- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Narrator] Next on WEDU, the elections are coming.

In August, it's the primary.

And in November, it's the general.

Voters here and around the state will select a governor, a US Senator, members of the legislature, county commissions, and school boards.

Which party has the advantage when it comes to registration and turnout?

And what issues will motivate voters this year?

All coming up right now on WEDU.

(bright upbeat music) Welcome back.

Joining us on our panel this week.

Dr. Susan McManus, is the distinguished university professor Emerita of politics at USF Tampa.

William March, is an independent political correspondent.

And Matt Isbell is a political consultant, and election data analyst for mcimaps.com.

Well, Governor Ron DeSantis is proposing a redistricting map that makes major changes in the state's current congressional districts.

Creating four more Republican leaning seats, and eliminating at least two districts now held by black Democrats in North Florida and the Orlando area.

As the Tampa Bay Times reports, the map would create 20 Republican performing districts, and only eight Democratic leaning districts.

A lopsided advantage for Republicans in a state that almost has an even number of registered Republicans and Democrats.

In the Tampa Bay Area, the governor's map would also remove Democratic voters from the congressional seat now held by Democrat Charlie Crist, and packed them into the seat held by fellow Democrat, Kathy Castor.

Making Chris Pinellas district a likely Republican pickup.

The new map is expected to be quickly approved by the Republican controlled legislature next week, when it meets in a special session.

If approved the map is expected to be challenged though, in state and federal court with claims that violates the anti-political gerrymandering provisions of the Florida constitution, and the voting rights provisions in federal law.

Florida is one of just three states with congressional districts up in air right now.

The state could prove crucial to determining control of the US House of Representatives.

And Matt, let me start with you.

You're a Democrat, but what do you think of the governor's proposed congressional maps?

- So this is definitely a very conservative Republican gerrymander.

Most of the plans that were coming out of the legislature were aiming to have around say 16 Republican districts, 12 Democratic districts.

And that was kind of ebbing and flowing depending on the election you looked at.

But this DeSantis map, which goes 20 Trump districts, eight Biden districts.

Really aim to take chance to basically pack Democrats in Tampa, Orlando, crack Democrats in north Florida, especially with Al Lawson's African American district.

And it's just DeSantis is counting on a much more conservative courts to back him, and push through a very conservative map, basically a conservative dream map.

- And, Susan isn't that the key to this that the governor believes that the US Supreme Court for instance, is on his side.

- Right, and he's arguing using the 14th amendment to the US constitution that the states district, especially district five.

That is actually not a majority minority district is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment equal protection of the laws clause.

- [Rob] This is the Al Lawson seat.

- He's counting on that argument.

Yeah.

- In North Florida.

- And so what you see is the plan that the governor is putting forward protects two majority minority black districts, but does not protect two minority access districts.

The one in Orlando and the one in Jacksonville.

And, of course, Latino districts are also part of Voting Rights Act and so forth.

But they are majority Latino districts down in south Florida.

So it's the two districts that are not majority minority, that's yielding this lawsuit.

- Do you think he's likely to win at the US Supreme Court, if it goes all the way?

- I'm not a good court predictor.

(laughs) - So Wendy, let me ask you about the Tampa bay districts.

Charlie Crist district would change significantly because parts of Northeast St. Petersburg, and south St. Petersburg would be moved over to Kathy Castor's district.

Making Kathy Castor's district more Democratic, and making the Pinellas congressional district more Republican.

- Well, Matt mentioned the map packing Democrats into a certain number of small districts, and one of them being Tampa.

And he's exactly right on that.

The map essentially uses Kathy Castor's Tampa Bay's district as a sink, a the Democratic sink to Republicanize the surrounding districts.

And as you pointed out, Charlie Crist district, he's running for governor, of course.

But there's one of the Democrats, one of the leading Democrats running to replace him is Ben Diamond.

Would face a much tougher district with about a five point Republican voting advantage.

And that's according to numbers from Matt, by the way.

Meanwhile, Kathy Castor, who has had easy reelections for years, because her district has been made into a sink for Democratic voters.

Looking like she'll get another one.

Some of the earlier maps passed by the legislature would've tightened up her district a lot, but this one doesn't.

And the third thing the map does in this area that is significant is it creates a new narrowly Republican leaning district concentrated in Northeast Hillsborough County.

And we're going to see a major Republican primary in that district, possibly also a Democratic primary.

- Matt have we ever seen a governor take this kind of action before?

I mean, has any governor been given the clearance by the legislature to say, "Yeah, go ahead and draw your own congressional maps."

- Never anything to this degree.

Obviously Republican governors, and the Republican legislatures since the 2000s have largely been sync.

But you really didn't see Jeb Bush, or Rick Scott really get this involved.

The closest example was Lawton Chiles had to lay down a little bit of rules at '92 when the legislature was desperately trying to come to an agreement on a congressional map, but they eventually couldn't.

But you never had a governor outright threaten a veto in public, then veto, and then effectively have the legislature seed its authority to the governor.

So this is definitely unprecedented.

- Well, next I wanna put up some maps of charts to explain where we are now, when it comes to potential turnout this November, and which political party has the advantage.

as of right now here in Florida.

First, we're gonna look at the history of turnout in midterm elections.

These are numbers compiled by political scientists, Mike McDonald at the University of Florida for his United States election project.

He's tracked the voter turnout for midterms versus presidential election years.

And what he found was that midterms always drag behind presidential turnout by an average of 10 to 15%.

Turnout is always lower for midterms.

The next chart shows voter turnout by ethnicity.

Self-identified white voters are shrinking as a share of the electorate, but they still comprise a very large majority in the most recent election in 2020.

Where white voters comprise 71% of the national turnout.

The next chart shows turnout by age.

For every election since 1986, those people over 60 are the most reliable voters with turnout at nearly 80% for the last election cycle.

- [Narrator] As you go lower in age, turn out falls.

When you get to the group 18 to 29-years-old, only about 52% of them voted in the last election.

- And we're gonna show one more chart, and that is education levels.

The higher the education, the more likely a person is to vote.

With less than a high school education, only 40% voted in the last election.

With a high school degree, turnout climbs into the 50s, and with some college or college degree participation that jumps into 70%.

So Susan, let me ask you those are national numbers.

Do you agree with those numbers?

Is that the way turnout's gonna look in November?

- Well, I've seen Florida out numbers, and they're very similar except for one thing.

The younger voters, if you break 'em down by generation.

The turnout of the gen zers, and the millennials was actually higher among younger Republicans than young Democrats.

But still it's time eternal, older voters here turn out to vote much higher rate than younger.

And increasingly younger voters are drawn to candidates rather than the party.

And that's the challenge for the parties.

The young people are looking for inspiration, and diversity in candidates.

They don't think either party is really addressing them directly.

And that's why you see some of the fall off, and turn out among the young.

- Why do you think Republicans have an advantage when it comes to younger voters?

What do the Republicans do better than the Democrats on that score?

- The Democrats have not been very effective in a lot of their post election analysis.

Acknowledges the fact that they haven't really learned, you know, the channels of communication.

They tend to rely more on the traditional television, and so on.

But younger people are much more driven by other forms of communication.

So it's communication and messaging problems that have been a challenge for Florida Democrats in reaching younger voters.

And they know it, and they're trying to deal with it this cycle.

- Matt, one of the numbers that jumps out at me from McDonald's statistics is white voters.

They're still important.

And I think that there's been a move in the Democratic Party to try to get more people of color energized.

But has that happened?

Has that made a difference, do you think?

- You know, for the longest last several cycles, Democrats were really counting on demographic change in Florida to sort of keep the them in play.

But then we saw in 2020 that massive slide with Hispanic voters.

And not just in Miami-Dade, it happened in Orange County as well, in Osceola County with Puerto Rican, Cuban, Venezuela, and all different Hispanic nationalities.

Democrats lost Brown, and also to the point that Susan brought up about age, and the part breakdown amongst Hispanic voters.

Registered Democrats that are Hispanic have lower turnout than registered Republicans that are Hispanic.

So this turnout issue is like across all ages, races.

And if Democrats wanna take advantage of this sort of demographic change happening, if they think that's gonna be their saving grace.

Well, A, they've lost a tremendous amount of support with Hispanics, and they still have turnout issues within those groups.

- And Matt, what can Democrats do to energize the Hispanic base?

Especially I think the Democrats were hoping that the increased movement of people from Puerto Rico to Florida would help the Hispanic turnout for the Democrats.

- This is one issue where it really is in the favor of Republicans.

And part of that is because of mistakes Democrats made in the past.

But it's also partly because Republicans are in full control right now.

Because they're in control of government they get more donations, they have far more money, and that money meets many more resources.

So heavily Hispanic areas like say, for example, Hialeah, an area where Hillary Clinton only narrowly lost to Donald Trump at 2016, but then Biden got killed by 20 points.

And it's like an 80% Hispanic area.

The fact is, is in 2020, Democrats did not have the resources, or the forethought to go into that area at all.

And try to talk to people on the ground, go into the community.

Republicans did and that sort of operation where the Republicans meticulously targeted voters, and work to persuade them.

That really makes a big difference.

- Susan, did you wanna add something?

- I did wanna add some think.

He's right, but part of the problem for them not going into the neighborhoods in 2020 came straight from the Biden campaign.

Which basically told Florida Democrats, we're not going door to door.

We're not doing the things that really connect because it would conflict with our message about social distancing, and their COVID message at that time.

So that was a real big problem for Florida Democrats.

- Well, let's talk about party registration.

Matt, we're gonna look at some of your maps from your site, mci.com.

Let's look at voter registration in Florida since the last election.

Republicans have an advantage.

Republicans as of February this year have been able to flip four counties in terms of registration, from Democrat to Republican.

You can look at the map on the left.

The blue counties are predominantly Democrat.

The red are Republican, and the pink, those that have trended away from the Democrats.

Two of those counties are in the panhandle moving toward the GOP, Calhoun and Franklin.

Hendry in the Southern part of the state is moving to the GOP.

And the big price, Pinellas here in the Bay Area is also moving to the GOP.

As you can see on the map, Democrats still control some of the larger populated, and more college educated counties around Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Orlando, Hillsborough.

And the very important Southeast counties, Broward, Palm Beach in Miami-Dade.

And now we're gonna go to another MCI map.

This shows as of now, Republicans hold a slight advantage for overall registration, 36 to 35.3%.

Nonpartisan or third party registration is also on the rise, especially in some now Democratic areas, such as Hillsborough, Orlando, and Southeast Florida.

Those are the heavy green areas.

And Wendy, let me toss it to you.

The Democrats talked after the last election about doing a party registration efforts statewide, and looks like they're losing.

Why are the Republicans better at party registration?

- Partly which is because of what Matt said, they've gotten more money.

Registration takes resources.

But Florida has been trending gradually more and more Republicans for decades, since at least the 1970s.

As you pointed out, the Republicans only just recently narrowly edged ahead of Democrats for the first time in history.

I guess the group that's winning though is no party registrants.

If you look back at 1995, no party registrants were to 10% of the Florida electorate or less than 10% of the Florida electorate.

They're now more than 27%, and they are the group that's growing fastest.

Faster than either the Democrats or the Republicans.

- Susan, why are no party registrants growing so fast?

- Well, the groups that are the largest share of NPAs, first of all, younger voters, almost as many are registering as NPAs, as register as Democrats.

And the same is true traditionally that Asian and Latino voters historically have voted, or registered more as NPAs than other ethnic and racial groups.

So those two groups explain a lot of the trend.

But for younger voters, they don't see any difference in the two parties.

And they say, "Well, I don't wanna be either one of 'em."

And that's why, to come back to my earlier point, they're candidate centric.

The parties have a real challenge because basically the parties are at parody.

And yet there's a huge growing group of people that have to be appealed to.

And that's the challenge for both parties, frankly, in the future.

- You say they're candidate centric, but I've also heard that if you register as an NPA, you lean one way or the other.

You lean towards the liberal side, or you lean towards the conservative side.

- Well, let's just take as an example.

Why did Andrew Gillum do so well in 2018?

Because as I mentioned earlier, young people were engaged, and minority young people were engaged.

Because he represented them.

That inspirational dimension, and also the diversity dimension.

And so that's what I say, you can draw them one direction or another.

Traditionally in national elections, they tend to lean Democrat, but you can't count on it.

Because look at the fact that they had trouble in 2020.

Why?

When I surveyed my former students that are Democrats still on campus.

They said, "Well, why should I go vote for two white guys?"

And both parties have really gotta focus now on the complexion and composition of the candidates that they're running, if they wanna appeal to this growing NPA vote.

- Matt, would you agree that Gillum energized young people, and they're an important component of this?

- Yeah, Gillum did energize a lot of young people, and a lot of people of color.

Hispanic, Asian, and African American to turn out.

And we had excellent turnout in 2018 for both parties.

2018 midterm turnout was very high.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Republicans still did manage to outpace the Democrats.

And yeah, with Hispanic voters, and especially Hispanic NPA voters.

NPA voters in general, who do lean more Hispanic, have still much lower turnout overall than Democratic and Republicans.

And I think it does reflect in the fact that a lot of people register as NPA, they have more of a cynical view of the two parties.

They may have high ideological persuasions, but they're not nearly as hardcore partisans.

And so it's up to the parties to turn them out, and also persuade the people that are swing votes.

- Now, what can Democrats do?

Let me ask you since you're a Democrat.

What can Democrats do to up those numbers of party registration?

And if they get people to sign up, will they vote?

- Yeah, Democrats need to have a massive investment on the ground in Florida.

And that's gonna require not just, you know, their own efforts, but they're gonna need help from the national party.

The state Democratic party cannot begin to compete with the resources of this state Republican party.

People like different members, like state representative, Anna Eskamani, is engaging in a voter registration effort.

Andrew Gillum was gonna originally be doing the voter registration effort, but obviously he had some personal issues that I think have kind of taken him off that table right now.

But voter registration is key.

People that register to vote, and are registered to vote, actually do have pretty decent turnout like predispositions because they're newly registered.

But, of course, it's all about follow up.

It's about getting people engaged.

It involves on the groundwork, which is not easy, and it does require money, but that's where it has to start.

- I wanna ask you about something that Wendy said just a moment ago.

That Florida's been trending Republican for a long time.

Do you think Florida, Matt, is a red state now?

- Florida it's not a red state in the sense that maybe a Texas is.

Where Texas is still pretty red, but it is certainly gonna be...

I would consider it to be a lightly red state.

It has voted to the right of the nation for the last several elections cycles.

And it's moved even more in that direction.

And considering the resource disparity right now, I would certainly consider it to be like a light red state.

- Let talk about the issues that are gonna bring voters out this November.

We saw what the legislature did, and Susan, let me start with you on this.

What are the issues that Florida cares about, and do they coincide, do you think with what the legislature did this past session?

- Well, we don't have really a lot of polls showing what people are putting as a high priority.

But we do know there are four or five things.

And one, of course, is going to be the economy.

That's absolutely because there's no signs that inflation is gonna go away as a problem.

So that's always to be a big issue.

But then you get into immigration, you get into, particularly for Democrats, social justice kinds of issues are important for young people.

Climate.

Healthcare is always a big issue in our state, and this year is the year of the parents.

It is education every dimension.

Not just education, but parents feel kind of really stressed about things with the economy.

You saw it start with the changing dynamics of family during the pandemic.

I see a lot of that carrying over into this election as well.

- Wendy, you cover a lot of local races in Hillsborough and Pinellas County.

Tell me, what issues are firing up?

What are the candidates running on that you're covering?

And what are the issues that are firing up voters that you've heard about so far?

- Well, the issues that a lot of them are running on tend to be immigration, inflation, the economy, or things like gun rights.

Now I'm talking about issues that aren't specific to one particular municipality.

What people are telling pollsters.

The issues they're telling pollsters they're interested in are basically the economy, immigration, and inflation.

What they're yelling about, and getting excited about are different things.

Things like the culture war over the schools, things like abortion, gun rights, and that sort of thing.

And you see a lot of candidates bringing those issues into their races to try to excite their political bases.

- Well, when you talk about gun rights, and parental rights.

A lot of those are Republican issues.

Let me ask you, Matt, from your perspective up there in Tallahassee.

What do you think the issues are gonna be this fall, the major ones?

Would you agree that parental rights, gun rights, maybe the economy, and inflation and immigration?

- It's a little bit all of the above.

And it depends on the voter in question.

I think pocketbook issues, the issues with inflation, pricing and overall education are gonna matter a lot to suburban families that live in different communities.

But the reason the legislature's been pushing a lot of this red meat politics stuff is because they wanna make sure also that they're most ardent already gonna vote Republican people turn out.

Some of the red meat is really about driving up turnout, and enthusiasm and getting donations and getting people to agree to knock on doors for the Republicans.

And then the overall, the more swinger suburban voter is gonna care more about pocketbook 'Cause this working class voters will care about pocketbook.

So it really depends on the group.

Some of it's turnout red meat, and some of it is just more pocketbook.

- We have just a few minutes left.

Let me ask Dr. McManus, and all three of you to handicap the gubernatorial race.

Starting with the Democratic primary for governor.

It's a three way primary for the Democrats, Annette Taddeo, state Senator, Nikki Fried, the agriculture commissioner, and Charlie Crist, the Congressman from St. Petersburg.

How would you handicap that race?

Who do you think is gonna win and why?

Excuse me.

- Probably Charlie Crist, because older Democrats are gonna turn out at a higher rate.

And Taddeo, who has a lot of attractive dimensions of Latino and being from Miami just doesn't have the name recognition or money.

And Fried has a statewide name recognition, but is seen as a little too progressive for some of the older Democrats.

- Wendy, how would you handicap the Democratic primary?

- Much like what Susan just said.

Charlie Crist's name recognition will resonate with the voters who tend to come out in a primary, which is pretty much the political insiders.

The people who are more interested in politics.

Do you wanna handicap to general or just primary?

- Sure, go ahead.

Take it.

- I would give Crist, assuming he is the nominee.

Somewhere around a 20 to 30% chance against DeSantis.

And the only reason it's that much is because Chris is one of the best in-person personal campaigners this state's ever seen.

Ron DeSantis will have a tidal wave of money.

He's already over $100 million.

There's one Chicago billionaire who, as of a couple of months ago.

It's probably no longer true today.

As of a couple of months ago, a single Chicago billionaire had given DeSantis more money than Fried, Taddeo, and Crist had raised together.

- (laughs) So Matt, how would you handicap the race?

And do you think that Crist is gonna be the eventual nominee, and how does he match up against DeSantis?

- I do think Crist is gonna be the eventual nominee for all of points that everybody already said.

He's strong with older voters, and I think he's strong with African American voters.

And I think he's gonna do very well with those two groups.

And I do believe he will be the nominee.

In the general, I do think it is very likely Republican win.

Yeah, I would agree 20% chance for Crist is probably right.

There's always the possibility that as the cycle goes on.

But the national mood right now, if we had the election today, it would be DeSantis for the taking.

So it depends if that national mood gets any better or not.

- Susan?

- I still think the marque race is gonna be the Rubio, Demings race.

I think that Senate race will be a lot closer, and garner a lot more national attention by the time November comes along.

- Matt, what do you think about that?

- I agree with that.

I think Val Demings is a very strong candidate.

I think that will generate a tremendous amount of attention.

And it'll be interesting to see what the margin differences are there.

It is possible that Demings is definitely is a better shot to beat Rubio.

Than Crist has to beat DeSantis, but both races are definitely favoring Republicans right now.

- Matt Isbell, thank you so much for coming on the program.

Wendy March, great to see you as always.

And Dr. Susan MacManus, thank you very much.

- Thank you.

And thank you for joining us.

Send us your comments at ftw@wedu.org.

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(bright upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.

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