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- Welcome back. I wanna dig a little deeper
into Tuesday's election results, as well as look
ahead to November. And I can't think of a
better person to do that with than the author of Florida's
Political Playbook, Kimberly Leonard. Kimberly, thank
you for coming in. - Hi, thanks for having me. - So first time on the show and so very appreciative
of you stopping by, but I wanna start with,
we just wrapped up, we're taping this on Friday, we just wrapped up four days of the Democratic
National Convention, all about the vibes. No Beyonce, but I think
the speech generally that Kamala Harris
gave was good, and I think she did
what she needed to do. But the real question is, does Kamala Harris at
the top of the ticket really change much in Florida? Does it put Florida
at all in play? - So I don't think
it puts it in play just because I won't
believe that it's in play until I see the Harris campaign spend some real
money in Florida. And then we have
yet to see that, that we have yet to
see any real changes in voter registration either. I do think it might
narrow the victory that Trump will have in Florida and undoubtedly it's
generating a lot of energy. I think they announced this week that there were
33,000 volunteers now who were just in Florida doing door knocking and phone
banking and things like that. So I think it does change the
way that the race is perceived and how involved
people are getting. I also think that it
could have an effect on some of the amendments, especially the
abortion amendment. I've even had Republican women who identify as
pro-abortion rights tell me that they hope
that having Harris at the top of the ticket will help to move
this issue forward. So they're gonna vote Trump, but then they're also gonna vote in favor of abortion rights. - Yeah, I think, I completely
agree with what you just said. I think in some
ways if Joe Biden had been at the
top of the ticket, it would've been very
reminiscent of the
22 Governors Race. Charlie Crist did not
inspire Democrats to turn out and, you know, Ron
DeSantis won by 19 points, but it wasn't so much
that Ron DeSantis did so much better than
his previous election, it's that Democrats
just stayed home and the Democratic Party sort of collapsed
in terms of turnout. And I think Biden, as you said, may have been headed that
way as well in Florida, depressing turnout. And now Democrats are enthused. And I think the amendments, also marijuana may
benefit as a result of it. So that's a big step forward. But some people still want
to sort of talk to me about that it's gonna have an
effect on the Senate race, so let's talk about that race. It's all about the money. - Again, spend money. It's an expensive
place to campaign. - Well, you were at Debbie
Mucarsel-Powell's victory party on Tuesday. What was the feeling like there? - Yeah, and the
timing wasn't great because obviously a
lot of Floridians, a lot of Florida Democrats were
out in Chicago for the DNC. But yeah, there was a lot of
energy around her candidacy. You know, if she
were to be elected, she would be only the second
Latina to join the Senate. So that idea energizes
a lot of people, especially in a state where the Hispanic voting
block is so influential. And so she got up on stage. I think it was pretty clear that she was leading the
pack all along the way. You know, even President Biden
had endorsed her in Tampa, or at least said we
need to elect her, which I took as an endorsement. And you know, she's using
a very similar playbook to what Vice President Harris
is using against Trump. She's talking about the freedoms that we should be able
to enjoy in our state. And when she says that,
she means freedom, freedom for reproductive
rights, freedom to have Social security
and Medicare continue and things like that. And so we are seeing that
very similar dynamic play out. And I think it'll be interesting to see if Harris herself
comes to Florida to campaign and who is standing around
her when she does that. - There's also a thing
Democrats just have, they really wanna
take Rick Scott out. There's just something
about Rick Scott that gets the Democrats,
and what I always say is, I don't think anybody
loves Rick Scott. Maybe Mrs. Scott
loves Rick Scott. - I don't know,
- But generally, but I don't know
that he's somebody who creates a lot of
passion, but he wins. And at the bottom, at
the end of the day, that's all that matters. They don't have to love you,
they just have to vote for you. And Rick Scott is that guy
who can you talk about money, you know, can write that check, if they come to him at the end and instead of say we
need another $4 million to run ads across the I-4, he'll write that
check for 4 million and he'll get his two
or three point victory. He's never gonna
win in a blowout, but he's always gonna try
to win just by just enough. - Works really hard, shows
up in all the right places. He was talking to the
Venezuelan opposition leader last week right before
I interviewed him. You know, he understands
where to be at the right time. And so I do think that
it's not just the money, it's also the work
that he puts into it. And as far as, I mean, I think when you say
nobody loves Rick Scott, I will say having
interviewed people who've worked for
him over the years, he might be the only politician where I haven't gotten a bad
word or anything negative after people who work for him are very effusive
about working for him. Which I realize might sound odd, but that has been something that I've noticed over the
past like five years or so. - I just wanna touch on one
congressional race up north in the panhandle of
the Matt Gaetz race. This was the end of the Kevin McCarthy
Vengeance Tour. He had tried to identify some of those
Republican House members who had cost him
the speakership, chief among them, Matt Gaetz. He spent probably
three to $4 million through his super PAC with negative ads
against Matt Gaetz. But yet, Matt Gaetz came and won by 75% of the vote. - Even more, yeah, yeah. I mean people love
the Matt Gaetz story, love or hate him, you know, they just really wanna follow
his career and what happens. We had a story that Gary
Fineout from Politico that did extraordinarily
well on our site. Gaetz seemed very confident
about not just winning, but winning big from
the very get go. Now I do get the impression
from what I've heard, that McCarthy might've been
workshopping some of this just in case Gaetz
does decide to run for governor next time. And so some of the attack lines over some of the legal issues and things that he's faced, we might see how that
resurface, should that happen, we might see McCarthy
get involved again. I mean, he seems like he
hasn't let it go, the ouster. - You just caused everyone to throw something
at their television 'cause you're already talking about the 26th Governors Race. I've done the same thing. - I talk about it a lot, yes. - Because it's gonna be
crazy on the Republican side. - And the Democratic side. - On the Democratic side too. - I feel like everyone
wants to run for governor. It's the hottest ticket in town. - I wanna turn to another
congressional race, the one down south. I think the only one that Democrats
sort of talk about maybe they could flip is the Maria Elvira
Salazar seat, District 27. - Oh yeah.
- With Lucia Baez-Geller running against her. That's a R plus four
district, you know, so it's still an uphill climb. When Donna Shalala held
that seat a few cycles ago, I think it was a D plus one. So you know, that
district lost Miami Beach and added Westchester, which is a Republican
area down here. So it doesn't stack up well, but it goes to the idea of will
Dade County vote for Trump? Will they turn out and the same way
that Dade County won, Ron DeSantis won Dade
County, will he win here? I don't know that he's
gonna win Dade County, but I don't know if
Harris wins Dade County, if it's enough to
bring Lucia Baez-Geller across the finish line.
- Right, exactly. And that's similar to kind of the Mucarsel-Powell
dynamic, right? How much her candidate, he helps with some
of the other races. I mean, some of the
ways that the DCCC, which is the arm of
the Democratic Party that works on these house races has started to attack Salazar, have given us an idea of
the messaging on that. They say she goes
around holding checks. - I think I remember
something about that. - Yeah, I wasn't gonna bring
it up, but now you have. (laughs) So I think
that'll play prominently, they do wanna try to do
something in Florida just to be, they have a couple of seats
that they're trying to flip, including the one down here. I don't know how
effective it'll be. You know, I also know that Trump is still very popular down here. I mean, I see Trump
signs driving around, I see more Trump sign. I did see an Amendment 3
sign today, that was new. But generally speaking, it just seems like his
support is really high here. I think going into it, the campaign maybe thought
they could win Miami-Dade, but you know, now that Harris
is at the top of the ticket, I don't know how much
that changes things. - I can't let you go without bringing up an issue of there's this crazy
idea of taking state parks and putting golf courses or
pickleball courts in them. And I've never seen an idea
get so universally condemned by so many people so quickly,
what's going on here? - Yeah, yeah. And both Republicans
and Democrats, and even you have Wilton Simpson urging people to
show up and protest. So what happened was,
it wasn't just the idea, which itself enraged
a lot of people who care about the
environment and conservation, but it also was the way
that it was presented because it was
essentially something that got leaked to
the "Tampa Bay Times" and then the
proposal was put out, which looked very similar to what the "Tampa Bay
Times" had reported. And then they put out
announcements saying, "Okay, in all these different nine
state parks across the state, we're gonna be meaning
to discuss these ideas" all at the same time, all
at once, all very fast. And so that caused
a lot of backlash. I mean, we heard it all over. - And you've got Republicans who are usually in lockstep
with the DeSantis administration sort of coming out against him. You mentioned Wilton
Simpson in the cabinet. I've seen members of Congress. Does that suggest
that maybe this party, the grip that Ron DeSantis
has had on the party is beginning to slip a little? - I mean, that's the thing. I haven't seen
anything like this in the entire time that Governor DeSantis
has been in office. He usually calls all the shots and people are completely in
line with what he wants to do, even if he has to muscle
things through the legislature. Look, he is entering his
final couple of sessions and the attention very soon will turn to who is going to be the next governor of Florida. So that definitely has an
impact as to his influence. - Kimberly Leonard, thank you. We'll have you back. We'll continue
these conversations. - Thank you.
- I really appreciate it. All right, we'll be right
back after the break.