Ron may not even make it back into the governor's mansion. The recent polls are all narrowing his lead. DeSantis better hope this trend does not continue -- otherwise he will be evicted from the governor's mansion and living under a bridge. AARP poll finds DeSantis with three-point lead on Crist https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...inds-desantis-with-three-point-lead-on-crist/ Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) holds a narrow three-point lead over Democratic Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) in a new poll commissioned by AARP for Florida’s gubernatorial race. The poll, conducted by Fabrizio Ward and Impact Research, found DeSantis receiving 50 percent support among likely voters compared to Crist at 47 percent. The polling falls within the margin of error, effectively tying the two candidates. Among voters polled between the ages of 18 and 49 years old, Crist holds an edge with 51 percent compared to DeSantis’ 46 percent. But the Florida governor holds a 7-percentage point lead among voters aged 50 years and old, receiving 52 percent support from that age demographic compared to Crist’s 45 percent. Among Independents, a critical voting bloc that will help determine if the governor gets another term in the swing state, DeSantis received 49 percent support while Crist received 45 percent. While the gubernatorial race will be a test for Democrats heading into one of the competitive gubernatorial races this cycle, it’s also being closely watched for how well DeSantis performs as he’s been widely floated as a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate. DeSantis has won close races in the past. He squeaked out a win for his first term in 2018 by less than half a percentage point. The AARP-commissioned poll was conducted between Aug. 24 and Aug. 31 with 1,626 likely Florida voters surveyed, including a statewide sample of 500 and a sample of 860 aged 50 years and older. The margin of error for the statewide sample is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points and the margin of error for the older voting sample is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
Look to authoritarian parties abroad to see where the GOP is headed https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinio...cle_0780e738-2a3a-11ed-9bc5-bb5e3a3f0220.html
'I struck a nerve': DC insider lays out case for calling Ron DeSantis a 'fascist' https://www.rawstory.com/i-struck-a...ut-a-case-for-calling-ron-desantis-a-fascist/ On Tuesday, August 23, liberal economist Robert Reich expressed his disdain for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he visited Twitter and posted, “Just wondering if ‘DeSantis’ is now officially a synonym for ‘fascist.’” Many MAGA Republicans had an angry reaction, bombarding the University of California, Berkeley professor with familiar Republican insults like “coastal elitist.” But in an op-ed published by The Guardian on August 31, Reich doesn’t back down from his anti-DeSantis views. In fact, Reich doubles down on them, laying out an abundance of reasons why DeSantis’ agenda is consistent with the elements of fascism. “I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked in right-wing media,” Reich notes. “The Washington Examiner, for example, called me an ‘ultra-left-wing elitist’ who wrote an ‘insulting slur,’ which is ‘what left-wing ideologues do when they discuss Republican politicians who pose any threat to the existence of their political ideology.… Anyone the Democrats don’t like or disagree with is a fascist.’ This was among the kindest responses…. The size of the blowback on my little tweet makes me think I struck a nerve.” Reich points out that DeSantis is “the most likely rival to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024” and has been called “Donald Trump with a brain.” “DeSantis is the nation’s consummate culture warrior,” Reich explains. “Lately, he has been campaigning on behalf of Republican election-deniers around the country, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and US Senate candidate J.D. Vance in Ohio. In Florida, discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity are now barred in schools. Math textbooks have been rejected for what officials call ‘indoctrination.’ Claiming tenured professors in Florida’s public universities were ‘indoctrinating’ students, DeSantis spearheaded a law requiring them to be reviewed every five years. Teachers are limited in what they can teach about racism and other tragic aspects of American history.” Reich continues, “DeSantis has got personally involved in local school board races, endorsing and campaigning for 30 board candidates who agree with him. So far, 20 have won outright, five are going to runoffs. Abortions are banned after 15 weeks. DeSantis recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the anti-abortion law. A new state office has been created to investigate ‘election crimes.’ Florida’s Medicaid regulator is considering denying state-subsidized treatments to transgender people. Its medical board may ban gender-affirming medical treatment for youths. Disney, Florida’s largest employer, has been stripped of the ability to govern itself in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on LGBTQ+ conversations with schoolchildren.” The words “fascist” and “authoritarian” have been used interchangeably by DeSantis’ critics, who aren’t strictly liberals and progressives. Many Never Trump conservatives have been scathing critics of DeSantis and slammed him as dangerously authoritarian, from The Bulwark’s Tim Miller to the Washington Post’s Max Boot to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (a former GOP congressman). The debate among right-wing Never Trumpers, in fact, is whether Trump or DeSantis would be a more authoritarian Republican candidate in 2024. Reich argues that the word “fascist” captures DeSantis’ views even better than “authoritarian.” “Authoritarianism implies the absence of democracy, a dictatorship,” Reich writes. “Fascism — from the Latin fasces, denoting a tightly bound bundle of wooden rods typically including a protruding axe blade, adopted by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s to symbolize his total power — is different. Fascism also includes hatred of ‘them’ — people considered different by race or religion, or outside the mainstream, or who were born abroad; control over what people learn and what books they are allowed to read, control over what had been independent government units…. control over women and the most intimate and difficult decisions they’ll ever make, and demands that the private sector support the regime. Perhaps my ‘just wondering’ tweet about DeSantis hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican Party?”
After all the fuss GOP has made about Fetterman debating - calling Fetterman to ill to be elected and serve. Let's take a look at the authoritarian DeSantis refusing to debate. Is DeSantis running scared --- seeing he is up a mere three points in the latest poll and keeps sliding. Running scared: DeSantis avoids statewide TV debate https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinio...0220907-v7lelc7dyzdzfpbtvtgkxf4msa-story.html
Trouble in paradise for the GOP? A closer look at the Florida polls https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/gop-florida-polls
DeathSantis: Corporatism means the business leaders bend the knee to their fascist masters. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says Republicans are approaching big business all wrong: 'Corporatism is not the same as free enterprise' https://www.businessinsider.com/des...should-copy-him-on-big-business-policy-2022-9 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has gotten into high-profile fights with Disney and Big Tech. It's a model Republicans should follow, he said at a conservative conference near Miami. "I think that's an absolutely appropriate use of government power," he said. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has battled large corporation on everything from diversity trainings to environmental, social, and governance investing. He even took on family-favorite Disney by stripping the company of its self-governing status. It's a surprising approach to business for a Republican who has support from more than 40 billionaire donors, and one that some critics have called heavy-handed and polarizing. Republicans have historically doled out major tax breaks to corporations while eschewing regulations in favor of a more hands-off posture. But on Sunday evening in an hourlong speech before the National Conservatism Conference, DeSantis said Republicans' approach and thinking about big business needs to change, arguing that his experiences in Florida provide a "lesson for people on the right." "Corporatism is not the same as free enterprise, and I think too many Republicans have viewed limited government to basically mean whatever is best for corporate America is how we want to do the economy," DeSantis said during his keynote speech before a crowd of friendly attendees at the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort. "And my view is — obviously free enterprise is the best economic system — but that is a means to an end. It's a means to having a good fulfilling life and a prosperous society. It's not an end in and of itself." DeSantis has pushed through numerous contentious policies as governor that netted him national headlines and criticisms from the Biden administration. With the attention has come speculation that he may run for president in 2024. First, however, he has to win reelection in Florida in November. He'll be facing off against former Rep. Charlie Crist, a Democrat who was a Republican governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011. DeSantis' list of actions against corporations is growing DeSantis has taken numerous actions against what he refers to as "woke corporations." Most recently, he pushed the State Board of Administration to ban the consideration of "social, political, or ideological interests" — such as ESG — when it decides what investments to make for the state's pension fund. The governor also revoked Disney World's self-governing status after the company pleaded with the governor to oppose the Parental Rights in Education Act. The bill limits discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation in a way critics say is too vague and will harm LGBTQ students, parents, and teachers. Critics have dubbed the law the "Don't Say Gay" bill. Another law, the "Stop WOKE Act," would limit the way private companies carry out mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Companies that have 15 employees or more could face civil lawsuits if a worker accuses them of violating the law, which says businesses can't implement trainings saying members of a specific ethnic group are inherently racist or that people should feel guilty for actions committed by their predecessors. And soon after former President Donald Trump left office and was booted off social media platforms for his role in the January 6, 2021m violent attack on the Capitol, DeSantis signed a bill into law to prevent tech companies from censoring political candidates. "There's some people that criticize us in Florida because we've taken action to stand up to big tech companies," DeSantis said Sunday evening. "They say you know what, it's private. Let them do what they want to do. First of all, they cannot be viewed as private entities given that we know without a shadow of a doubt they are doing the regime's bidding when it comes to censorship." But not all his plans are working Some of the business laws in Florida are in litigation. The business portion of the "Stop WOKE Act" is being stayed after a judge cited free speech violations. The tech law has been blocked by an appeals court, with Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom writing in the opinion that "the government can't tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it." Other Florida laws have been confusing to navigate. This week, for instance, a Miami school board rejected a measure to observe LGBTQ History month, even though the governor's office said it wouldn't have violated the Parental Rights law. But DeSantis doubled down on his actions during Sunday night's speech and predicted his administration would prevail against legal challenges. He accused "corporate America" of having too much power in America and of "exercising quasi-public power in terms of using their economic power to change policy in this country." "What I'm doing is using government to give space to the individual citizen to be able to participate in society to be able to speak his or her mind," DeSantis said. "And I think that's an absolutely appropriate use of government power. "
Yeah, despite their improving polls, I still think the Democrats are chasing a rainbow colored fantasy about their chances in the 2022 Florida general election. Democrats see realistic path to victories in Florida https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3636350-democrats-find-hope-in-florida/ Democrats are eyeing what they believe is an increasingly realistic path to victory in Florida’s marquee midterm races after months of hesitation over just how aggressively to contest the state this year. The Sunshine State has proven elusive to Democrats in recent years; former President Trump carried it in both 2016 and 2020, Republicans have outpaced Democrats in voter registrations and the party has struggled with mounting losses among Latinos, a key constituency that Democrats once saw as a reliable voting bloc. But recent polling has reignited Democratic interest in Florida, fueling hope among party operatives and officials that they just might be able to oust Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Marco Rubio (R) this year and reassert Florida’s reputation as a swing state. “I don’t want to sound overly optimistic. We still have a lot of work to do,” said one Democratic consultant involved in key races in Florida. “But things are trending in the right direction.” Democrats got their latest boost this week from two new polls that suggest their top candidates may be starting to close the gap with DeSantis and Rubio. One, from Susquehanna Polling and Research, found Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee for governor, trailing DeSantis by a narrow 4-point margin, within the survey’s margin of error. The same poll found Rep. Val Demings, the Democratic Senate nominee, running just 3 points behind Rubio. Another poll, commissioned by the AARP, put the match-ups even closer. DeSantis led Crist by just 3 points, while Rubio held a slim 2-point advantage over Demings, according to the survey, which was conducted by the GOP firm Fabrizio Ward and the Democratic firm Impact Research. The recent bump for Crist and Demings dovetails with the momentum that has lifted Democrats in other key races across the country over the past two months. The Supreme Court’s decision over the summer to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights case, has energized the party’s voters after a prolonged period of relative listlessness and given Democrats an outlet to cast Republicans as overly zealous when it comes to curbing individual liberties. Thomas Kennedy, a Democratic National Committee member from Miami, said that argument may go particularly far in Florida, a state that has long been a refuge for abortion rights in the South. He also pointed to other examples of what Democrats say is DeSantis’s heavy-handed approach to governance: suspending a state attorney who pledged not to prosecute people for violating abortion restrictions, promoting legislation clamping down on protests and pushing a new congressional map that was seen by many as a blatant Republican gerrymander. Meanwhile, Kennedy said, Democrats in Florida have positioned themselves as a force for less intrusive government. “We’re in this weird dynamic where the Democrats here are the ones preaching small government and the right to privacy and for the government not to get involved in our personal lives,” Kennedy said. Of course, the hurdles for Democrats are hard to ignore. DeSantis is deeply popular among Republicans, not just in Florida, but nationally, and has raised more than $130 million so far for his reelection campaign — far more than Crist, who is only a few weeks removed from a bitter primary fight against state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. The poll from Susquehanna Polling and Research that showed DeSantis leading Crist by only a few percentage points also found the governor’s favorability rating well above water. Crist’s favorability, on the other hand, stood in negative territory. And while Demings has repeatedly outraised Rubio, the Republican senator still commands nearly twice as much cash on hand as she does. He also has a history of winning his races by margins often unheard-of in Florida statewide races. In 2016, for instance, he beat Democrat Patrick Murphy by 8 points — a landslide by Sunshine State standards. There are also deeper issues plaguing Democrats in Florida. The state Democratic Party is still clawing its way back from the brink of financial ruin. The number of active voters registered with the GOP surpassed the number registered as Democrats for the first time in the state’s history late last year. And there’s also the historical precedent that the party of a new president — in this case the Democrats — almost always suffer poor performances in midterm election years. In one sign that some Democratic groups are still hesitant to put too much stock in Florida this year, many of the party’s largest donors and outside groups have held off on spending money in the state. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for instance, spent tens of millions of dollars in the state in 2020, but has only given about $1 million to the state Democratic Party this year. Likewise, Priorities USA, the largest Democratic super PAC, hasn’t announced any plans for Florida this year, despite spending heavily in other key battleground states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. “As of this moment, unless there’s huge outside support, we’re not going to see Democrats be able to keep up,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. Still, Democrats say that despite the challenges, Florida remains a key battleground. And as such, they have little choice but to contest it. “Florida suffers from a little bit of a bad reputation these days — and that’s probably well earned,” one national Democratic strategist said. “But we don’t get to pick and choose. It’s the third largest state in the country. We’ve got to compete, and national Democrats have to act like Florida is a swing state, because it definitely is.”
Let's see what is going on with Republicans in authoritarian DeSantisLand... Even by Florida GOP Standards, This Is Lunacy Michael Flynn joined a Proud Boy on the Sarasota Republican Party executive committee—and he’s going to be a poll watcher. https://www.thedailybeast.com/making-michael-flynn-a-sarasota-poll-watcher-is-lunacy A decidedly dangerous normalization of lunacy took the form of a name on a sign-up sheet for poll watchers at a meeting of the Sarasota County Republicans late last week. Michael Flynn. Flynn is nationally known as a retired general who has championed the Big Lie about the 2020 election, at one point urging military action to overturn it. He is also known for having been convicted of lying to the FBI while he was briefly President Trump’s national security advisor and for having subsequently received a presidential pardon. He has ascribed to various ”deep state” conspiracy theories. On Thursday evening, Flynn was one of several dozen new members of the local Republican executive committee elected by voice vote at the Morgan Family Community Center in Northport, Florida. As if that were not scary enough, they also elected James Hoel, a local leader of the Proud Boys. Hoel and fellow Proud Boy Nicholas Radovich were active in the Aug. 23 Sarasota County School Board election that saw a longstanding 3-2 liberal majority become a 4-1 conspiracy minority. Radovich showed up at the victory party in a Proud Boys hat and T-shirt and flashed a white power sign during a group picture. The one re-elected incumbent conservative, Bridget Ziegler, subsequently denounced the Proud Boys as a “menace.” Ziegler was present at the election of the new Republican executive committee members, but neither she nor anybody else was heard to voice an objection to a supposed menace being among them. “It was not discussed at all,” local Republican activist Conni Brunni told The Daily Beast after the meeting. “They were all sworn in.” Brunni described the atmosphere at the meeting as “so awesome.” “The energy in that room was completely electric,” she said. The county GOP leadership apparently did not want to risk a furor such as the one that followed the white power sign flashed in the giddy group photo at last month’s school board victory party. “They wouldn't let us take a picture,” Brunni reported. But several people at the meeting posed for photos with Flynn that were subsequently posted on the Facebook page for Sarasota Watchdogs, which is associated with Hoel and the Proud Boys. “Congratulations to all the new Sarasota Republican Executive Club members!” the Sarasota Watchdog page said. “This is local action at its best! For the first time in a long time, families are involved and excited! Please message us for an application to get involved at the October meeting! Fighting for our freedoms in Florida...we will hold the line! Prayers and love to each of the 50 plus new members.” She said that several people suggested to her that because she helped bring in Flynn and the Proud Boy and so many others, she should challenge the acting Sarasota GOP chair, Jack Brill. “After that night, I think they saw leadership,” Brunni said, confirming a Sarasota Herald-Tribune report that she is seriously considering making the move. According to Brunni, Flynn did not play a role in the school board flip last month. Nor, she said, was he active in the election of three conservatives to the Sarasota County Hospital Board. One of these new “health freedom” board members was Victor Roe, a retired New York City police officer who has called COVID-19 vaccination “a joke” and did not trust highly regarded Sarasota Hospital to treat him after he caught what he termed “bad case” of the virus. As Brunni tells it, Flynn decided to run for the local Republican executive committee at her suggestion. “It was me that convinced him to do it,” she told The Daily Beast. She said that back in March she was making a door-to-door effort to get fellow Republicans on her street more involved when she spoke to one of her newer neighbors, Laurie Flynn. Bruni says the next day, she was in her golf cart, about to pull out of her driveway, when a man approached and introduced himself as Laurie’s husband: ”I’m Mike Flynn.” She said that the very idea that this star of the far right might want to be an executive committee member initially seemed laughable. “This man who was the national security advisor to the president of the United States has nothing better to do?” she remembers thinking. But Flynn was immediately open to the idea when she broached it. He put his name in during a meeting of 45 local Republicans in her living room. Flynn is viewed in more liberal circles as a dangerous threat to democracy, but he is a bona fide celebrity in this set. “Of course, when we were done everyone wanted to talk to him in my kitchen,” she recalled. She was more than happy to have Flynn join the executive committee, and she was also untroubled by the election of a Proud Boy, accepting Hoel’s description of the extremist group as a “frat.” She noted that the party rules set forth only two requirements for executive board members. “I only want to know, ‘Are they Republicans? And are they willing to work?’” she said. At the time of the school board and hospital board elections, Flynn was busy with his national efforts to perpetuate the Big Lie and its attendant conspiracy theories. But when the clipboard was passed around at Thursday night’s meeting, he and his wife both signed up to become poll watchers. “They're very interested in getting, you know, grassroots-involved,” Brunni said. The Sarasota Republican Party did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Flynn also did not respond to a request for comment. The Daily Beast did get a response from the retired general’s brother, Joe Flynn, who sometimes serves as a kind of gatekeeper for him.l. “Fuck off,” Joe Fklynn said in an email.. “Quote me.” Michael Flynn did offer an extensive comment on Steven Bannon’s podcast The War Room on Sept. 10. “As long as I got a breath left in me, I am going to continue to push this message of local action and national impact,” Flynn said. “And now I, now I wanna be able to tell people when they say, when somebody says, well, are you doing, what are you doing specifically? I'm gonna, I am now part of the Republican executive committee for the Sarasota, GOP. And I also am volunteering to be a poll watcher in the upcoming elections, particularly in this county, in the state of Florida.” Thus spoke a man who once called for the military to stage a coup to prevent a legitimate transfer of power as set forth in the Constitution that he has repeatedly sworn to uphold. As kids, we are taught that any American can grow up to become president. We now witness proof that the Republican Party has become such a haven for lunacy that even someone who sought to scuttle a presidential election can become a poll watcher.