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ORLANDO – Salandra Benton was campaigning so hard for Barack Obama that her feet swelled as she walked through nightclubs, hair salons, apartment buildings and church parking lots to tell them that They had to vote.
After Obama won Florida in 2008 and 2012, Benton hoped to pull out of the door-to-door campaign. But Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum shocked Florida last month by winning the Democratic nomination for governorship, with the potential to become the state's first African-American general manager.
Now, Benton has been brought back into Florida's political fight on behalf of Gillum, who will face former Republican candidate Ron DeSantis in the November 6 elections.
"I think it's even bigger than Obama, because it's even closer to home," said Denton, 54, an African-American labor organizer. "Obama's enthusiasm was" We will finally have a black president. " But now it's the son of Florida, in a state where we think black men have been attacked and unprotected, so we wake up. "
Benton's passion this year reflects a potentially disturbing sign for Florida Republicans, with both parties beginning to invest resources in the state, for one of the country's most-watched governor races and a competitive contest between the senator Bill Nelson (D) and Gov. Rick Scott (R).
Just a few weeks ago, the Republicans were confident they could sweep the two races by building on Donald Trump's 113,000 win over Hillary Clinton in Florida in the 2016 presidential competition.
But Democrats hope Gillum's August 28th win will give them a chance to rebuild the coalition that has twice led Obama to victory in Florida. They will have to do this however, with only a few weeks between Gillum's surprise win and the start of early voting next month.
The Obama coalition was founded on African-American and Latino voters, who together make up 30% of Florida's electorate, as well as young voters, white Democrats and independents, many of whom are irregular voters.
This is the same formula that most successful Democratic candidates must meet in Florida, a state that is growing and diversifying rapidly. But Republicans have always proven that their supporters – older and whiter than the state as a whole – are more motivated to vote, which has contributed to the party's takeover of power for nearly two decades.
"The art of this strategy is to make sure no elector is left behind," said Kevin Cate, consultant for the Gillum campaign, who was also a veteran of the 2008 Florida campaign. "We will be able to compete with previous state winners in this state, which were rare."
Cate and other Gillum advisers have tried to reduce direct comparisons between their strategy and Obama's. Florida, they note, has added nearly 1,000 new residents a day, so the electorate has changed a lot since Obama's past races.
Florida governor candidate Andrew Gillum welcomes supporters in Tallahassee, Florida, last month. (Joe Rondone / AP)
The Democratic Party also moved to the left. Young supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Are a key part of Gillum's coalition. Many say that Obama was too shy to put pressure on Gillum for issues such as single payer health care and legalized marijuana.
Gillum also hopes that he will be able to do better among white voters than Obama in 2012, when he garnered 37 percent of the white vote, according to polls. The school that fired last year in Parkland, Fla., And concern about the ongoing "red tide" on beaches in the west of the state could loosen the Florida Republicans' grip on white voters.
"There is a swing-swing population, mostly white suburban women in Tampa and Orlando, and I absolutely believe that Gillum can do well with these voters," said Steve Schale, Florida's political strategist.
However, increasing the participation of minorities is a crucial element of any successful democratic campaign, and this remains the biggest challenge for a campaign that, six weeks ago, still had fewer than a dozen employees.
In the last run of the Florida governor, in 2014, only 41.5% of the 1.8 million registered black residents in Florida It turned out to be voting, according to Daniel A. Smith, chair of the department of political science at the University of Florida.
According to Smith, among registered voters, 73% of white Floridians voted in 2016, compared to 65% of African-American voters. Nearly 70,000 African Americans aged 21 to 24 were registered to vote but did not vote in 2016 – a figure that accounts for nearly two-thirds of Trump's margin of victory, Smith said.
In Florida talks, African-American leaders and activists say that for the first time since the Obama 2012 elections, they do not particularly fear the lack of enthusiasm of black voters for the demise of the Democratic ticket.
Even before Gillum's first victory, Florida activists said that the black community of the state was more energetic than in the mid-term elections, due to many local and national issues, including President Trump's fight against the players right gun ground.
"I think people are more aware of the consequences of these races, and they are not going to deal with these consequences," said Lydia Hudson, a Tampa resident and leader of the Democratic Black Caucus of Florida. Black participation in Gillum during primary school compared to primary elections prior to the year.
In the general elections, activists say the voter turnout in Africa could be further boosted by a Florida ballot measure that would give some criminals back votes.
Smith said the "big question" is whether Gillum can convince Latino voters, who make up about a quarter of Florida's population.
The Latin American population of Florida is diverse and includes Cubans of South American descent and Democrats from South America and the Caribbean, including a growing Puerto Rican population in central Florida. Republicans have targeted Puerto Rican residents this year and their Senate nominee, Scott, has proved popular among Hispanics.
For the Democrats, these voters proved to be unreliable in the elections of the year.
According to Smith, the turnout rate among Latinos in Florida rose from 64% in the 2012 presidential election to 31% in the mid-term elections in 2014.
Florida Republicans also hope to reduce Gillum's support for Latinos by calling it a "socialist" – an attack that has been debunked by independent auditors but that the GOP still hopes to stay with voters who see their legacy as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries with a history of socialist-oriented governments.
In recent days, DeSantis, Scott and Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Have all accused Gillum of supporting socialist politics, citing his support for universal health care.
DeSantis chose Florida's state representative, Jeanette Nuñez, a popular Miami-based American, to try to bolster her support for Southern Democracy.
"DeSantis needs to get 40% of the votes in Miami-Dade, so he must hammer the message that Gillum's policy has not worked in other parts of the world that we have fled" said Nelson Diaz, an American of Cuban descent. Republican Committee of Miami-Dade. "Gillum is far, far left, and is already resonating in the Hispanic community."
However, even though DeSantis outperforms the other new South Florida member states, Democrats hope to increase minority participation along the Interstate 4 corridor in central Florida, considered the state's leading region. .
Stephanie Porta, executive director of Organize Florida, said that 30 Allied groups will join tens of thousands of black and Hispanic voters in 17 counties in central Florida before election day. Since Gillum won the primary, said Porta, the number of volunteers who came to the campaign has increased five-fold.
At the statewide, the coalition plans to spend $ 10 million to reach 1.25 million black and Hispanic voters, said Josh Geise, director of Florida Votes for the United States. America, which coordinates efforts between groups.
"I can tell you that every district in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties, accessible to voters' voters, is working," said Porta, referring to the main counties in the US market. Orlando media. "I have lived here all my life and I have never – and it gives me shivers to say it – to feel so much energy around a candidate, even Obama."
But political strategists remain divided over whether Gillum's targeting of irregular voters will succeed.
Alex Patton, a Republican strategist in Florida, is skeptical that Gillum has the time or money to put together an Obama-type operation. And in this period of high-spiritedness, Patton said that for each new voter, Gillum "can activate, you activate one" for the GOP. That's what Clinton learned in 2016, he said, while spending more than $ 50 million in the state, but was still overwhelmed by white voters supporting Trump in suburban Tampa and North Florida.
"In this environment, we will find a negative partisanship and against which people will vote," said Patton.
But Schale noted that differences in participation, even modest, among non-white and irregular voters in cities such as St. Petersburg or Daytona Beach could be the difference in winning countries rich in Pinellas and Volusia votes. . Pinellas, which includes St. Petersburg, supported Trump in 2016 after voting for Obama in 2008 and 2012. Volusia, which includes Daytona Beach, supported Obama in 2008 but voted Republican in 2012 and 2016.
"Gillum's expansion possibilities are similar in many of these Republican counties," said Schale, adding that demographic changes over the last decade give Gillum a broader base of minority voters than Obama in 2008.
It's a challenge that brings Kristine Brodie back to the streets. Brodie, a 52-year-old flight attendant, remembers how the sunscreen melted from her face and her lips disappeared from her thirst as she campaigned for Obama in the sweltering heat of Florida.
Brodie did not vote for Gillum at the elementary level. But after hearing about it at a rally in Orlando two weeks ago, she decided that it was time to start knocking on doors again.
"It reminds me of the same craze for Obama," said Brodie, who is white. "I'm going to the trailer parks. I will go to millions of dollars.
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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