwide situation, famine, inflation and wars.

(hands drop on desk) - Rick, what do you think that the Republicans, that could do about inflation?

Inflation is a worldwide problem.

It's not just a problem in the US.

Can Republicans do anything in Tallahassee or in Washington to reduce inflation?

- Well, that's always the challenge.

When, it's easy to point the finger when you're not in power, but once you become in power, then you have to govern.

And so that's gonna be the fun part to watch.

If in fact, you know, what everybody thinks is gonna happen does in fact happen and Republicans take over the House and the Senate, and in Washington, now you've gotta govern.

Now you have to put some policies in place and you have to deal, as you said, with what's happening around the world and the impact that has on our economy, because everything is interrelated, you know, today versus the way it used to be years ago.

In Tallahassee, it's, to me, it's really gonna be fun to watch.

'Cause I served in the, when I served in Tallahassee, I was in the super minority.

And so I know what it's like to be a Democrat when you can't even make procedural objections.

But what I'm gonna be interested to see is, you know, for the last year, and of course it's an election year, so it's, should come as no surprise that we'd see a lot of the cultural issues, and not doing anything about insurance, not doing anything about affordable housing, not doing anything about crime.

Well, now if you have the super majority, you've got nowhere to run.

And as Darryl was saying, you know, the Republican Party has been in charge of the state for more than 30 years.

And so, you know, I think that was a big miss for Democrats, not to be calling that out at every level on the state, and every state election.

You guys have been in charge.

So if you don't like the way the state is, whether it's education or whatever the policy is, you gotta look in the mirror because it isn't the Democrats in Florida that have put these policies in place.

So it's gonna be interesting to see.

- One party in control for a long time.

- Yep.

- Peter, do you see any optimism for Democrats?

Is there any reason for Democrats to be optimistic on Tuesday about anything going on in any election around the state?

- I think there is a little sliver of optimism.

If you look historically, a president in their first term, that loses to the minority party in the last 30 years, we're talking about 1994, and we're talking about 2010.

Both of those elections were bloodbaths for Democrats.

I mean, they just turned over the entire state of government.

But then if you look two years later, you think about Clinton's reelection in '96, Barack Obama's reelection in 2012.

Republicans tend to get ahead of themselves, they're gonna try to impeach the president, they're gonna have Marjorie Taylor Greene out there, and Matt Gaetz with the gavel.

And I think that that's gonna scare a lot of Americans.

And so Joe Biden's best chance for reelection, is if Kevin McCarthy gets a hold of that speaker's gavel on Tuesday, or in January.

- Marjorie Taylor Greene was in town just a few days ago, campaigning for the Republican candidate in Pinellas County.

- Yes, Anna Paulina Luna, an ultra MAGA candidate.

You know, this was something I was gonna save for later, but I will say, I think that that's the best bet for an upset.

That's my five star lock of the week.

My betting advice on FanDuel.

The turnout in Pinellas has held pretty good for Democrats, and she's not holding Republican voters.

She's only getting about 75 to 80% of Republican voters.

So even with a Republican turnout advantage in that district, I still think Eric Lynn has a really good fighting chance there.

- I hope you have another story of the week besides that one.

(panelists laughing) I'm sorry to jump the gun there.

Well, in the sign of trouble for Democrats in Florida, ahead of election day, the number of registered Republicans voting in Miami-Dade County surpassed Democrats.

- Miami-Dade is the most populated in the state with more than 1.5 million registered voters.

And for a generation it has been a Democratic stronghold along with highly-populated Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The three South Florida counties are key to any statewide victory for Democrats.

According to Fresh Take Florida, registered Democrats still outnumbered Republicans in Miami-Dade.

But the latest figures indicate that Democrats, at least so far, are voting in far fewer numbers in the county than their GOP counterparts.

- And Peter, what's the latest on that?

And am I right?

I mean, if without those three counties, Democrats cannot win, statewide, if they don't win big in those three counties down there?

- They haven't been winning big before that.

And now, just keep in mind that Hillary Clinton took Miami-Dade by some 29 points, and that was just a few years ago.

And so, like Tuesday, Wednesday, when we were watching the votes come in, in real time, I mean the siren alarms were going off.

A lot of it has to do with the radicalization of the Republican politics down there.

A lot of it has to do with the influx of different, you know, diaspora communities from Venezuela, Cuba.

The misinformation on the Spanish radio stations is fueling all of it.

Here's what gets even worse for Democrats.

Evidently there's some storm brewing off the Atlantic coast right now, and they haven't turned out yet.

Imagine if Tuesday comes, and it's a deluge in South Florida, and that keeps the Democrats from turning out their voters on election day.

- Deborah, why do you think that Miami-Dade seems to be turning Republican?

- Well, many of the Latinos that came from, you know, South American, Central American countries, the islands, they come, they are looking for democracy because they've been under tyranny, dictatorship, socialism.

And they think the Democratic Party will give them that democracy.

And then they learn that really the Democratic Party has turned into more of a socialist party, and they are more inclined to go with a party that talks about faith and family and freedom and futures.

And, you know, mostly hardworking people and they recognize the benefit of work, and then they see that they have come legally, and now we have the open borders and those people are getting more benefits and so forth.

So I think it's just a natural transition, as they learn about our constitution, our constitutional republic, and what that offers them.

It's just a natural transition to the Republican Party who is the party of the working person and small business and faith, family and certainly freedom.

- So there were signs that the transition was occurring in 2020.

For example, you had two Democratic seats down there that flipped Republican and one of those was Donna Shalala, the former Secretary of what?

- Health and Human Services?

- Yeah, Health and Human Services.

That was considered to be a safe seat.

And yet they lost those two seats in the heart of one of the most Democratic areas in the state of Florida.

So, I mean, you had certain signs and yeah, the Republicans have campaigned heavily, and many Latinos will say the Democrats come around once a year at election time, and then they don't see 'em again.

And that's a big complaint.

I mean, if you're gonna try and win over a particular group, whether it's Hispanics or Blacks, or whatever group it may be, you have to have constant vigilance on sending your message to that group over and over again.

A Democratic Congressional candidate who's running this time called Christine Olivo said, "We're getting our butts kicked."

And this is a Democrat saying that in the heart of a very Democratic area in the State of Florida.

So DeSantis has a chance of becoming the first Republican governor to win Miami-Dade since Jeb Bush did it in 2002.

So that would be just like lightning strikes in political terms.

- Rick, what about the points that Deborah made that is that it's faith and family that appeal to Latinos and also that some Latinos move here and think that the Democrats are the socialists, the kind that they were fleeing from places like Cuba and other countries and they don't want them.

Rick, what do you say?

- Well, I think the Democrats have failed at messaging and in communications.

I mean, it's something historically, as a party we've done poorly, and Republicans have done very well.

You know, and that's everything, you know.

Whether it's misinformation or it's good information, we're not doing either well.

And I agree with Darryl, you cannot just come in once a year, or once there's a campaign, and reach out and touch the voters in these communities.

You have to, it has to be constant.

And you've gotta be letting them know what you are doing to try and help them.

And you gotta be very clear about it.

And it's, again, we've not done a good job about of that, not just in South Florida, but across the entire State of Florida I think.

- And that leads us to our next topic.

Since the start of the Covid epidemic, two and a half years ago, almost 400,000 active voters have moved to Florida from other states.

- As Florida Politics reports, newly released numbers show that among the transplants, Republicans outnumbered Democrats two to one.

29% are Independents.

The transplants have helped the Republican Party overtake the Democrats as the majority party in the state.

This new group makes up about 3% of all statewide voters.

Governor DeSantis has been urging people from other states to move here if they like his policies against mask and vaccine mandates.

Overall, about a thousand people move to Florida every day, a migration pattern that was true even before DeSantis took office.

- So Deborah, why do you think so many newcomers are signing up as Republicans?

Why do you, why does your party have the advantage?

- Well, I kind of know that from talking to some of these new Republicans.

I spent the last few days calling newly resident voters, and I ask them, "Why Florida?"

And some of them did try other states before they made the transition.

They were all, you know, basically working families and had the ability because of the pandemic to relocate.

And some of them just burst out in glee and said, "Ron DeSantis."

One lady told me that her son who's she's going to visit in California, one of his friends said, "Why did your mother move to Florida?

Is it 'cause your sister's there?

Why didn't she move here?

Does she not like you?"

And she says, he said, "No, it wasn't my sister, it was Ron DeSantis."

So people came because they like the freedom, they like the communication, they like the message, they like what's happening in education and parental rights, and they like that we are not infested with crime.

With most of 'em the reason that they told me was crime in the cities that they left.

Inflation.

Certainly we have the inflation here because that's really a federal issue, not a state issue.

So it was jobs, it was family, it was freedom.

And quite frankly, some of 'em were so gleeful.

I was like, "Gosh, they think this is Disney World for adults here in Florida."

- Peter, this idea, the governor's running on this idea of freedom, yet there's a whole host of controversies regarding freedom that he's carrying with him.

The, whether or not black history can be taught completely in the Florida schools.

What happens if you're a GLBTQ parent, or you have, you're a student who's GLBTQ?

There's some restrictions.

What do you think about this idea that Ron DeSantis represents freedom?

- I think it's so incredibly bizarre to move your family because of any politician.

I don't care if Barack Obama was the Mayor of St. Petersburg.

I don't care if Ronald Reagan was the Governor of Illinois.

The idea that that's your response, as opposed to other things, is such an indication of a cult, that it's kind of frightening in a lot of ways.

A shout out to our Renzo Downey who did that report.

We got some data from a company called L2 and he really drilled down on it.

I think one thing that's important to note about that.

If the United States Senate remains Democratic, thank Ron DeSantis for dragging about 400,000 Democrat, or Republican voters from battleground states, another 600,000 from like non-competitive states.

But he's literally drained 25 to 30,000 Republican voters out of Georgia.

Those people would've been voting for Herschel Walker on Tuesday.

Now they're gonna be voting for Marco Rubio.

- Mm, well what does it cost to house, feed and fly people from Texas to Massachusetts?

- The Tampa Bay Times Miami Herald reports that Florida taxpayers paid the hefty cost of $32,000 per person to fly, feed and house a group of 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha's Vineyard in September.

Total cost to Florida taxpayers, $1.56 million.

The state legislature established a $12 million fund this year to deal with illegal immigrants living in Florida.

In this case, the migrants were not from Florida.

They were recruited in Texas, flown to Florida for a 30 minute stop in the Panhandle.

And then on to Massachusetts.

Governor DeSantis has defended the flight, his detractors have denounced it as a political stunt designed to boost his national profile in advance of an expected run for president.

He has said the flight puts a spotlight on a border crisis that he claims has been ignored by President Joe Biden and has a direct impact on Florida.

- Rick, did Florida taxpayers get their money's worth?

$32,000?

- Yeah, I mean, no.

If these people had been in the State of Florida, had illegally immigrated to Florida and they were picked up in Florida and transported out of Florida, at least you could have made the argument.

But they weren't.

They were in Texas.

And they came across the border into Texas.

They didn't come across a border into Florida.

You could argue, "Well, they eventually would've found their way to Florida," maybe.

And maybe that's the argument they're making.

But you could equally argue, "Well, they eventually would've made their way to California or to Alaska or to Europe."

Who knows?

But they weren't here.

But yet it's our taxpayer dollars that are paying for them to leave the State of Texas to go to Martha's Vineyard.

- Could the case be made that the governor violated Florida law?

The intent of the legislature in passing the money?

- I think it could be made and I think it will probably be made.

- Darryl, what do you think?

- Well, they did fly to Florida for a half an hour apparently.

So that was their stopover.

- Layover.

- Yeah.

So that was enough to convince the governor he was doing the right thing.

- Ah Peter, the governor got national headlines for this and he wants to use it as a way to propel himself to run for president.

On Friday we got the word that President Trump will announce likely his run for the presidency sometime in November.

- Yeah.

- Sometime at the end of this month.

- Circle November 14th on your calendar.

That seems to be the date that's making its way through the media.

I talked to Trump world today.

They're focused on the rallies over the next four or five days.

They really think that if the candidates that Trump has backed throughout these primaries, Dr. Oz, et cetera, he's gonna have a lot to say come Wednesday, and going into that.

There's been a little bit of pushback on whether or not Ron DeSantis will actually go up against him.

There was a Vanity Fair article quoting some unnamed sources saying maybe he's having second thoughts.

I doubt he's having second thoughts, but it's interesting fodder for shows like this.

- Okay, well before we go, what other news stories should we be paying attention to?

Rick, let's start with you.

Your other big story of the week?

- Yeah, so for the voters in St. Petersburg, you have a charter amendment, Amendment One, and I'm just gonna encourage everyone to vote no on that.

The impact that'll have on our elections in the city of St. Petersburg.

The cost, and they talk about the cost savings for running that election, that they will, that the city will incur.

But for all the candidates, it will become considerably more expensive.

It'll become considerably more partisan.

And you know, that's the beauty of local government.

It's not supposed to be.

And if we can do something to lessen that, that's a good thing.

- This would change the date of the election- - This would change the date of the election- - to coincide with the November elections?

- Yes.

And local elections will get lost, you know, and they're too important.

I mean, let's be honest, that's where real change happens.

That's where we really lift people up.

That's where we're able to bring businesses into our state.

It's on the local level.

That's where it's happening.

- All right.

Deborah, your other big story?

- Well, as we all know, Biden was in Florida, lying again.

Those of us of my age and older, we understand that every time the Democrats are in a tough race, they pull out the social security.

There is not a Republican candidate that has said they would take away your social security.

So he came in with the typical desperation lie.

Don't buy it, young people.

Talk to the older people.

We've been there every election cycle that's tough, and- - But Rick Scott's plan is to sunset all government programs every five years, including social security.

- Well, his plan is to revive these programs and let the ones that are failing go and re-institute things like work requirement into welfare, which we do not have right now.

It was removed by the Biden administration.

And you know, and then my other is don't retaliate.

We ladies in the suburban areas, we've been called by Hillary Clinton deplorables.

Now we're roaches.

Well, even the professor said, we stink.

So, don't retaliate.

Take your feet to the polls and vote Republican.

- Darryl, you wanna answer that?

Your other big story?

- Oh yeah.

Well, stinkin' comes from a longtime Republican who was a Republican until 2015 when Donald Trump became the Republican standard bearer.

So I got out of the party before the disaster occurred.

But my story has to do with the Crist DeSantis election and why Charlie is doing so poorly.

Here's a candidate who's been around for 30 years in the Pinellas County area and throughout the State of Florida.

He's held two cabinet positions.

The problem is, very quickly, he's running against an incumbent.

And the incumbent always has advantages.

DeSantis has raised an enormous amount of money, over $200 million more than any other candidate in gubernatorial history, in any state.

So he still has a hundred million dollars in his bank account, so he's already spent a hundred million, but how much can you spend in a campaign?

Third, the hurricane really worked to his benefit.

It allowed him to show his leadership skills.

And most people think he did a pretty good job, including Joe Biden, who congratulated DeSantis for doing a good job, which is like pounding the nail in the coffin for him.

And finally, you know, we've had the transition of people in Florida, 500,000 more Republicans than just a few years ago, and Democratic registration is down by about 13,000.

So that's half a million more Republican voters.

- Rob?

- Two things real quick.

Big prediction, you know, I like to make 'em.

GOP turnout model will be plus 10.

It was 2.1 in, four years ago.

A massive number.

Biggest winner, other than Ron DeSantis come Tuesday will be Vern Buchanan.

Look for him to win the race, to become Ways and Means Chairman in Washington DC and be probably the most powerful Florida politician not named Ron DeSantis.

- Yeah, since Sam Gibbons, I guess.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Hey, thank you all for a great show.

And thank you for watching.

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