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Between manicured lawns and pristine white sands, Florida's Siesta Key is an oasis by the sea. The rich city has golf courses, country clubs and its own reality TV show about the sunny life of some of its glamorous residents in their twenties.
For Democrats, however, the region has long been more of an electoral land than a paradise. Sarasota County voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and has not elected a Democrat to its county commission for more than five decades.
In a normal election cycle, a progressive democrat trying to win the governorship of Florida would largely dismiss his campaign and focus on less politicized parts of the state. But very little about this year's election cycle in America is normal.
A bitter October day, a few hundred residents of the region sailed into the heat to see Andrew Gillum, a rising Democratic star who ran a surprisingly competitive race for the governor against his Republican counterpart, Ron DeSantis .
Although the official announcement of the event was only announced the night before, the small pavilion was filled with people, mostly white pensioners, who had come prepared with their own folding chairs or had just wandered from the house. beach in flip flops.
Around 1 pm, Gillum went through the crowd. A middle-aged woman with bright red hair grabbed her to shake his hand, but Gillum picked her up and pulled her for a bear hug. "Wonderful!" She proclaimed. He wore his country outfit – a white polo shirt, navy blue pants, leather sneakers.
A local party organizer handed him a cap of the Sarasota Democrats, and Gillum – unaware of Michael Dukakis' political diktat – was uncomfortable, sometimes squeezing it in his hands like a little grapefruit to soften the edge.
"I love it! I love it!" He said. "You must all tell you that I'm blown away by your benefit today."
Their presence, he continued, was proof of a movement. He recalled that he had recently visited The Villages, a community of 95% -white Florida-rich retirees, where Trump had won nearly 70% of the vote in 2016. "Some 39, between you know the existence of The Villages "began, hammering it. "It's the area of the most conservative vote of our state. And people ask me, "Gillum, what are you Make in the villages? "I said," There are voters in the villages. . . You win by winning one more vote than your opponent.
This race for the Florida's governance promises to be one of the decisive contests of 2018, as Americans prepare to vote in mid-term next month. It sums up some of the most extreme ideological divisions that are going on in the United States today: between the liberal left and the conservative right; between pro-Trump, anti-migrant, "America First" and a progressive wing of the Democratic Party. This also raises questions as to whether playing at these extremes could prove a more effective campaign strategy than tackling the usual ground of understanding.
The two men are young – Gillum is 39, DeSantis 40 – and represents a new generation of leaders for both parties. For Democrats, a working-class African-American became mayor of Tallahassee. For Republicans, a Harvard and Yale-trained Navy prosecutor and Navy congressman climbed after being named a devoted Trump sidekick and his policy.
After seeing DeSantis on Fox News, Trump called him a "bright young leader" on Twitter (he had previously named him as one of his "absolute warriors" after DeSantis challenged him several times the Mueller probe).
Gillum, meanwhile, is a true progressive endorsed by Bernie Sanders, patron saint of this movement. His policy places him squarely outside the moderate wing of the Democratic Party: he not only advocates Medicare for all, but also supports the abolition of ICE – the law enforcement arm of the government. Immigration – in its current form, what most Democrats have fled.
He also called for the removal of Trump. If he wins – and an average of RealClearPolitics polls makes him advance by 3.7 points – he would become the first black governor of Florida, possibly the same state that helped Trump win the presidency two years ago. .
The race is a precursor to the 2020 presidential election, when Trump is expected to face a progressive Democratic nominee. It will also be a test of the strength of the Florida president's support and his ability to win the state again. According to online survey company Morning Consult, Trump's approval rating is barely above water. Forty-nine percent of Floridians approve of the work they do and 47% disapprove.
Florida is home to more than 13 million voters and in many ways is a microcosm for the rest of the country. It's one of the few regions in the United States to be able to decide presidential elections and its demographic changes represent a changing America. Every day, more than 900 people settle in the state, some of whom are prosperous republican retirees, others young people and families of diverse origins. Most people under 30 in this state are not white.
The mid-term next month will determine whether millennial voters, who are generally at a much lower rate than those over 60, will do so in greater numbers for both these elections and for 2020. .
The governor's contest could also influence the state's Senate race, where Bill Nelson, a long-time Democratic senator, faces Republican Florida governor Rick Scott. If Gillum wins, it could potentially strengthen Nelson's campaign, especially among young voters. Nelson, who is 76 years old, is one of many vulnerable Democratic senators struggling to maintain their seat, increasing the chances for Republicans to strengthen their majority in the Senate (51-49).
Gillum was not even supposed to win the nomination of his party. But he was also unlikely to become Mayor of Tallahassee when he registered in 2013. He grew up in a low-income family on the outskirts of Miami, with a mother who was driving a school bus and a father who worked in construction. and sometimes sold fruits and vegetables to get out of it. He was the fifth of seven children and, as a teenager, two of his older brothers had been arrested – one for robbery, the other for possession of cocaine.
Gillum has traced a different course. An avid reader, who has built close ties with his grandmother and shared his appreciation for the neighborhood gospel church, Gillum has excelled in public (state) schools. After the family moved north to Gainesville, he became the first of his siblings to graduate from high school.
He then attended Florida's A & M University, a historically black university, and quickly forged his political career as a Democratic activist. Gillum likes to say that he is proof of what a good American public education can do. "I know what it means to see intergenerational poverty interrupted by good public education," he told his supporters in Sarasota.
For the duration of This year's primary, Gillum was behind three more well-known Democrats, including Gwen Graham, daughter of former beloved governor Bob Graham, and flag bearer of the Democratic establishment. Graham had to win until the evening of the vote, when Gillum managed one of the biggest setbacks of the US primary season, beating her by more than three percentage points and siding unawares, both in the state and across the country.
Joe Gruters, president of the Sarasota GOP and co-chair of Trump's 2016 victorious campaign in Florida, says the mayor has turned out to be a formidable opponent. "Gillum is an excellent candidate. He is an articulate guy. He spoke very well. . . People want a better future. Why did Donald Trump win? Because he wants "Make America Great Again". If Gillum wins, it will not be because of his socialist policy, but because he is a better activist. "
Yet many Democrats still seem skeptical about Gillum's chances. A Democratic strategist in Tallahassee said that although most of the establishment's people lined up behind him, many said their victory was private. "I think most people would tell you that Gwen Graham would have gained 10 points now," laments, before speculating that if DeSantis' more moderate main opponent, Adam Putnam, had won, he would win. also 10 points, both Gillum and DeSantis are alienated. broadband the state of moderate voters.
"Florida is generally chosen by independents and moderates. Where the hell are they going? I have a lot of Republican friends who were planning to vote for Gwen when it seemed that DeSantis would win, and the day after the primary, they said, "What are we going to do? make?"
The Gillum team knows that it needs a high enough participation rate among youth and minorities to counterbalance the strong Republican support for Trump. She also hopes to recruit freelancers in places such as Sarasota. Already, the campaign seems to have succeeded in registering new voters.
At a rally in Kissimmee, I meet Luz McNealy, a 53-year-old grandmother who left Pennsylvania for Florida nine years ago. She had long been interested in politics, but she said, "I did not know how to involve myself." The Gillum campaign found her, she said, sending her a text message on her husband's phone. Since then, she has been attending events for him.
When I talk to Gillum, he sets out an ambitious plan to win the state, a plan that involves rallying support for Democratic strongholds alongside Republican-held venues such as The Villages. "I engaged with people the night that I won the nomination, that I was going to try to go everywhere and talk to everyone, that we do not have to do it. let's not limit ourselves to the way the Democrats organized races across the state before – basically camping in three counties and praying for us to have enough votes in other parts of the state to win. " he says.
Gillum is not restrained in his criticism of Trump. But he also takes the trouble not to mention it too often. "I'm trying to focus more on my state projects. I do not want . . For Florida voters to think that I'm so worried about Washington, I do not think about them anymore, "he says.
Democrats welcome the 2018 special election, which occupies a vacant seat in the Florida House of Representatives. In the race, Margaret Good beat her Republican opponent by 7.5 points in the Siesta Key district, won by Trump in 2016 and has 12,000 more Republicans registered than the Democrats. "It was not just a very nice win. We also recorded the highest voter turnout in the history of modern Florida special elections, "Good told me at a meeting in his law firm. "Many people said I did not think it was a district that you could win."
Yet the race for the governorship was ugly. Shortly after winning the Republican nomination, DeSantis appeared on cable television and warned Floridians not to "bump" and elect Gillum to the governorship – a fact that Democrats have immediately referred to as a "racist whistle" that echoed Trump's comments, often of a racist nature. . DeSantis said the comment had "nothing to do with race".
Meanwhile, Gillum is plagued by his own controversy: an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption in Tallahassee. Gillum says that he did nothing wrong and that he was told that he was not being investigated. The investigation, however, raised questions about his relationship with a former campaign treasurer who became a lobbyist. Some Democrats fear that the FBI's investigation may cause Mr. Gillum, a neophyte of relative political class, to fear being surrounded by the wrong people.
The rhetoric more and more hostile The campaign is emblematic of the polarized atmosphere across the country. At the Sarasota rally, several participants told me that they felt more and more at odds with their more conservative neighbors. "I had to be very quiet when I got here," says Faith McVey, a former teacher who left Delaware to settle in Florida and who is dressed for the beach with a white camisole, sunglasses to lavender and a bright pink manicure. She can no longer talk politics about her brother, wife, or most of her neighbors. "It's totally taboo," she says.
Barbara Luehring, another retiree, told me that she was afraid to affix a Democratic sign because she thought she might lose the services of the subcontractor of Trump, who helps him repair his air conditioning. "I need to shut up," she says.
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"Previously, you could have an honest and calm debate, exchange points of view and express your disagreement," says David Jones, the white-haired bear of a man who has just moved to Sarasota from Toledo, Ohio. Speaking of a national subject such as the Kavanaugh audiences with members of his essentially Republican nautical club, he gradually realized that it was better to shut his mouth.
Meanwhile, Jones felt the Washington winds pushed him further and further to the left. "I was probably more of a Hillary man than a Bernie man," he recalls. But his anti-Trump sentiments had begun to convince him that the progressives were better placed to assume the administration.
The same feelings of partisan discord echo on the Republican side. At a rally for DeSantis, Mike Dinwiddie, an African-American driver from Uber and Lyft, told me that he had been attacked by the Liberals for supporting Donald Trump. "I went to the Trump Rallies. . . I have never seen racism or fanaticism. But I've seen sectarian racist liberals target me, "he says. "Look how Kanye [West] has been treated, "he says, referring to the rapper who had to face a violent reaction for supporting Trump.
Rosie Paulsen, vice president of Hispanic Conservative in Action, said she felt a similar trend in the Florida Hispanic community. "By the time people come here, they are completely indoctrinated by the Spanish media, where there is only one side of the story," she says. "The Spanish media is the property of the Liberal program and they are totally indoctrinated."
Paulsen, who arrived in the United States after leaving Ecuador to come to the United States, says he has been very successful in registering conservative Latino voters in the mega-churches of Florida. She admits that some critics might be shocked by some of Trump's rhetoric about some Latin American groups, but she and others see beyond that. "He loves his country," she adds, and her Conservative program has been a great recruiting tool. "There were many more people who realized that they were actually Trump supporters because they could not keep quiet anymore."
Gruters, the Sarasota GOP president, said that if DeSantis wins, it would be because of Trump's deep underlying support for Florida. "The more the president is attacked by outside groups and outside factors, the more people dig the hole next to him and [are] willing to follow him across the galaxy to do whatever is necessary to succeed. "
Two days after seeing Gillum in Sarasota, I headed north to see his opponent DeSantis at a lunch at the Italian club Tampa. A performer plays Frank Sinatra's ballads and the smell of meatballs floats in the air. At the moment the crowd worries, DeSantis emerges in front of a scarlet velvet curtain with his wife, a former glamorous newspaper presenter.
On the stage, DeSantis – who has the trim and stiff style of an American hero of political action – is a bit of wood. (For his defense, he fights a cold.) But the crowd, lined up in the "Make America Great Again" paraphernalia, does not seem to be doing it. "I am proud to be the only candidate who is a veteran of our armed forces," he begins. "I am proud to be the only candidate who will say bluntly that I am for free enterprise. And I'm the only candidate who can credibly claim that I'm not under FBI investigation, "he says with loud acclaim.
Echoing Trump, he attacks Democrats and the media: "Understand that there is no difference between these national media elites and the Democratic Party. They are attached to the hip. They are doing the same thing and they are macabre merchants who degrade our public discourse more than I have ever seen! "
Then, with DeSantis still in his suit and his cowboy boots, we sit down to talk in a corner of a nearby restaurant. The candidate says his support for the president is partly a reaction to the unjust reception that Trump would have received from the political elite, he said.
"He was elected and what I saw is Washington's official revolt against him. The press hates him. All interests rooted in DC hate him. K Street [political lobbyists] the hate. Obviously, the Democrats hated him. The republican establishment hated him. . . "He says," Then I was like, you know what? I want him to succeed. I'm going to support him with all the shit he's got to take. "That does not mean I'm d & # 39; Agree on everything. "
He can identify with this kind of hostile reception. He grew up in Florida with "blue-collar roots" and made his way through Yale and Harvard Law School, two institutions that never really felt at home. "I was a blue-collar child. I worked [for] six dollars the hour before the previous summer. I was a total hay, "he recalls.
DeSantis says that he knew that Trump's support would help him win the Republican primary. "Our constituents care about what the president thinks. I mean, they really care. He thinks it will also help him in general elections. "The economy is even stronger than it was. . . We attract a lot of people, a lot of money, a lot of business in the state. . . Go on this wild tangent and try to imitate Illinois or California [in their liberal policies] I think it would be a huge mistake and I think most Florida voters will eventually come to that side as well. "
Gillum's victory over the The other Democrat candidates of the month of August were one of the biggest coups d'etat of this election cycle for the Bernie Sanders party wing. They are perhaps even more significant than the first successful challenge of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, of Joe Crowley, one of the highest ranking House members. Democrats, New York.
Ocasio-Cortez was competing in a leftist democratic district. While Gillum had the main support of billionaires Tom Steyer and George Soros, he was finally outclassed by his opponents. His victory is largely due to a microcosm of the broader democratic base: a mixture of moderate-mostly-older white voters-and a new coalition that Barack Obama has helped to consolidate, largely motivated by minorities and voters under 35 years of age.
"What you're really witnessing in Florida – and we're spearheading the country – is that the baby boom generation has now been replaced by this younger generation dynamic. That's what Gillum understood early on, "said Susan MacManus, one of the state's most prominent political scientists and retired professor at the University of South Florida.
The importance of youth demographics is particularly apparent in a Republican-oriented region such as Sarasota. "Sarasota was one of the most solidly Republican counties in the state and that has changed," says MacManus – in part, she says, because of the influx of young voters and because of growing concern over an environmental phenomenon called the "red tide". ".
Exacerbated by naturally occurring algae, this toxic overgrowth can be deadly to wildlife such as turtles, birds and fish, and can cause eye, throat and skin irritation in children. 39; man. Although the red tide has been a sporadic problem in Florida for decades, the recent outbreak is the worst of all decades and has been an economic disaster for the affected tourist areas. Scientists say the phenomenon has been exacerbated by pollution caused by humans.
The Democrats blamed Rick Scott, a Republican governor and future senator, for calling it "Red Tide Rick," a nickname that has been surprisingly effective. The problem has become so serious that both parties are now making the environment the focus of their campaigns.
"I'm not a left-wing fan: do not get me wrong," DeSantis told the crowd at his rally in Tampa, before touting the economic and quality of life virtues of air and air. 39, pure water. "All of these things flow from a nice environment," says the Republican. "So, we want to make sure we do everything we can to keep this going."
In Sarasota, I meet Wesley Beggs, a 26-year-old media marketing associate and Democrat, presidential candidate for the Sarasota County Commission. While there are 37,500 more Republicans than Democrats in the district and one Democrat has not headed the city commission since 1966, Beggs persists, posting campaign signs at night and gathering the support of long-time Republicans, including fishermen tired of managing the red tide and seaweed crises.
It mainly tries to stay away from the national political debate. "People really want to superpose Kavanaugh or whatever the taste of the week at the national level. But really it is not applicable.
Later, I find two friends of Beggs who help him in his campaign. "From one to Ocasio-Cortez in Alexandria, how much am I millennial if I order toast to the lawyer?" Liz Sockol jokingly grabbing her menu. She and Garrett Murto both say that they are newly involved in democratic politics. "I am not a national democrat. I am a Democratic State of Florida, "says Murto, claiming that he was more attracted to the party because of progressive local candidates such as Beggs and Gillum, as opposed to what the party does – or does not do – in Washington.
"I think I used to feel a lack of motivation to get involved," says Sockol. "I think it was easy to play the intermediate role: I do not like any of the parties and I do not agree with what is happening on each side." Now that has changed, she says.
In early October, both Gillum and Bill Nelson, Democratic candidate for the Florida Senate, have been approved by the governor of Puerto Rico – a huge advantage considering the battle for the vote of the one million Puerto Ricans living in that state, including thousands of people who have moved here after the hurricane last year. Maria
The event took place in a kissimmee windowless community center with drab green walls, but the indoor mood was festive, with a quartet of bomba musicians. "Florida is growing and I think people are bringing forward their progressive ideas," said Gail Miller, an African-American retiree dressed in cashmere leggings and a periwinkle t-shirt, as we waited for Gillum. . Miller left Michigan for Florida seven years ago.
On stage, Governor Ricardo Rosselló recounted how a mutual friend had suggested he meet Gillum, saying that he had algo especial – something special. But nothing has prepared him to meet him in person. "It was as if the energy was flying all over the room." While in the beginning, Rosselló said he had dismissed Gillum's chances in 2018, saying he was more of a future leader of the Democratic Party than the current party, this has changed in the last weeks of the primary.
"I saw that momentum and that energy and I sort of saw how his message was conveyed, and how much it instilled hope and enthusiasm for people and then, of course, it happened. . . We asked Mayor Gillum to be the official Democrat candidate, "said Rosselló, prompting public encouragement.
Other Democrats may be concerned that Gillum has not moved enough to the center, but the mayor and his supporters argue the opposite. In fact, they say that not attacking the center has always been their winning strategy.
"It's funny, I think people forget politics a lot," says Tom Steyer, the billionaire democrat donor. "If you look across the country, there are a lot of people trying to figure out how to play in the center of the fairway instead of saying what they believe to be the truth."
Steyer said it was unusual to support a Democratic candidate at a primary – not to mention a candidate who was hanging in fourth place. But he says he and the others were impressed by Gillum's "strength" to stay true to his views. "He took the NRA by force. It was simple about education. On health care. On pollution. He approves the dismissal of the president. He has been very clear on environmental justice and the reform of the criminal justice system. I mean, it's someone who, in my opinion, was very simple. And I think people are dying for that.
When I ask Gillum about it, he echoes the remark. "Yes [independents and Republicans] will be influenced by me, it will not be because I am milquetoast in what I believe. And it's an argument that we have advanced during the primary, "he says. "We are not going to win these voters by trying to run the Republican Party. . . What we are trying to do here is to give a vision big enough that they can see each other. "
En définitive, toutefois, cette course sera probablement déterminée par un troisième candidat: un candidat qui n’est même pas inscrit sur le bulletin de vote. Comme le dit le président du GOP Sarasota, Gruters: «La politique a été bouleversée. . . Tout est déterminé par votre soutien à Trump ou par votre opposition. Et presque rien d’autre ne compte si vous êtes candidat. "
«En politique auparavant, vous pouviez faire appel au bon sens de quelqu'un. Si vous saviez qu'ils étaient intéressés par l'éducation, vous pouvez dire «je suis le chef de la campagne anti-tronc commun», ou «je suis le chef des écoles à charte» ou «je veux payer les enseignants 50 000 $ de plus par an '. . . Maintenant ce n’est plus rien. La question est: soutenez-vous le président ou ne soutenez-vous pas le président? "
Courtney Weaver est la correspondante politique du FT aux Etats-Unis.
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