Donald Trump calls on Florida Democrat to concede, implies fraud
President Donald Trump sought to intervene in Florida’s legally mandated vote recount Tuesday, calling on the state’s Democratic senator to admit defeat and again implying without evidence that officials in two pivotal counties are trying to steal the election. “When will Bill Nelson concede in Florida?” Trump said in a morning tweet. “The characters running Broward and Palm Beach voting will not be able to ‘find’ enough votes, too much spotlight on them now!” There have been bumps as Florida undergoes recounts for both the governor and Senate races. Palm Beach County said it won’t finish its recount by the Thursday deadline. In oft-criticized Broward County, additional sheriff’s deputies were sent to guard ballots and voting machines, a compromise aimed at alleviating concerns. Those counties are both Democratic strongholds. Still, the state elections department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which are run by Republican appointees, have said they have seen no evidence of voter fraud. A Broward County judge challenged anyone who has evidence of fraud to file a report. Meanwhile, a flurry of legal action continued. Nelson and a Democratic campaign committee filed two more lawsuits on Tuesday, including one that asks a federal judge to set aside looming deadlines for a machine recount as well as a hand recount, if it is ordered. Presidents have historically sought to rise above the heated partisan drama surrounding election irregularities. Former President Barack Obama wasn’t so publicly involved when a recount and legal process in the 2008 election delayed a Democrat taking a Minnesota Senate seat until July 2009. Former President Bill Clinton struck a lower tone during the 2000 presidential recount, which also centered on Florida. But this year, the Florida recount was personal for Trump. He aggressively campaigned in the state in the waning days of the election and put his finger on the scales of the Republican gubernatorial primary this summer by endorsing former Rep. Ron DeSantis. After Election Day, Trump’s aides pointed to the GOP’s seeming success in the state as a validation that the president’s path to re-election remained clear — a narrative that has grown hazier as the outcomes have become less certain. White House spokeswoman Mercedes Schlapp said Tuesday the president “obviously has his opinion” on the recount. “It’s been incredibly frustrating to watch,” she said. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump is attempting to bully Florida election officials out of doing their jobs. Schumer and Nelson, both Democrats, spoke with reporters Tuesday in Washington. “It’s just plain wrong. It’s un-American.” Schumer said. “If he really wants an honest and fair election, President Trump will stop bullying, harassing and lying about the vote in Florida, and let the election proceed without the heavy hand of the president tipping the scale of justice.” Schumer said election officials should have all the time they need to count every vote, rather than Sunday’s deadline. Nelson and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee filed two lawsuits aimed at that goal. One lawsuit questions rules used by the state for hand recounts, while a second asks a federal judge to give counties more time to complete both a machine and a hand recount. Right now counties are doing a machine recount. Marc Elias, a campaign attorney for Nelson, contended there was no legal need for the existing deadlines since the Senate winner would not be sworn in until January. Still, there’s not much choice but for Florida to go through the process. State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. In the Senate race, Republican Rick Scott‘s lead over Nelson was 0.14 percentage points. In the governor’s contest, unofficial results showed Republican former Rep. Ron DeSantis ahead of Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum by 0.41 percentage points. Once the recount is complete, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or less, a hand recount will be ordered, meaning it could take even longer to complete the review of the Senate race if the difference remains narrow. The recount process has drawn a sharp focus on several county election officials, especially Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes. Snipes has drawn criticism from Trump and other high-profile Republicans as her county’s election returns showed a narrowing lead for Scott during the ballot-counting in the days after Election Day, and even former Gov. Jeb Bush — who appointed her in 2003 — said she should be removed. Asked about those criticisms Tuesday, she hinted that she may not run for re-election in 2020. “It is time to move on,” she said, later adding, “I’ll check with my family and they’ll tell me what I’m doing.” Speaking to about 200 supporters in Orlando church Tuesday night, Gillum said claims without evidence by Trump, Scott and Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio that electoral fraud was taking place were sowing seeds that could undermine confidence in the democratic process. “Disenfranchisement shows up with the president of the United States, the sitting governor of the state of Florida, the junior senator of the United States from the state of Florida when they take to Twitter, and Facebook and … accuse the supervisor of elections, or an entire county for that matter, of fraud, of stuffing the ballot box, of doing everything they could do manipulate the outcome of the election without a shred of evidence. That is called disenfranchisement,” Gillum said. Meanwhile, in Palm Beach, Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said the county’s 11-year-old tallying machines aren’t fast enough to complete the recount by Thursday. The county is doing the Senate race first and will then do the governor’s race. If the deadline is not met in a race, the results it reported Saturday will stand. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
It’s likely to be a close election in Florida, again
Another close election in Florida? Count on it. Through Friday, 2,268,663 Democrats and 2,261,383 Republicans had cast ballots by mail or at early voting sites – a difference of 7,280 in favor of Democrats. Overall, more than 5.7 million Floridians have voted, or nearly 45 percent of those registered. That far surpasses 2012 totals, when 4.8 million Floridians cast ballots before Election Day. As early voting was set to end in 51 of Florida’s 67counties Saturday, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump once again were campaigning in the Sunshine State. Their running mates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence and other top surrogates have been frequent visitors in the state that’s a must-win for Trump’s presidential campaign. “How many of you have already voted?” Clinton asked a crowd in Broward County. The response was enthusiastic cheers. “OK, so that means you’ve got time to get everybody else to get out and vote, right?” Earlier in Tampa, Trump told supporters at a rally that 66 of the state’s 67 counties supported him in Florida’s primary last March. “Florida is just a place I love – my second home, I’m here all the time. I might know Florida better than you do,” Trump said. “I see maybe more enthusiasm right now than I did (in March).” Florida’s 29 electoral votes are the biggest prize in Tuesday’s presidential election among states that could swing to either candidate. In 2000, Florida set the standard for close presidential elections when George W. Bush beat Al Gore by 537 votes out of about 6 million cast. It took five weeks to call the election in the state that determined the presidency. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was campaigning across north Florida Saturday, starting with an event at a Pensacola Beach bar. He’s being challenged by Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy. Unlike Murphy, Rubio has avoided campaigning with his party’s presidential nominee. While he supports Trump, he has condemned his words and behavior. Murphy attended a Broward County rally with Clinton and later planned to attend a St. Petersburg concert with singer Jon Bon Jovi and Kaine. While only 16 counties will continue early voting on Sunday, they are some of the state’s largest, including Democratic strongholds of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. Democrats were planning “souls to the polls” events encouraging African-American churchgoers to take advantage of the last day of early voting in the counties where polls will be open. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
As Florida votes, there’s a difference between north, south
There’s a big difference between north Florida and South Florida. As different as Alabama and New England. And on Tuesday, those distinctions will likely play out as Florida voters decide who to give 99 Republican delegates to in the race for president. The Florida GOP primary is considered a pivotal moment in the campaign: The winner-takes-all contest could mean a huge boost for Donald Trump, or the death of Marco Rubio‘s campaign in his home state. But the Florida primary isn’t easy to predict. The differences between residents in Bonifay in north Florida and those in Broward County in south Florida are about as stark as voters in Birmingham, Alabama, with those in Boston, Massachusetts. In Bonifay in Holmes County in the north, there’s a sign pointing to a bait shop three miles down the road intermingled with campaign signs for sheriff, school superintendent and property appraiser. They don’t like Democrats even if they are Democrats (because they are Dixiecrats). Nobody blinks if a Confederate battle flag waves in front of a home and people driving off Interstate 10 might think they’re in Alabama, which borders the largely rural community. A day’s drive south is Broward County. Broward is a place where it can take hours to get off Interstate 95 during rush hour, people speak with New York accents and President Barack Obama won enough support to cancel out dozens of places like Bonifay to carry Florida and win two terms as president. In north Florida, boiled peanuts are commonplace. In South Florida, you’re more likely to find boiled yucca, a staple in Cuban restaurants. And on Tuesday, when Florida awards 99 delegates to either Donald Trump, favorite son Sen. Marco Rubio or, much more unlikely, Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, there’s a good chance there will be a difference in who north Florida supports and who prevails in the three-county area known as South Florida. “We’re more in line with south Alabama, frankly, than we are below the I-4 corridor,” Dan Smith, chairman of the Holmes County Republican Party, said about the highway that divides Florida in half from Tampa to Daytona Beach. “It comes from our roots. Conservative values and family values.” Holmes County in the north, which includes Bonifay, actually has more Democrats than Republicans, but many are Dixiecrats — Southerners who register as Democrats but vote Republican. Despite the party advantage, Barack Obama earned only 15.2 percent of the vote in 2012. Smith takes pride in saying Holmes County gave more support to Marco Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign than any other Florida county. But this year, he said the vote in the Republican primary will be close. He agrees that the primary results in Georgia and Alabama, which Trump easily won, could indicate the businessman and reality TV star will do well in north Florida. Exactly why a New Yorker is winning the hearts of Southern voters is something of a mystery. “You’ve got me there,” Smith said. “It’s like a Trump phenomenon.” Rubio will probably do better in South Florida, the state’s most populous region, with more than 800,000 Republicans in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties. Rubio is from Miami, where the population in his home county outnumbers Holmes by a better than 131-to-1 ratio. Even throw in conservative strongholds like Jacksonville and Pensacola and South Florida votes dominate the state, and tend to be a bit more liberal even among Republicans. Maria Penton-Oliver, of Davie, a city southwest of Fort Lauderdale in Broward County, has already voted for Rubio. She’s no fan of Trump. She said she has “100 reasons” not to vote for the billionaire. She thinks Trump speaks “from both sides of his mouth,” saying that the billionaire businessman talks tough about immigration but takes advantage of the H1-B program to hire foreign workers at his Mar-A-Lago resort in nearby Palm Beach County. “I don’t think he understands our country,” she said. “I do not think he’s an honest man. And I think, like Rubio says, he’s a con artist.” Not that Rubio won’t get any support up north. Jerre Richter stood on her porch in Bonifay and said she’s voting for him because she thinks that’s who God would think makes the best president. She said her faith plays a large part in casting her vote. But the 83-year-old former teacher and current pastor said there are plenty of others willing to cancel out her vote. “Somebody said to me the other day, ‘Who are you voting for?’ And I said my current plan was to vote for Rubio. And they said some junk about him not being from the United States. I don’t remember the term they used, but like he was a foreigner. I said, ‘What difference does that make? It’s more the man, what he stands for, what he is and what’s he going to do,’” Richter said. She said one neighbor pleaded with her: “‘You must be for Trump! You must be for Trump!’ She was talking like he was God sent to resurrect the nation.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton is still shrill
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday didn’t back away from calling Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton “shrill,” explaining “that the word shrill doesn’t apply to women exclusively.” He also defended his use of overseas workers at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Palm Beach instead of Floridians. Trump participated by phone on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. The real estate tycoon-turned-reality TV star is still on top of the GOP pack with nearly 33 percent in the Huffington Post national polling average. On Wednesday, Trump called Clinton shrill at a campaign event the day before in the Charleston Convention Center in South Carolina. As The Washington Post noted: Trump is often criticized for the way he describes women, and Clinton was not the only woman he reproved. He said Caroline Kennedy is too nice to be the ambassador to Japan. He described, at length, a “vicious, vicious woman” in her 80s who once sued him during a dispute over an apartment. And he yet again called the career of former technology executive Carly Fiorina, another Republican running for president, “a disaster.” When BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay challenged him on it, Trump said, “I think the word shrill doesn’t apply to women exclusively. I know men that are shrill, and it’s just an expression that I thought of … She’s gotten very loud and very boisterous and that can happen to men too, Katty.” “It’s just, you know, you never hear people say it about men,” Kay said. Trump responded, “I don’t know, there’s something going on with her. There’s really something going on. I think she’s going to make a terrible candidate just as she was a terrible Secretary of State.” He also said he “would call (Kentucky Sen.) Rand Paul shrill. I think he’s shrill. I don’t think that’s a term that applies exclusively to women at all.” Paul is also running for the GOP nomination. MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle then questioned Trump’s request of visas for foreign labor at Mar-a-Lago, where they’re paid an average of $10-$12 an hour, “rather than hiring workers from Florida.” “Mar-a-Lago is a seasonal job, which is very hard to get people in Florida for seasonal jobs,” he said. “And during the season in Palm Beach, it’s very, very hard to get help. You can’t, you know, we’re talking about Mar-a-Lago, the club is closed for the summer. You know, the expression ‘Rich people don’t like heat.’ “And we close Mar-a-Lago and we open October – like October 1st,” Trump added. “And from that, for about a five month period during what they call the Palm Beach Season, which is a big deal, you can’t get help. So we tend to get help from different places including Europe. And we’ve been doing that – by the way, these are all legal visas.” Trump also slammed Fox News again, saying it ignored his standing in the latest Florida poll. Trump had said the network was treating him “unfairly” and wouldn’t make any more appearances on its news shows. “The Florida poll came out and the headline was that (Marco) Rubio surges past (Jeb) Bush,” he said. “And I said I guess that’s too bad; I guess I’m not in the poll. “Well, I had 31.5 percent,” Trump added. “They were down in the teens. And I said that’s sort of an amazing thing. That’s an amazing headline. It’s Rubio surges past Bush is the headline and I’m the one that’s leading the poll by a lot.”
