As campaign gets ugly, Philip Levine makes early vote push

Jacksonville was the fourth and final stop on Philip Levine‘s barnstorming tour of early voting locations Monday.

The tour happened as tensions have boiled over between Levine and another contender, Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene.

Earlier on Monday, Levine’s campaign made cease and desist demands of television stations playing “false attacks” in a Greene ad charging the former Miami Beach Mayor with polluting Biscayne Bay.

Before that ad dropped, Levine and Greene had each charged the other one with being too close to President Donald Trump, never a good look in a Democratic primary.

As the two work to drive up each other’s negatives, polls show that U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham holds the advantage.

An internal poll released last week by Levine has him behind by 4 points. A Graham poll shows her up on Levine by 16 points. Greene was behind the top two in both cases.

Levine, greeted by a dozen supporters as storm clouds hovered over the Duval County Supervisor of Elections office, was not especially dismayed by the turn the campaign has taken.

“The bottom line is this,” Levine said. “I think the people deserve to know what someone’s track record is” in regards to Trump.

Levine estimated having been “on television … a hundred, two hundred times … during the 2016 election, warning America that this guy would be a terrible president.”

“I think that when someone pretends [he’s] fighting them while being at his country club by the ocean — we call it Kremlin-by-the-Sea — and passing the Grey Poupon across the table and thinks that’s fighting Donald Trump, the people have a right to know,” Levine added.

“You don’t want Donald Trump’s friend — you want who Donald Trump fears,” Levine said. “The people of Florida should understand who is who, and that’s why we’re doing it.”

We noted that the back and forth between Greene and Levine seemed to be driving up each candidate’s negatives while leaving Graham largely untouched; Levine disputed this interpretation.

“I’m not so sure she’s escaping the fire,” Levine said, noting that Greene has been messaging heavily against Graham on television in recent weeks. “He’s been going after her nonstop … completely.”