>>This week on NewsNight, the first of a two part look back at 2024 and the stories we've covered here on the program.

Tonight, a look at the presidential election and the punishing hurricane season for Florida.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort and welcome to NewsNight, where we take an in-depth look at the top storie and issues in Central Florida and how they shap our community.

This week, we're bringing you the first of two special episodes of Newsnight, looking back at some of the top stories of 2024 that we've covered here on the program.

There were a few stories tha dominated the news more in 2024, of course, than the general electio in November, which swept Donald Trump to victory over Democrat Kamala Harris.

Trump easily won in Florida.

The state's US senator, Rick Scott, cruised to reelection, and Republicans maintained their supermajority in the Florida legislature.

The morning after the election, I sat down with UCF political scientist Aubrey Jewett to discuss a historic sweep for Republicans in the state.

>>Whe you see the size of the victory double digit victories for Trum and for Rick Scott, when you see the state legislature still ha a super majority of Republicans.

When you see that Republican voter registration now is 1 million voters greater than Democrats, when four years ago Democrats still had a lead?

You put all that together.

Florida is clearly a red state for the time being.

>>We'v asked the question on NewsNight several times about the role of Latino voters in Florida.

President elect Trump won i Miami-Dade, he won in Osceola.

Congressman Darren Soto held on to his seat.

But I wonder what the former and now president elect's performance in those heavil Hispanic parts of the state says about where that community i when it comes to its politics.

>>Absolutely.

And that's one of the big reasons why I think Florida is now a red state.

It's not the only reason but it's one of the big reasons that Hispanics have begun to really embrace the Republican Party here in Florida and nationally.

And you typically in Florida, you certainly have seen Cuban Americans have tended to be a little Republican, although the second and third and fourth generation Cubans seem like for a while they were drifting towards Democrats, but no longer.

I mean, Miami-Dade is the perfect example.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but in 2016, they strongly went for Hillary Clinton.

Now the strongly went for Donald Trump.

And by double digits both time.

So it's been like a 30 point swing, 25 point swing something- >>That's not an accident, is it?

Because the Republicans and Donald Trump have gone after those communities, particularly Cuban and Venezuelans, very strongly during his first term and since?

>>Absolutely.

It has been a very aggressiv move on the part of Republicans charging the Democrats for Socialist, highlighting some of the social issues like LGBTQ or other things, where they know that Hispanics and particularly male Hispanics, tend to be a little more conservative.

And between the socialist on the economic side and then some of these social issues, they have been able to draw a number of those Hispanic voters, particularly young male Hispanics.

The exit polls have been showing mor so than young female Hispanics.

>>Let' talk about the state attorneys race in Orange and Osceola County.

Monique Worrell who governor DeSantis had suspended, has one re election, defeating Andrew Bain, who the governor had selected to replace her.

I wonder what you make of that and the fact that that only happens here, not in Hillsborough County, where Andrew Warren was defeated.

Kind of a mixed bag there.

>>It is.

But for Orange County it is still very democratic, despite the state movin Republican.

Orange County still has a ver large Democratic majority.

And the the at the end of the day, that is what carried Worrell across the finish line fairly comfortably in Hillsborough.

They are actually now very evenly divided.

They used to be a little bit leaning Democratic, but now they're very evenly divided and they seem to have you know, Trump seem to have a bit more coattails over there.

And that seemed to stop Andrew Warren.

He didn't lose by a big amount.

He was like 47%, but he didn't quite make it.

So I mean I think that's the main reason why Worrell was able to wi and Warren wasn't and it's just the counties are different, right.

One is a lot more Republican.

The other is a lot more Democratic.

>>What about the amendments?

Are you surprised about the failure of amendments three and four to get that 60% threshold on marijuana and abortion to pass, specifically because abortio rights did pass in other states?

>>I was not surprised.

I thought they still ha a chance to pass to get to 60%, but 60% is a much higher barrie than almost every other state.

It's like the vast majority of states only require 50%.

Maybe two other states require something like Colorado requires 55, but Florida requires 60.

And that's a lot.

That's a big hurdle.

And particularly when you again, you see that Republican registration is now a million more people.

And when you saw that the early voting there was 800,000 more Republicans turned out, that's when I really started t think, okay, I don't know that we're going to get to 60% on either of those amendments because there's so many Republicans turning out compared to Democrats.

>>That's Aubrey Jewett.

I was joined in the studio after the election by Jeff Allen from Spectrum News.

13, Cheryn Stone from Centra Florida Public Media, and Skyler Swisher from the Orlando Sentinel.

>>Well, you know I like like we heard from Aubrey Jewett there, I think we see Florida as a true red state now.

I mean, we're there.

You've had several electio cycles now to to prove that.

And I think you also saw here what you've see across the country where you had really a diverse electorate, you know, all different, you know, people came out for, you know, Trump, all different-- >>Very diverse coalition of people.

>>A diverse coalition.

And that's what I think you've seen in Florida with, the Hispanic vote, you know, in all other groups of, of Florida, you know, I think that's that's why we got the result we did.

What do you guys think, Cheryn?

I mean, is this a solidificatio Republican control in Florida?

>>I think it's pretty safe to say that the days are gone when Florida was looked at the big prize in the presidential race in the swing state, back when-- >>Al the candidates coming through.

>>Yeah and president Obama was able to take Florida, I think that those day have passed.

>>Yeah What do you think, Skyler?

>>You know, I don't think there's any question that Florida is a red state.

And not only that, I mean, Democrats are losing ground in their traditional strongholds.

I mean, you saw, Trump won Dade Count by more than ten points.

You know, Palm Beach County which used to be a bastion of Democratic support, was about a tie.

Osceola County flipped, to Donald Trump, a very, Latino, county.

So I think, you know, you're seeing Democrats continuing to lose support in even their traditional strongholds in Florida.

>>I mean, Democrats had hoped that those remarks at Madison Square Gardens Garden, disparaging remark about the island of Puerto Rico, might help them with Latino voters, and particularl that Puerto Rican constituency.

That didn't seem to happen on Election Day.

>>Yeah.

I mean, I think Latino voters in Florida reall helped Trump in these counties where Democrats had an edge in the prior election cycles, and specifically that mark, remark you were talking about the comedian who was at a Trump rally and said something offensive about Puerto Rico.

There's a large Puert Rican community here in Osceola County and Trump actually took Osceola by 50%, 50.25% of the vote.

So he still wante I do want to point out, though, that Biden took that county i 56 with 56% of the vote in 2020.

So yes, there was a drop off.

Maybe it had an impact.

Trump still won.

>>Certainly shows that the swing to Trump over-- >>Yeah.

>>Over the last four years or so.

Let's talk about a couple of different races.

We'll start with the U.S. Senate race, which you've been following very closely.

Jeff, what's been the reaction from state Democrats to Debbie Murcasel Powell's defeat?

You were at her party on, Tuesday night.

What's the vibe?

>>Yes I was covering her campaign for about the last week and a half of her campaign, travelin throughout the state with her.

We had another colleagu that was covering Rick Scott's, campaign, and, you know, I would say just ther was definitely disappointment.

You know, she had kind of a positive attitude and a message that, hey, we're not going to give up, you know, in her in her concession speech and her remarks to her supporters there that night.

But, you know, I would say they have not really said a lot yet.

In fact, we reached out to, Democratic Chair Nikki Free just the day after the election.

And they weren't doing interviews yet at that point.

I'm sure they will hear shortly, but I think they're still in just, you know, kind of, evaluation mode, and taking a look at everything and taking a look at all the numbers, what happened and what they needed to do different because obviously they need to take steps differently, to move forward if they want to somehow reverse this trend.

>>And this has been a discussion that's been going on for the Democratic Party of Florida for some time.

I mean, how convincing a wi do you think it was Skyler for, for Senator Scott, given how close his previous races have been in Florida?

>>Yeah I mean, for for Senator Scott, this was a massive landslide.

I mean, let's look back to 2018.

That was like less than a percentage point.

I mean, it headed to an automatic, recoun when he defeated the incumbent Democratic senator Bill Nelson, his two governor governors, races were lik less than one percentage point.

So to win by around 12, 13 percentage points, that's that's a huge victory and kind of a reflection once again of the general, move to the right in Florida.

>>But while Florida's position as a swing state might be in the past, it's become a center of political power in the incoming Trump administration with the president elect tapping several Florida figures to serve in the federal government.

I chatted with Patrick Rickert from Rollins College about Florida's central rol and how Democrats might decide to move forward.

>>I don't think Florida will necessarily draw the same attention from national political watchers, because it is not really competitive, at any level.

Florida, in additio to continuing its conservative trend, swung third most, right of all states in this presidential election.

But the countervailing trend is President Trump's personal loyalty to Florida.

Prefers to stay there to the White House.

Prefers to pick politician from Florida when assembling his teams of advisers.

And so Florida certainly won't be absent from the national political conversation.

>>I've heard from some within the Democratic Party of Florida that the party is currently a mess.

Governor DeSantis won handily.

President elect Trump also won handily in Florida.

I wonder what your read on that is and what the route possibly could be back to power in Florida for the Democrats.

Do they really have a route?

I mean, if you look around the country, in other states, other examples of where the Democrats have been able to reintroduce themselves to the public to regain that popularity.

>>Yeah the Democratic Party in Florida is certainly disorganized and has trouble, bringing out their partizans to vote.

And also demographic trends run against Democrats.

We've had a lot of, movement into Florida of people from other states that have, in part chosen Florida as a home because of the conservative policies.

Demographics are not destiny.

And certainly there are ways that parties have built, up support.

I'm thinking particularly Democrats in Georgia and North Carolina.

Georgia, I thin being the most salient example, where candidates lost a lot of close races and then eventually gained, in part because of the growth of Atlanta.

Enough momentum to push them across the line.

But that was a trend that kind of has consistently grown for, a few decades.

It requires losing a lot of elections first, and while there is a path, it's going to be a very difficult one, where they face where Democrats face a lot of, challenges to being successful.

>>Patrick Rickert from Rollins there a reminder you can find every episode of NewsNight anytime on our website.

Be sure to catch us online at wucf.org/newsnight or wherever you get your podcasts.

Okay, next tonight.

The 2024 hurricane seaso was a punishing one for Florida, dealing a blow to communities throughout the state.

Not to mention Florida' beleaguered insurance industry.

Hurricanes Milton and Helene ravaged the Gulf Coas and interior parts of the state, and even brought flooding to the Atlantic coast.

After Helene made landfall in the Big Bend NewsNight covered the cleanup efforts on the Gulf Coast and efforts to prevent storm floodin in central Florida communities.

These are the scene in southwest Florida this week after Halloween passed by o its way to a Big Bend landfall.

Entire neighborhoods submerged.

Residents salvaging wha they can from the destruction.

Some moving out.

>>I've already made the decision to live in another house.

Just because I'm on my mom's caretaker.

And like I said, she's 86 years old, and I can't put her through this.

Lori Davis experienced flooding following Hurricane Ian in 202 and on several other occasions, she's once again picking up the pieces.

>>It's like again and again, we have to keep buying stuff.

Just buying new clothes that just been able to survive.

>>It's a harrowing reminder of the perils faced by many communities around the state.

Central Florida, of course is no stranger to rising water.

For some parts of central Florida, the potential for flooding rains is scarier than for others.

Take, for example, Wade View Park, just south of downtown Orlando near SoDo.

Extensive drainage works in this area, according to some residents, are responsible for significant flooding from heavy rainstorms.

That means it's not just hurricanes and the bands of rain that often lash our region, that people who live here say are a menace when it comes to flooding.

Residents recently took their concerns to an Orlando City Council meeting, expressing their frustration at what some claimed was mismanagement of the projects including blocked drain pipes.

The city says it found no evidence of that, and it blames a large amount o rain in a short amount of time.

Early this year, Orland officials gave the green light to an increase in resident fees to pay for improvements to the city's stormwater infrastructure, which has been underfunded over past years.

>>I was joined in the studio to discuss flood mitigation effort in Wade View Park and elsewhere by Alexa Lorenzo from WFTV Channel 9, Lilian Hernandez Caraballo from Central Florida Public Media, and Ryan Gillespie from the Orlando Sentinel.

The issues in Wade View Park date back to even pre-Helene.

We had kind of a bizarre star to September in Central Florida, where parts of town go one inch of rain over two weeks.

Wade View Park got 14in of rain and four in an hour.

And that da where they got four in an hour.

It a lot of that ended up flooding into homes and backyards and whatnot.

Neighbor there were critical of the city.

There's a couple of road projects right around there.

One is a city project.

One is a D.O.T.

project out on Orange Avenue.

Which which they can tend to the contractors there maybe didn't adequately prepare for, for the the rush of rain that came.

>>City planners say that this drainage work is needed to prevent flooding similar to the floodin that we saw after Hurricane Ian.

And in this instance, after just a summer storm.

What do how does the city respon to claims that the work itself may be contributing to those drainage problems?

>>Right after the storm they sent crews out to examine the drainage system.

The storm drains there on Astor Street and some of the streets around and Wade View Park, and they did not find any blockages when they went to look.

That does not mean that during the storm when there was actual flooding, that there wasn't a blockage that cleared itself due to all the water.

But eve even if there was no road work, what they say is there's not a storm stormwater system really that exists that could have dealt with four inches of rain in one hour.

They don't build to that standard.

They're starting to examine if they need to start doing that, given some of the rain we've seen lately.

But but as of today, it's just not built to withstand that.

>>Well, I was going to say, I mean, is that in the plans the city is has historically, as you've written, been behind on on drainage improvements.

I mean, what is the extent of that funding problem and what does the city say about going forward?

>>So when you think about when Orlando really developed a hundred years ago you know, the 1920s, the 1930s, in a lot of cases, the stormwater systems that were put in place, those same pipes are underground today that move the rainwater from the streets to the lakes, and theoretically keep neighborhoods from flooding.

So 100 years ago, those pipes now decay.

They break.

They're expensive to repair.

And also, they're just not, quite frankly, not big enough to deal with the amount of rain that we see today.

So for city residents on your tax bill, you pay something called a stormwater fee.

Right now it's it depends on the size of your house and whatnot, but generally they're about 999 a month.

That fee has not been updated since 2008.

So that's funded to 2008 levels.

So what happened toda or for the last couple of years is the stormwater department has had to go to market and borrow money to make ends meet.

So now you're going to see a more expensive, tax bill moving forward.

It's going to go up something like $3.50 per month per year for the next four years, until you're paying something like $22.0 a month for stormwater.

They say that funding will help them upgrade these systems and move some of this work along.

That's much needed.

>>An that is something we're seeing in municipalities elsewher in our region, out of the state.

And it's not just communitie in Orange County and in Orlando that are trying to figure out what's causing these flooding issues.

You've been reporting on other places too Lillian.

>>Yeah, I actually focused this year in Volusia County because they've seen some crazy floods out there.

They're having a lot of problems with it.

There's a lady who's had to gut her house like five different times.

Just inside and ou because it keeps happening.

They've had these massive like, hundreds of people showing u to assemblies, just asking the cities, the count for some help with the flooding.

They have a really, really strict requirements for stormwater management.

Usually more most places will have that.

The standard is like the 25 year storm right?

>>Yeah.

>>Volusia goes by the 100 year storm.

However, it's just seems to not be working out something about this.

The people complain that it's the development, that it is overdevelopment that's doing it.

The way one of the resident said it is, if you keep building they're building a thousand more homes.

You're going to keep changing the landscape, changing the terrain.

You're going to keep bringing more water usage.

And then storms are coming.

Where's all that water supposed to go?

And they think it's going into their homes.

It's going into the streets.

They're getting locked in their homes.

>>We saw a lot of flooding in some underserved communities in Orange County, and particularly thinking about Orlo Vista.

The local governments in Central Florida have said that they've been on it.

They've been trying to fix the drainage issues.

How's that work going?

Do we know?

>>Yeah, a lot of work has been done as of late.

I mean, I remember seeing that initial call for the water rescue, and when I'm tracking it, I see this in the middle of an intersection in a neighborhood.

There's no lake, like what's happening.

And it was just those image from the flooding from Ian were unbelievable tha those families had to go through so very quickly.

The county knew they needed t address it and address it fast.

And progress has been made at this point.

The project is about 95% complete.

But it's probably going to b done in the spring of next year.

That next 5% is going to be very focused on electrical.

So they have already, as in regard to the flood mitigation project, they've made three ponds deeper by 12ft.

All of the ponds are now connected by pipe, but that electrical work is a big lift.

And right now they're facing some timing issues with supply chain backups.

So that's kind of putting a little rift in the project.

But they are very hopeful that they'll get it done by spring of next year.

>>You can always join the conversation on any of the issues we discuss here on NewsNight on social media, We're at WUCF TV, on Facebook and Instagram, and @NewsNightWUCF on X.

Finally tonight, the kerfuffle this year over proposals to develop some Florida state parks.

The state Departmen of Environmental Protection so-called Great Outdoor initiative, revealed in August, included plans for lodges, campsites, pickleball courts, golf and other recreational activities at several state parks.

The proposals were met with deluge of bipartisan criticism.

In the wake of the furor, the governor said officials were going back to the drawing board on the plans.

>>This was something that was leaked.

It was not approved by by me.

I never saw saw that.

It is they're going bac to the drawing board.

Talk to your local communities.

Here's the thing.

I'd rather not spend any money on this, right?

I mean, if people don't wan improvements, then don't do it.

And so that'll be somethin that citizens can be able to do.

They're not doing anything this year.

They're going to go bac and basically listen to folks.

A lot of that stuff was just half baked, and it was not ready for prime time when it was.

And it was intentionally leaked out to a left wing group to try to create a narrative.

You know, we've since I've been governor, we've added over a quarter of a million acres to conservation land.

We establish a Florida wildlife corridor.

So we've done a lot of stuff.

And on the state parks, you know, if there does need to be improvements, we're not going to take away any green space.

You know, we're going to we have an existing footprint and you do.

But I mean, if we do nothing, then that's fine with me.

>>That was governor DeSantis.

I was joined in the studio to talk about the state park plans by Nick Georgoudio from The Community Paper, Stephen Lemongello from the Orlando Sentinel, and Curti McCloud from Spectrum News.

13.

>>You know this right here.

Steve, of course, ruffled a lot of feathers.

A lot of people, you know, up in arms about all of this.

And we saw people saying tha they don't want the land touched and they don't want anything developed here.

A lot of environmental groups speaking out saying, hey, there are studies that need to be here.

We don't want this land touched.

So you got a lot of people saying that they don't want to see this happen.

And then, of course, there are there are those interest groups who want to see this happen.

They have a vested interes here, but a lot of people picketing and saying that thi this can't happen.

Ultimately, see, do we have seen them draw back and say that we're not going to move forward with this plan, at least not right now.

We're still talking.

>>Yeah.

We saw the protests around the state last week.

And I mean, the governor, Steve says he didn't approve these plans, but his office has certainly been talking about them.

>>Oh, yeah.

His, one of his spokespeople has been, you know, defending it online and, the DEP, you know, put out repeated statements about it.

It's sort of, you know, unclear to see how he could not know about it.

You know, so it's this is probably, you know, it went really badl and there was a huge blowback.

So he's obviously distancing himself from it.

And but of course, you know, whether he can continue to say that, you know, totally did not know about this or nothing to do with it.

I mean, he admitted that he met with one of the groups, in April as it was pitched about it.

So.

>>Yeah that's the Falls of Honor group that he, he said he met with.

I mean, talk about some of tha bipartisan political blowback.

What do you think that says about the governor's sway over his own party in the state, given the folks that we've seen come out about this.

>>Oh, well a year and a half ago, he was a, reelected governor who won 20 points and was running for president and now his presidential campaig has gone down in flames.

He's he's going to be out as governor in two years.

And other Republicans are looking at says he's he's not as powerfu as he would want as he once was.

We can we can oppose him on things.

You know, he's, not going to be governor soon.

He's essentially like a lame duck.

And that sort of shows that, you know, where once anything he said, you know, was immediately you know, backed by Republicans.

Now Republicans are looking and they're saying, you know, he's he's weak, he's wounded.

We don't really need to, you know, follow him you know, off a cliff.

>>Yeah.

The governor has said he didn't know about this, but certainly folks in his office, Nick, have been talking about this being a way to improve access to Florida state parks.

How was the Departmen of Environmental Protection up to this point responded to this criticism itself?

>>Yeah.

They took to X this week on a long thread and sort of gave some justification on why they were thinking this.

Some of it was there's already existin paved areas that they could easil turn into pickleball courts, or in one case, cabins at Grayson Beach State Park, which is up in the Panhandle, were booked all the time, so more access to overnight stays were needed.

But then in the same statement, they would talk about, 175 state parks in Florida have nearly 30 million visitors a year.

This is according to around 2022 2023 stats, annual economic impact of $3.6 billion and supporting 50,000 jobs.

So I guess the justification wasn't really there beyond we need more overnight stays.

>>Our discussion on state parks recorded in August.

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

Be sure to join us next Friday night at 8:30 for part two of our look back at 2024, when we'll be examining some of the laws that passe in the last legislative session.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great New Year.