Staff Reports
Last Call — A prime-time read of what’s going down in Florida politics.
First Shot
— Listen to this: Want to know what happened in the Florida bloodbath that delivered a major win for President Donald Trump and handed the GOP five additional seats in the Florida House? Listen to my explainer on Axios’ Re:Cap podcast.
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The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund is in a “very strong” financial position this year, according to Gina Wilson, the fund’s Senior Director of Operations.
The Cat Fund is what the state uses to help private insurers pay claims after a hurricane. Wilson went over the Cat Fund’s vitals during a presentation and discussion held as part of the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Virtual Insurance Summit.
“Our projected year-end fund balance is over $11 billion. We have no post-event bonds outstanding, no emergency assessments, our October bonding capacity is over $8 billion, and we have $4.2 billion outstanding pre-event bonds,” she said.
Following Wilson’s presentation, Cat Fund Chief Operating Officer Anne Burke expounded on the fund’s stability and offered some insights on what she’s hearing from the underwriters and analysts buy those bonds.
“We met with our three rating agencies, Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch and they have maintained our Double-A rating. That is really critical, that good rating that we have. And to put that in perspective, less than 5% of US corporations have a Double-A rating by all three of those agencies,” she said.
Burke said the top concerns among underwriters were that the Cat Fund was free of outside influence from the Legislature and that the participation by insurers remains mandatory.
“They’re concerned that legislative changes may impact that revenue … and solvency of our participating companies,” she said.
Coronavirus Numbers
Positive cases:
— 816,376 FL residents (+6,120 since Wednesday)
— 11,004 Non-FL residents (+137 since Wednesday)
Origin:
— 7,498 Travel related
— 310,779 Contact with a confirmed case
— 8,386 Both
— 489,713 Under investigation
Hospitalizations:
— 50,077 in FL
Deaths:
— 17,170 in FL
Evening Reads
“Joe Biden continues to express confidence he’ll win” via The Associated Press
“Donald Trump blames Democrats for late-counted mail ballots. He should blame the GOP.” via Aaron Blake of The Washington Post
“Pressure rises on Facebook, Twitter to rein in Donald Trump as false claims spread” via Steven Overly of POLITICO
“Trump supporters in Miami plan to protest Biden’s electoral lead” via Andrew Boryga of the Sun-Sentinel
“Three reasons Biden flipped the Midwest” via Tim Alberta of POLITICO
“Election reveals deeper divides between red and blue America” via Philip Rucker and Bob Costa of The Washington Post
“‘Old white men are dying,’ so Trump looked elsewhere for votes in Florida” via Matt Dixon and Gary Fineout of POLITICO
“Florida swing voters desperate for an end to the race” via Alexi McCammond of Axios
“Florida Democrats ready another fight for their party’s soul” via Joe Henderson of Florida Politics
“John Morgan’s minimum wage push may have shown Democrats a way” via Scott Powers of Florida Politics
“What the polls show, and the press missed, again” via Kyle Pop of the Columbia Journalism Review
“Red states ride the weed wave” via Natalie Fertig, Paul Demko and Mona Zhang of POLITICO
“Christian Ziegler rode shotgun on a tremendous ride for the Florida GOP” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics
“Debbie Mucarsel-Powell concedes defeat to Carlos Giménez following Tuesday’s results” via Ryan Nicol of Florida Politics
“SD 37 camps trade barbs over ballot tampering accusations amid impending recount” via Ryan Nicol of Florida Politics
“ The man with the plan: Chris Sprowls led GOP surge with out-of-the-box thinking” via Janelle Irwin of Florida Politics
“Fiona McFarland rose quickly from newcomer to Election Day winner” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics
“Senate, House set plans to gather amid COVID-19” via Christine Sexton of The News Service of Florida
Quote of the Day
“We can all pretend that this is going to go away sometime soon. It’s not. We’ll probably have a vaccine in the near future. But my crystal ball tells me we should all buckle down for the next year or two and be prepared for challenging circumstances.” — Former House Speaker Will Weatherford, on the post-COVID economic recovery
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