FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — In the final stretch of the midterm election campaign, Florida Democrats are pushing, cajoling and pleading with Black voters to turn out and cast their ballots.
Candidates and their surrogates are campaigning in African American and Caribbean American communities throughout the state, hoping to capture attention and excitement. Without a robust turnout of Black voters, Democrats have no path to victory.
“I understand that there’s this bit of apathy in our community when people may feel, ‘How does this impact me? How does this impact my day-to-day life?’” William Murphy, an Atlanta pastor and recording artist, told a couple of dozen voters and activists Friday in Fort Lauderdale, imploring them to do everything they can to convince people voting is important.
Black voters have the ability, Murphy said, to decide on the people who make critical decisions affecting them.
“We get to decide who gets to decide, and that’s the authority that we have to take back,” he said. “When you get pulled over on the side of the road, and they pull your kid out of this car, who gets to decide who gets to decide whether your kid goes home that night.
“I say you have the influence right within the palm of your hands. You get on Facebook, you get on Instagram, you get on whatever.”
Then, he told the small group gathered at Smitty’s Wings on Sistrunk Boulevard, the historic main street of the Black Community in Fort Lauderdale, they need to load people in their car and take them to early voting.
Murphy was appearing on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Val Demings, currently an Orlando congresswoman and the city’s former police chief. “I say we honor God. I say we honor our ancestors by making Val Demings,” Murphy said.
Widespread efforts
Demings, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., campaigned Friday at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, one of the state’s historically Black colleges and universities.
Also on Friday, the Demings campaign released an ad in which former President Barack Obama urged Floridians to “vote for my friend Val Demings.”
On Thursday, actor Lamman Rucker held Brothers for Demings events at a West Palm Beach restaurant and at barbershops in Riviera Beach and Pembroke Pines.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist appeared at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center — also on Sistrunk Boulevard and an early voting center used by many Black voters — on Friday for a news conference on abortion rights, less than three weeks after another news conference at the same place on the same subject.
“Women’s reproductive freedoms are on the ballot,” Crist said. “It’s 2022 but (Gov. Ron) DeSantis wants to take us back to 1952. ... I trust women, and women can trust me.”
The biggest push comes Tuesday, when Crist and Demings are scheduled to appear at a rally headlined by President Joe Biden at Florida Memorial University, HBCU in Miami Gardens for a “get out the vote” rally one week before midterm Election Day.
Another prominent entertainer, actor and comedian Keegan-Michael Key, also is appearing at the Biden-Crist-Demings rally.
A round of Souls to the Polls events take place Sunday, and more Souls events are set for Nov. 6, the last day of early voting two days before Election Day. The last Sunday of in-person early voting has become a big election day for Black voters in Florida.
Efforts to spur turnout started in past elections with pastors at Black churches encouraging parishioners to go directly from Sunday services to early voting sites.
The idea has since evolved to a broader effort by politicians, clergy and celebrities to attract attention and make a broader audience realize it needs to vote.
Community newspapers serving Black communities are getting advertising.
Important voting bloc
Just how important are Black voters to Democratic hopes for victory?
In Broward County, 79.8% of the Black registered voters are Democrats, 2.8% Republican and 16.6% no party affiliation/independents, and 0.8% registered in minor parties.
In Miami Gardens, another focal point for Democrats’ efforts, 69% of the registered voters are Black. And 83% of the Black voters are Democrats.
A University of North Florida poll released Wednesday found Rubio leading Demings 54% to 43%.
Among white voters, it was 64% for Rubio and 34% for Demings and tied at 49% among Hispanic voters.
Among Black voters, it was 11% for Rubio and 80% for Demings.
In the contest between Crist and Republican DeSantis, the results were similar, with heavy support from African American voters for the Democrat.
That support means nothing if it doesn’t translate into votes, which is why the Democratic Party engages in election season outreach to African American and Caribbean American voters — sometimes prompting complaints that voters only hear from politicians and activists during election season, but not the rest of the time.
Republican efforts
Former President Donald Trump received an estimated 10% of the vote from Black voters in Florida when he ran for reelection in 2020, according to exit polls conducted for a consortium of national news organizations. That’s an improvement from the 8% he received in 2016.
DeSantis has angered many Black Democratic elected officials and activists, but he’s done things that could appeal to voters, including his appointment of Renatha Francis, a Jamaican-born circuit court judge from Palm Beach County to the Florida Supreme Court.
His campaign also extensively aired a TV ad featuring Kiyan Michael, a past member of the advisory board of Black Voices for Trump and current Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives in northeast Florida, delivering an emotional pitch for DeSantis.
