If you’re still mad at Florida for denying Vice Pres. Al Gore the presidency in 2000, you’re probably not any happier with us for denying the Senate another Democrat, in the form of Bill Nelson.
There’s a tragically simple explanation for why the Senate vote went off the rails in the county where Fort Lauderdale is:
Bad ballot design. Like, spectacularly bad design.
In civilized counties like mine, here’s how the ballot looked:
A new CNN/SRSS poll in Florida finds Andrew Gillum (D) holds a wide 12-point edge over Rep. Ron DeSantis (R) in the race for governor, 54% to 42%. In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Bill Nelson (D) leads Gov. Rick Scott (R) by five points, 50% to 45%.
A new NBC News/Marist poll in Florida finds Sen. Bill Nelson (D) just ahead of Gov. Rick Scott (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 45% among likely voters. In the race for governor, Andrew Gillum (D) is ahead of Ron DeSantis (R), 48% to 43%. Said pollster Lee Miringoff: “The political environment in Florida, overall, is tipping in the Democrats’ favor.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in Florida finds Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has taken the lead over Gov. Rick Scott (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 53% to 46%. Among Florida likely voters who name a candidate choice, 94% say their mind is made up.
“Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) holds a narrow 44% to 41% lead over Gov. Rick Scott (R) among Latino voters in Florida’s Senate race, according to a new poll that’s raising fresh concerns among Democrats that the incumbent is in a dicey position with a core group of voters he needs to carry by bigger margins,” Politico reports. “For Democrats, those numbers are a problem because a Republican who wins as much of the Hispanic vote as Scott is taking usually wins statewide in Florida. Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the survey by 40% to 33%.”
The new NBC/Marist poll in Florida finds that incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson leads his Republican challenger, Rep. Connie Mack by double digits, 52 percent to 39 percent.
But that may not be the only political trouble facing Rep. Mack’s household. His wife, GOP Rep. Mary Bono Mack, the widow of entertainer Sonny Bono, is also facing the toughest reelection challenge since she assumed the seat representing Palm Springs that her late husband held until he was killed in a freak skiing accident in January 1998. Because Rep. Mack opted to give up his seat in Florida to run against Nelson, there’s a chance now that both Mack and Bono Mack will not be returning to Washington next year.
Rep. Bono Mack, who is considered to be one of the five most vulnerable Republican representatives in the House, appears to have really stepped in it when an “October surprise” lodged against her Democratic opponent, emergency-room physician Raul Ruiz, backfired, big time:
We’re not the only ones to notice that Connie Mack IV, nee Cornelius Harvey McGillicuddy IV, is one of the lightest weight lightweights ever to run on the Republican ticket for the Senate from Florida, and that’s saying something.
After all, this is the state that sent George LeMieux, whose claim to fame might be only that his last name contains more vowels than consonants, to fill the spot vacated by Mel Martinez, who quit partway through his term to pursue closer family relations.
That tendency seems to be largely Republican in nature, but at least Martinez wasn’t trying to spend more time with Sarah Palin’s family.
I digress.
The point is, someone else is taking a look at Mack IV (R), now running for the seat held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D), and coming up underwhelmed.
Palm Beach Post columnist Frank Cerabino sent a memo to Mack from his fictitious image consulting firm. In it, he presented Mack with answers he might use to address issues uncovered by opposition research.
The results of a Quinnipiac poll on the Florida Senate race. Rep. Connie Mack (R-Ft Myers) garnered 40% support while incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) got 42%. Name recognition was cited as the main factor in Mack’s popularity, since he is the fourth person to be named Connie Mack, starting with his Baseball Hall of Famer greatgrandfather. Mack IV is also the husband of Rep. Mary Bono (who gained her seat upon the death of husband Sonny Bono) but has done little of note in Congress, where he is Chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere within the Foreign Affairs Committee.
With the people in the field right now, I think it will be difficult to beat Bill Nelson. I still think Jeb Bush might don the cape and get in.
Florida State Senate Pres. Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island), discussing the U.S. Senate race for the seat currently held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). Haridopolos dropped out of the contest this year, leaving challengers that Vice Pres. Joe Biden referred to at the recent Florida Democratic Convention as, “the seven dwarfs.”
To hear Trump talk, he’s the only one
Who’s ever stood trial for crimes he’s done.
But instead of courtroom drama,
We get Trump in his pajamas,
That’s how he earned his new nickname: Don Snoreleone.
“This week has been a howling vortex of suck for the MAGA movement and Donald Trump. Imagine a black hole in the profound interstellar vacuum in the cold emptiness of space, drawing all matter and energy into its brutal singularity, an ineluctable and final journey into nothingness. … That’s the GOP this week. It’s been bad and will get worse.”
“I am not resigning. And it is, in my view, an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply here trying to do our jobs. It is not helpful to the cause, it is not helpful to the country, it does not help the House Republicans advance our agenda, which is in the best interest of the American people here — a secure border, sound governance – and it’s not helpful to the unity that we have in the body.”
— Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the “resign or be fired” ultimatum from the GOP’s Freedom Caucus just 174 days into his tenure as sp[eaker, reported by Punchbowl News.
“Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back. His head droops for a third time, he shakes his shoulders. Eyes closed still. His head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open.”
— Law360 reports from the second day of Donald Trump’s “hush money” criminal trial.
“Functionally, Chris Sununu is as active a part of Trump’s campaign as Matt Gaetz or MTG, or any of the other MAGA freaks. And it seems not to bother him that these people would poleaxe him if given a second’s chance. It seems not to bother him that his political career is over. He’s not just willing to exit public life on his knees—he’s eager to do it. … In the end, it doesn’t matter if Sununu is a mountebank, a coward, or a fool. Those three characters are equally pernicious. … What matters is that the rest of us understand that it is the Chris Sununus of the world who make this ongoing authoritarian attempt possible.”
“He’s f**king crazy! The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out!”
— New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), quoted by the Associated Press two years ago. Sununu is now backing Trump for president.
Punchbowl News: The DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] raised $45.4 million in the first quarter of 2024, outpacing the NRCC [National Republican Congressional Committee] by $12 million. That’s the DCCC’s best quarter of the 2024 cycle and includes a $21.4 million March haul. This is a massive show of force for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.The DCCC has $71.1 million on hand. Compare that to the NRCC, which has $45.2 million on hand.
A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of voters under age 30 finds Joe Biden leading Donald Trump 56% to 37% among likely voters. Pollster John Della Volpe: “For a Democrat to comfortably win the Electoral College, he or she needs to win 60 percent of the youth vote. Biden and Obama, ’12 and ’20, won 60 percent. Obama got 66 percent in ’08. John Kerry and Hillary Clinton got 55 percent. Biden is in the mid-50s. Can you improve that to get to 60 percent? It’s within reach.“
Financial Times: “In another troubling sign for Republican fundraising efforts, Trump has 270,000 fewer unique donors than he did at the same stage of his 2020 White House run. His campaign and affiliated political action committees got money from 900,000 donors from July 2023 to the end of the first quarter of 2024, down from 1.17 million four years earlier.”
New York Times: “Of the 96 possible jurors brought into the room, more than 50 raised their hands to say they couldn’t be fair. They were immediately excused.”
“Nationwide, homicides dropped around 20% in 133 cities from the beginning of the year through the end of March compared with the same period in 2023. … Homicides in American cities are falling at the fastest pace in decades, bringing them close to levels they were at before a pandemic-era jump,” the Wall Street Journal reports.