Joe Henderson: Voters in the middle, where is your candidate?

Maybe more than any election in a long time, voters in the middle might as well be people without a candidate.

Think about it.

Maybe your politics are center-right. You might be generally conservative but will vote for something that sounds somewhat liberal if you decide it’s a good thing.

Or, maybe you’re the opposite — center-left. You may agree with some progressive ideas, but you’ll still vote for a more conservative candidate if you believe that person is the best one.

History tells us there are more voters in the middle than on the wings.

But as last Tuesday night, there is no middle ground to be found in either Republican Ron DeSantis or Democrat Andrew Gillum in the race to be Florida’s Governor.

Both men are at the far opposite edges of the political spectrum, and there is little room for a voter looking for nuance when November arrives, and it’s time for the general population to mark their ballots.

There were about 3.5 million ballots cast last week in Florida’s primary election. That’s less than 30 percent of the state’s approximately 13 million voters, and those are the people who gave the rest of Florida voters this choice.

Even more, nearly 3.5 million Florida voters have no party affiliation at all. What do they do? They have two choices: Pick a candidate with whom they might have fewer differences of opinion or sit the election out.

I suppose this was inevitable after the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. Trump is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, and his legions are proving to be the same. So, after Hillary Clinton spun to the earth in a fireball, Democrats seem determined to be everything that Trump is not when it comes to policy.

That has trickled down to Florida politics.

DeSantis is a Trump “Mini-Me” who echoes the talking points of what his commercials call “the big man himself.”

Gillum had a major endorsement from Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a Democratic socialist. Gillum embraces Sanders’ unabashedly progressive agenda, a marked contrast from the last five Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Florida, who basically were centrists.

But where does that leave people who might like some, but not all, of a candidate’s agenda?

Maybe you support the Second Amendment but think that maybe after Parkland and other school and public massacres we ought to have tighter regulations.

Well, DeSantis has advocated for the expansion of so-called gun rights. He has favored open-carry in places like college campuses. He has an A-rating from the National Rifle Association.

Gillum favors imposing strong restrictions on gun sales, including an outright ban on the sale of assault weapons. He gets an F from the NRA.

Where does that leave you, Middle Ground Voter?

Healthcare?

Gillum wants Medicaid extended to cover an additional 1 million low-income Floridians. He favors Medicare for all. It would be expensive, and he proposes raising corporate taxes to pay the bill.

DeSantis suggested during a debate with Adam Putnam during the primary campaign that no, health care is not a fundamental right.

Um, who do you have in that one, voters in the middle?

Immigration?

I imagine you can guess where DeSantis stands on that one, being a follower of President Build That Wall. Gillum said ICE needs to be abolished in its current form and dreamers should have a path to citizenship.

Where’s the in-between on that issue?

An early Public Policy Polling survey, commissioned by Democrats, showed Gillum with a decisive edge in voters with no party affiliation, probably as a reaction to the Trumpian controversies. I wouldn’t read much into that, though, because the full-blown attack ads haven’t started yet from either side.

Those ads will be directly aimed at you, voters in the middle.

They will leave you feeling there is no candidate you can fully support.

Maybe there isn’t. The middle ground can be a lonely place.