Battleground Florida: Both parties prepare for 2020 fight

[DonViejo]

By ZEKE MILLER

28 minutes ago

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s early strength in Florida on the night of the 2016 election was the first sign that he was about to score an upset victory. In an otherwise bleak 2018 for the GOP, the state was again a bright spot for Republicans who won the governor’s mansion and flipped a Senate seat. But as another campaign heats up, Democrats aren’t ceding the Sunshine State.

Though the state has trended, by the narrowest of margins, toward Republicans in recent elections, both parties are mobilizing for a fierce and expensive battle in Florida.

Democratic candidates, including early front-runner Joe Biden, have visited the state to tap donors and connect with voters, and will come to Miami later this month for their first round of debates.

Trump returns on Tuesday for his latest reelection announcement. In anticipation, a Democratic super political action committee, Priorities USA, is beginning a six-figure digital advertising effort to “help cut through his noise and give voters a look at the truth about Trump’s policies.”

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https://apnews.com/37f7d5a965be44fd832c703932d868f2

[zipplewrath]

1. Everyone is dreading his visit

The local news has been talking about the potential dread his visit is going to bring on Orlando. He's speaking at the basketball arena downtown. It is situated right next to I-4 and a major toll road intersection. And the event is over the rush hour. Significant street closures are happening. I-4 is under major reconstruction and is already a mess. And the event is going to bring people to downtown that don't know the area, don't know where to park, and basically won't know where they're going. And many GPS mapping apps won't be up to date enough to help very well. And when his motorcade arrives, it will probably cause a major "rolling road block" that will shut down many of the roads and highways in the area. I still haven't figured out how to get home.

[lark]

2. Good luck with that.

Can you take off the day and stay home out of the madness? Orlando traffic is already a complete horror show, I can't even imagine how bad it will be on Thurs. Yo, and the other good people of and near Orlando have my sympathies.

[zipplewrath]

3. And Pence

It's going to be doubly worse because Pence is coming too. I suspect that at one moment or another all traffic in the immediate area will be stopped so that no trucks are going under or over a road that they will be on. Something tells me there will be more than one helicopter in the air as well.

[DarthDem]

4. Oh, For Heaven's Sake, Just Stop With the Florida

We get it, Dem pres candidates. They have to win it, and we don't.

But unless a campaign can provide sworn affidavits proving that the resources they are spending in Florida, down to the dime, are surplus funds that are not depriving other regions of needed attention, let. It. Go. The state *just* rejected a good Democratic gubernatorial choice in favor of a real jerk, and flushed an incumbent D senator for Voldemort, sending said entity to join the almost impossibly inept and unctuous Marco Rubio. There is nooooo reason to think that 2020 will be any different, the state is unreasonably expensive in which to advertise, and no one seems to able to poll it correctly. Want to toss money at a hail Mary? Go for the less expensive state with a creepy, overreaching Republican legislature and an actual Democratic governor (as well as a very vulnerable R Senate incumbent): North Carolina. Leave Florida be until its electorate proves that it's persuadable.

Sorry to all the great FL Dems who post here. But I'm sick of burning money and time down there only to lose again and again and again. Had Hillary camped out in WI, PA and MI instead of trying to compete in Florida to absolutely no avail, she'd be president.