MIAMI — President Joe Biden made a last-minute pitch Tuesday to Florida voters to reject the state’s top GOP leaders in the Nov. 8 election and emphasized to donors the state’s ongoing importance in national politics during a jam-packed day trip to South Florida to boost Democrats on the ballot.
Speaking at three separate events, Biden singled out Republican lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis, calling them “extreme” and saying his administration’s accomplishments, access to abortion and democracy itself are at stake if Republicans maintain control in states like Florida and regain power in Washington.
“Seven days until the most important election of our lifetime,” Biden said during an evening rally attended by thousands at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. “You’ve heard me say it before, we’re at an inflection point in history.”
At an afternoon meeting with donors for Charlie Crist in Golden Beach, Biden called the gubernatorial race to unseat DeSantis “one of the most important races in the country.”
“Charlie is running against Donald Trump incarnate,” he told an audience of approximately 70 people, noting that he called Crist at one point and “told him anything I could do to help, I’d be happy to attempt to do that.”
But his visit came late in the game. More than 3 million votes are already cast in Florida’s midterm elections, and polls, fundraising figures and early voter turnout all increasingly point to Republicans like DeSantis heading to victory.
Even some supporters who attended Biden’s Miami Gardens rally for Crist and U.S. Senate candidate Val Demings saw it that way.
Florida “is getting redder and redder,” said Jimmy Traina, a 46-year-old voter from Hollywood. Pointing to new, conservative transplants and South Florida’s right-leaning Hispanic voters, Traina said he believed it was an uphill climb for Democrats this year. And although he was curious to hear Biden’s message at the rally, he was skeptical it would change any minds.
“I would like to be a reporter and find out who are those people who, seven days before, can’t make up their mind,” he said. “Because these are very distinct candidates nowadays. How do you look at those different contrasts and say, ‘I don’t know yet’?”
Also at the rally, Jami Hall, 28, said that she had hopes Democratic candidates will dominate next week. But she also acknowledged the state has felt increasingly more Republican in every election cycle.
“My parents are big DeSantis fans. They live in Michigan and they love him,” said Hall, who recently moved to Florida. “I feel like the Democrats are a much quieter group in Florida for sure. If there’s not less of us, we’re not as loud for sure.”
Crist, though, remained optimistic. “When we win, we will send shock waves across America.”
Demings, a U.S. Rep. from Orlando, followed suit: “Miami Gardens, I feel a victory coming on.”
‘Who the hell do they think they are?’
Biden’s day trip — coming a week before Election Day — is his first campaign stop in the state since he came into office. Two past attempts to stump here for Democrats were canceled at the last minute after being announced by the White House: once when Biden contracted COVID-19 and again when Hurricane Ian threatened to make landfall in the southwest part of the state.
He flew into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where he was greeted by the mayor of Fort Lauderdale and Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and headed to the Oreste Blake Johnson Park Community Center in Hallandale Beach. There, as he has for months, Biden focused on U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s “Rescue America” plan and touted his administration’s efforts to reduce drug prices for seniors.
Scott, the chairman of the Republicans’ U.S. Senate campaign arm, released an 11-point policy plan in February that, among other measures, suggested the roughly 50% of American households that don’t pay income tax should pay at least some, effectively proposing a tax hike.
His plan also called for all federal programs to automatically end after five years unless Congress reauthorizes them, which Democrats and even some Republicans have noted would effectively end Social Security and Medicare without congressional support to keep them alive.
Biden has overstated the extent to which Scott’s plan is endorsed by the GOP. Some Republicans have criticized it, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Scott himself backed away from his income tax proposal in June, saying it had been poorly worded.
Still, Biden’s staff handed out pamphlets highlighting a portion of Scott’s plan.
“The very idea that a senator from Florida wants to cut Social Security, Medicare?” Biden said. “Who the hell do they think they are, excuse my language.”
Scott, as if expecting the attacks, preemptively released a political ad on Monday calling on Biden to resign and falsely claiming that Democrats cut $280 billion from Medicare. That figure is a manipulated reference to anticipated cost savings following a new policy allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.
Biden also touted his efforts under the Inflation Reduction Act to lower the cost of prescription medicine and access to additional free vaccines for seniors. He talked about Republicans who voted against the Inflation Reduction Act and the portion of the law that forces pharmaceutical companies to cap drug prices. He singled out U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Scott in particular.
“These programs do something so basic but so important,” Biden said. “Think about what it does to your sense of security, what it does to your sense of dignity.”
Later, Biden attended a private reception for Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida, in the tiny town of Golden Beach. He ended the day at Florida Memorial University with Crist and Demings.
Republicans front-running
Looming over Biden’s message, however, is the growing evidence that voter enthusiasm in Florida is not on Democrats’ side. With a popular governor stumping for other Republicans across the country, the Florida GOP has increased its voter registration edge over Democrats for the first time in state history.
Some pollsters believe DeSantis could be on track to win Miami-Dade County, last won by a Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2002. DeSantis held a campaign rally in Pensacola that began shortly before Biden began his remarks in Hallandale Beach.
Polls, meanwhile, suggest Floridians are more likely to be dissatisfied with Biden than pleased with his job.
“I think we should all thank him for coming to Florida because less than one week before the election, he’s reminding every voter in the state of Florida just how poor his policies have been,” DeSantis said of Biden during a Tuesday campaign stop in the Florida Panhandle. “He’s reminding every voter that these Democrats are with Joe Biden 100% of the time. That’s not what we want in the state of Florida. And if you look on issue after issue in Florida, we’ve gotten it right and Biden has gotten it wrong.”
A spokeswoman for Rubio struck a similar tone in a statement released ahead of Biden’s visit. “Congresswoman Val Demings is welcoming the failing leader of her party, Joe Biden, to Florida today to celebrate what they’ve delivered for the American people: record inflation, dangerous crime, and a wide-open border.”
According to the state Division of Elections, about 1.3 million Republicans have voted so far, compared to 1.2 million Democrats and 572,000 voters who are independent or affiliated with minor parties. In 2018, when Democrats narrowly lost races for governor and U.S. Senate, Democratic voters turned out in slightly higher numbers than Republicans prior to Election Day. Over 1 million Democrats who have requested a vote-by-mail ballot have yet to return one.
During the event with donors in Golden Beach, Biden stressed Florida was important for Democrats and democracy at the national and international level. Some national donors have dropped operations or interest in Florida elections, with Crist’s own funds lagging against DeSantis.
Recalling a meeting with France’s Emmanuel Macron and the U.K.’s Boris Johnson, Biden said he told the leaders “America is back,” and they responded by asking, “How long?”
“The rest of the world is looking at us, Charlie. They’re looking at us,” Biden said facing Crist. “It is really important that a state the size of Florida… comes down on the right side of history.”
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(McClatchy D.C. staff writers Alex Roarty and Michael Wilner contributed to this story.)
