Winners and Losers of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 7.17.22

Polling is integral to politics; as pundits, we can sometimes fixate on them.

We do that at our risk, though.

I’m not picking on pollsters because their findings represent only a snapshot in time. Things can and do change. If that were not true, we would have had President Hillary Clinton and Gov. Andrew Gillum — or maybe Gov. Gwen Graham.

However, I almost spit my Grape-Nuts the other day when news of an internal poll in the race for Florida’s 14^th Congressional District. It showed a hypothetical matchup where Republican Jerry Torres led eight-time incumbent Democrat Kathy Castor 66% to 14%.

My first was that the poll was actually a story from the Onion, or maybe they surveyed attendees at a Torres family picnic. I mean, Castor is a well-known local political juggernaut.

Castor won with over 60% of the vote in 2020 and now has an even more Democrat-leaning district thanks to the new boundary lines drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Not surprisingly, the Torres camp didn’t offer much information about the poll, except to say pollsters reached respondents via text messages. Read into that what you will.

Oh, and before Torres can even think about taking on Castor, he has to win the Republican Primary.

Oh, and he also has to withstand a court challenge to kick him off the ballot over issues with his paperwork.

He will find Castor waiting at the pass if he clears those two hurdles.

And while political predictions are risky, I feel good about saying he won’t get 66% of the vote against her. More likely, it will be the other way around.

Now, it’s on to our weekly game of winners and losers.

Winners

Honorable mention: Maria Elvira Salazar. She’s picking up steam in a bid to defend her seat in Florida’s 27^th Congressional District.

Salazar raised a campaign-best $835,000 in the second quarter, which is significant because Democrats prioritized capturing her district.

Heading into July, Salazar had $1.4 million in cash. Jesse Scheckner of Florida Politics reported that she received well over a thousand donations in the quarter. While Salazar got multiple max donations, she also received many smaller checks from individual donors.

Almost (but not quite) biggest winner: Charlie Crist. Former University of Florida football coach Doug Dickey loved saying that to win, his team first had to avoid losing. That’s what Crist did in his debate with Nikki Fried, which means he won by not losing.

Crist committed no headline-grabbing gaffes, despite Fried’s effort to hammer him about his time in the Republican party.

She attacked his position on abortion rights, particularly over his appointment of three conservative Florida Supreme Court justices when he was Governor.

Crist, she said, has “been pro-life his entire life, including today.”

He brushed it off, answering, “You’re losing this campaign. It’s time for desperation.”

Indeed, the polls consistently show Crist with a comfortable lead over Fried with the Primary Election less than a month away.

The biggest winner: DeSantis. The Governor basked in the love (and money) in Tampa from the conservative Moms for Liberty summit. He was a rock star at a private fundraiser in Utah, where attendees forked over $50,000 per person for a luncheon and reception with DeSantis and $25,000 a couple for lunch.

He also held a breakfast meeting there for the bargain rate of $500 per person or $2,500 for breakfast and a photo.

But his biggest win may have come off something DeSantis had no involvement with.

The bipartisan Jan. 6 committee in Washington did everything but fit former President Donald Trump with an orange jumpsuit for his role in the insurrection. In painstaking detail, members of Trump’s staff and family pleaded with him to get the rioters to stop.

Instead, Trump watched television and seemed pleased with the attack.

That’s good news for DeSantis, even though Trump routinely hints he will run for President in 2024. While Trump unquestionably has a lot of support, the big-money players know that having him atop the ticket puts the party in extreme jeopardy.

On the other hand, Republicans wanting to win back the White House increasingly see DeSantis as the better choice.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Alisabeth Janai Lancaster. She’s running for a seat on the Santa Rosa County School Board. She touts her Christian values and wants to see prayer return to public school classrooms.

But that’s not why she’s on this list.

At a recent political forum, Lancaster told a cheering audience that doctors who help the transition for transgender kids “should be hanging from the nearest tree.”

We repeat: The audience cheered.

What’s worse: The remark itself or the reaction it generated?

According to the Pensacola News Journal, Lancaster is the preferred candidate for the Santa Rosa County Republican Party.

When asked if the Party would still support Lancaster, Chairwoman Rita Gunter replied, “No comment.”

Almost (but not quite) biggest loser: Marco Rubio. Florida’s senior U.S. Senator showed complete disdain for the Respect For Marriage Act. It would codify same-sex and interracial marriage on a federal level.

The House passed the bill with 47 Republicans, including Florida Reps. Kat Cammack, Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez, Brian Mast, María Elvira Salazar, and Michael Waltz joining all the Democrats.

Now it goes to the Senate, and we already know how Rubio will vote.

He told CNN’s Manu Raju that the bill is a “stupid waste of time.”

Rubio also told Punchbowl News, “I don’t know why we’re doing that bill; there’s no threat to its status in America. But I know plenty of gay people in Florida that are pissed off about gas prices.”

Rubio ignores that many conservatives, including three recent additions to the U.S. Supreme Court, said basically the same thing about Roe v. Wade. They called it settled law, never to be overturned.

And then it was.

During his unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign, Rubio said the ruling wasn’t settled law. He said if elected, “I will appoint Supreme Court justices that will interpret the Constitution as originally constructed.”

So, Rubio should understand that LGBTQ+ folks don’t have a lot of trust in anything that comes out of Washington right now.

That’s especially true since Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the SCOTUS take a second look at the federal law that made same-sex marriage legal.

Val Demings, the Democrat trying to unseat Rubio, quickly pounced with a statement blasting his comments.

“It is embarrassing that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida would call a bipartisan effort to protect the freedom to marry who you love a ‘stupid waste of time.’ I thought marrying the person you love has always been a good thing,” she said.

“Marco Rubio has proven that he has no interest in representing and fighting for all Floridians.”

Florida Reps. voting against the bill include Gus Bilirakis, Vern Buchanan, Byron Donalds, Neal Dunn, Scott Franklin, Matt Gaetz, Bill Posey, John Rutherford, Greg Steube, and Daniel Webster.

But to be fair, gas is too expensive these days.

The biggest loser: Florida Homeowners. Hurricane season is about to get real, and Florida’s beleaguered property insurance industry might have gotten worse just in time.

Demotech, a rating agency for insurance companies, is set to downgrade 17 Florida property insurers. That could force homeowners into paying significantly higher rates.

The downgrade could mean that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which require mortgages to have minimum property insurance coverage, would not back up those mortgages.

Is this a good time to remind everyone that outgoing Republican state Sen. Jeff Brandes sounded the alarm many months ago about this looming crisis?

DeSantis, instead, prioritized a culture fight against Disney over LGBTQ issues. While the clock kept ticking, the Governor focused on banning critical race theory from schools, which was easy since schools don’t teach that.

Lawmakers finally passed what DeSantis called “the most significant reforms to Florida’s homeowner’s insurance market in a generation.” Brandes, however, was skeptical.

He told the St. Pete Catalyst the new bill was “too little, too late.”

Tick, tick, tick.