In the residential neighborhood of Sarasota, on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico, where he has lived for years, Steve Wolf says he has seen the impossible happen in recent weeks. “My neighborhood is very Republican. When Kamala Harris entered the race, I saw signs supporting her pop up on grounds that usually showed more Republican support,” says the Democrat.
“There’s no doubt that something is happening here. There’s a sense of excitement around her candidacy. Her presence, her empathy, her truthful discourse, are giving people confidence in her, and that makes me believe that she could make history, not only by becoming the first woman president of the United States, but also by bringing Florida back to the Democratic camp.”
In a state that sank into conservatism after Barack Obama’s last victory here in 2012, and then into Trumpism with the populist’s arrival in the White House in 2016, the prospect seems rather incredible.
In 2020, Donald Trump, a prominent Palm Beach resident, confirmed his hold on the Sunshine State with a majority of 371,000 votes against Joe Biden, 260,000 more than in his face-off with Hillary Clinton four years earlier. Figures that, for a decade, have excluded Florida from the list of key states drawn up by several analysts, a status that the 2024 presidential election could, however, call into question.
“Before Kamala Harris joined the Democratic ticket, the race for the presidency, but also for the Senate seat [détenu par le républicain Rick Scott, en jeu cette année]”They used to be easy for Republicans to win,” political scientist Aubrey Jewett, a professor at the University of Central Florida, said in an interview. “Now they’ve become more competitive.”
“There’s a sense of motivation among voters that’s similar to what was palpable during Barack Obama’s campaign,” said Danaya Wright, a law professor at the University of Florida and a keen observer of local politics. “The vote in Florida is going to be closer than it was in the last two elections.”
In the latest Siena College opinion poll released Monday, the Republican candidate maintains a 4-point lead over the Democrat in Florida. But the gap has been slowly narrowing between the two candidates since the vice president’s entry into the race, an event that has changed the tone of the presidential campaign across the country, including in this southern state.
“It’s night and day,” Calen Christiani, the campaign operations manager for Kamala Harris in Sarasota County, said in his office that the changing of the guard at the top of the Democratic ticket has set off a chain reaction. Donations and callers offering to help have multiplied, many of them young people. Dozens of people show up at his campaign office every day looking for a yard sign to plant. “We’re now swimming in a sea of volunteers like we’ve never seen before. There are a lot of Democrats in Florida who are not afraid to show up, to show off, even in heavily Republican counties. And what was once a hope — to see the state turn blue again [la couleur du Parti démocrate] — now seems to be turning into a possibility.”
Her presence, her empathy, her truthful speech make people trust her, and that makes me believe that she could make history, not only by becoming the first female president of the United States, but also by bringing Florida back to the Democratic camp.
Providential referendums
The Democrats are also counting on the presence of two referendum questions on the November ballot, one on the protection of abortion (amendment 4) and the other on the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes (amendment 3), to mobilize the votes of women, progressives, moderates and young people in favor of the Democratic candidate.
Added to this, in recent days, was the vote of minorities with strong roots in South Florida – and particularly that of the Haitian community, the largest in number in this state, with more than 540,000 people, insulted by the recent racist comments of the former president during the televised debate of September 10.
“Haitians are a growing constituency in America, and Trump isn’t helping himself by alienating them,” says Sharon Wright Austin, a political science professor at the University of Florida. “There’s also been a lot of publicity surrounding the amendments on the ballot, and the prediction is that their presence on the ballot will bring out the young, who are more likely to vote for Democrats, in huge numbers.”
In 2024, some 500,000 new voters will have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote for the first time in Florida.
“Voter turnout is typically very high in Florida, but it should be even higher in November, particularly in counties with high concentrations of new voters or voters from cultural communities,” she said. “They can swing the election in Kamala Harris’ favor if they show up. That would give her a very real chance of winning Florida.”
This scenario is unthinkable for Dean Picciuto, a Republican real estate investor he met on the side of a busy Tampa road where, last Saturday, he had come to wave a flag promoting Donald Trump’s candidacy. “Florida is conservative and it’s going to stay that way,” he said.
In the state, 39 percent of registered voters are Republicans, according to the most recent state government data, a seven-point increase over Democrats and a million more voters. But a quarter of voters on the rolls have no stated party affiliation, making them independents courted by both sides.
“All we hope for is a fair election without fraud,” the man added, thus repeating unfounded accusations made since 2020 by Donald Trump against the electoral system and American democracy. “It’s certain that [les démocrates] will try to rig the vote.”
A minefield
In Florida, Republicans dominate the authorities that supervise the vote. Donald Trump’s party has also given itself a favorable electoral map through partisan redistricting, called in the United States gerrymanderingwhich allows him to maintain his majority in the state legislature and his hold on several counties.
This year alone, aided by conspiracy theorists about the election, they have successfully purged 180,000 names from the voter rolls — a measure that targets minorities — by raising doubts about the American citizenship of some voters. The measure has forced hundreds of people to contest their rejections and go through tedious registration processes again in the run-up to the November vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a group that scrutinizes anti-democratic abuses in the United States.
If the political terrain is not easy for Kamala Harris’s camp, it seems to be a little easier for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. After years of ignoring Florida, it decided this year to invest in the campaign of Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who is hoping to win Republican Rick Scott’s Senate seat next November. The group has injected $25 million to support Senate races in 10 key states — including Florida, it says, once again.
Democratic senators are no longer the only ones who believe this. On MSNBC on Sunday, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele predicted that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz would retake several traditionally Republican states. “They’re going to be studied in the history books after they’ve done this,” said the man, a longtime critic of Donald Trump.
“Florida and North Carolina will fall [dans les mains des démocrates]. Georgia too.” And he blames the cause on his party’s “intransigence” on abortion, which is driving away some traditional Republican voters in key states, particularly women.
Since 2022, the abortion issue has become a powerful electoral driver for Democrats, who have seen their candidates win the vote in several states, including Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania, often against Republicans supported by Donald Trump.
In 2008, Barack Obama won Florida from the Republicans with a majority of 236,000 votes over candidate John McCain.
This report was financed with the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund-
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