Tropic Press: J.C. Bruce

By Bernie Sanders

Tuesday was an extraordinary day for the United States. All across the country, the American people made it clear that status quo politics and status quo policies were no longer acceptable.

They stood up and demanded, in record-breaking numbers, REAL change. And it was not just the election results. According to a recent AP poll, 80 percent of registered voters want either “complete and total upheaval” or “substantial change” in how this country is run - including 97 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of independents, and 58 percent of Republicans.

Bottom line: the new Democratic majority must deliver. No more empty rhetoric. No more telling us how terrible Trump and the Republicans are. No more excuses. We now have the votes to pass legislation that will demonstrably improve the lives of millions of working families. And that’s what we must do.

What does that mean?

HEALTH CARE: In America today, our healthcare system is broken, dysfunctional, and wildly expensive. We spend twice as much per person on healthcare as other major countries. Yet more than 90 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, over half a million people go bankrupt each year because of medical debt, and we pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world. Tragically, more than 60,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year because they cannot afford medical care.

Healthcare must be considered a human right for all, not a privilege. That means passing Medicare for All, legislation now supported by a record 66 percent of the American people. In the first year of a four-year transition process, Democrats must lower the Medicare eligibility age to 55, expand Medicare to cover dental, vision, and hearing, and guarantee universal healthcare coverage for every child from birth through age 19.

INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY: In America today, income and wealth inequality have reached unprecedented levels. The top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 93 percent. One man, Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 53 percent of American households.

Democrats cannot ignore this grotesque inequality. That means a Democratic Congress must pass a wealth tax on billionaires, now supported by 61% of Americans. At a time when billionaires pay a lower effective tax rate than truck drivers or nurses, we must enact a 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires to provide every working-class family of four with a $12,000 direct payment, build 7 million units of affordable housing, make public colleges and universities tuition-free, establish free childcare for 13 million children and greatly improve public education.

RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE: In America today, while the rich get richer, 60 percent of our people live paycheck to paycheck, and millions work for inadequate wages. That must change. The $7.25 federal minimum wage is a starvation wage. Democrats must raise it to a living wage of at least $20 an hour and make it easier for workers to form unions by passing the PRO Act. A job must lift people out of poverty, not keep them in it.

PROTECTING SENIORS: In America today, one-third of our seniors struggle economically, and more than 20 percent try to survive on less than $15,000 a year. Nearly half of older Americans have no retirement savings and no idea how they will retire with dignity. Meanwhile, Elon Musk pays the same amount into Social Security as someone earning $184,600 a year.

That is obviously absurd. By applying the Social Security payroll tax to all income above $250,000, including capital gains and dividends, we can increase benefits by $2,400 a year, lift millions of seniors out of poverty and keep Social Security solvent for generations - without raising taxes on the bottom 91 percent of Americans. We must also restore the traditional pension plans corporate America took away so that every worker can count on a guaranteed income in retirement.

AI AND ROBOTICS: In America today, Big Tech oligarchs are spending trillions of dollars on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics with virtually no regulation. This revolutionary technology will transform the lives of every man, woman and child in America and around the world.

Left unchecked, AI and robotics will destroy tens of millions of jobs, devastate our children’s mental health, eviscerate our privacy, drive up electricity rates and strain water supplies. If AI becomes smarter than human beings and escapes human control, it will pose an existential threat to the very existence of humanity.

We cannot allow a handful of Big Tech oligarchs to become even richer and more powerful by ramming this dangerous technology down our throats. Democrats must enact a national moratorium on AI data centers, which is now supported by 63% of Americans, pause advanced AI development, and ban superintelligence.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The planet is becoming warmer and warmer. Tens of thousands have died in the last year from heat waves, and we are seeing unprecedented extreme weather disturbances, including massive forest fires. If we don’t act boldly, the future will only become worse. Democrats must create millions of good-paying jobs by moving our energy systems away from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

MILITARY SPENDING: Let’s be clear. The war in Vietnam was based on a lie. The war in Iraq was based on a lie. The current war in Iran is based on a lie. Democrats need to take a very hard look at the very foundation of American foreign policy and the outrageous amount of money we spend on the military.

In America today, we spend more on the military than the next six countries combined. Despite massive waste, fraud and abuse, the Pentagon has repeatedly failed independent audits and cannot account for trillions of dollars in spending. Adding insult to injury, Trump dragged us into an illegal war in Iran that could cost another trillion dollars.

We must end this disastrous war, cut off all funding for the genocidal government in Israel and substantially reduce military spending.

ICE AND IMMIGRATION: As most Americans understand, since Trump took office ICE agents have shot American citizens in cold blood, have broken down doors to arrest people and sent 5-year-old children to detention centers. These actions are not only immoral and disgraceful. They are unconstitutional and economically counterproductive.

Democrats must immediately rescind the $75 billion Republicans gave Trump to fund his ICE domestic army. Instead of ICE Agents terrorizing communities throughout the country we must finally move to comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for the undocumented.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM: Elon Musk and his billionaire friends have poured a record-breaking $2 billion into the recent elections. That is absurd. The American people, in overwhelming numbers, want Congress to overturn Citizens United and abolish super PACs. Democracy must mean one person, one vote — not billionaires buying elections.

While wealthy campaign contributors and establishment politicians may disagree, none of the policies I have just discussed are “radical.” They are now mainstream concepts supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people.

At this extraordinary moment in American history, we must restore faith in democracy. And the way we do that is by actually delivering for working families, allowing every man, woman, and child in this country to see that they have a government that works for them, and not just the 1%.

In the last year, we have come a long way. Now, let’s finish the job.

Rubio/DeSantis Poll Results

In yesterday’s newsletter, I asked for your thoughts on rumors that two Florida men, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, may be considering runs for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Hundreds of Tropic Press readers shared their thoughts on whether they should run—many said NO because they dislike them; some said YES because they think they would be a drag on Republicans’ presidential chances. Those views showed up not only in poll results but in the more than 40 comments the newsletter received. Here are the poll tabulations:

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WEEKLY WRAP: A nation turns its lonely eyes to -- what? -- Florida? Is that really a thing?

Sun, 08 Nov 2026 11:01:16 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

With the notable exception of Florida, most of the nation expressed its revulsion toward the Republican Party in a gigantic upchuck this week.

So, naturally, in true Florida Man fashion, two of the state’s leading political lights are now rumored to be on a flight path to contend for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.

Interesting if true; true if interesting, as far as the gossip mill is concerned.

Florida’s midterm election results, to put it gently, seem a bit out of step with the rest of America, where a bluenami swept over the continent while Florida’s red seawall, for the most part, held firm.

This, in some minds, is prima facie evidence that if the G.O.P. wants to turn around its fortunes, that journey begins on our peninsula, hence the rumors about Secretary of State Marco Rubio and soon-to-be ex-Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Besides being from Florida and Republicans, what exactly is their appeal?

Well, for one thing, Rubio is now actually qualified to run, something that had been a bit in doubt for a hot minute until the Supreme Court intervened.

He was born in Miami to parents who were not U.S. citizens. And Donald Trump, who hates, hates, hates birthright citizenship, had issued an executive order to render that provision of the Constitution invalid.

The Supreme Court, however, decided that not even Trump has the authority to unilaterally change our nation’s governing document no matter how much he likes to ignore it. So, good luck for Rubio; he can run if he wants to.

But does he?

The British newspaper The Independent, and at least two other papers, say he is and that he’s making plans to resign as Secretary of State to put some space between himself and Trump’s insanity.

Although Rubio has flat-out denied it to The New York Times. But we’ll see.

Then there’s lame-duck Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Washington Post says he is also thinking about another run for the White House, even though Trump clobbered him the last time he threw his elevator boots into the ring.

However, after the Post published its initial story, DeSantis denied it on social media. Again, time will tell.

But why would these Florida Men think they stood a snowball’s chance on a (pick your hot city) summer sidewalk?

Rubio, who also ran for the Republican nomination earlier, has turned into a slavish loyalist to Trump, so were he to consider bolting to take another shot at the Oval Office, it might make sense that he should do it sooner rather than later to find something, anything, to hang his hat on — while taking great care to ensure said hat did not say Make America Great Again.

But still. He’s enabled Trump’s worst instincts for two years. That’s hard to overlook.

As for DeSantis, he’ll be a free agent in a few weeks when his term is up. Why he might think his performance as a governor would boost his chances in the eyes of a blue-tilting nation is a bit of a puzzle, though.

Can he possibly think his record as a Trump Mini-Me will work for him — all that building immigrant concentration camps, gerrymandering, book banning, Don’t Say Gay laws, and, let’s not forget, laundering money through his wife's charity—Hope Florida—for political purposes?

What would his campaign slogan be? Just like Trump, only shorter?

Might play in the universe of MAGA primary voters, but it is precisely what the saner portion of the nation’s population just made crystal clear they are done with.

But. Florida Men. Who knows?

Your thoughts, please…

BREAKING NEWS: Trump replaces his chief of staff, Floridian Susie Wiles. Will more heads roll?

That Was the Week That Was

It wasn’t all doom and gloom — Florida Dems had some notable wins and beat the gerrymander

Sure, Florida Republicans won all the major statewide offices, including the governorship and the U.S. Senate seat, and passed a major property tax ballot measure, and maintained control of the Legislature.

But Democratic legislative candidates had a blue tidal event of their own, winning 17 more seats in the Florida House and denying Republicans a supermajority. They also fended off DeSantis’ efforts to cut the number of Democrats in Congress in half.

It wasn’t the breathtaking blue wave that washed over some red states, but it’s not nothing, and party leaders believe it is momentum to build on.

Florida Democratic House leader unsure of special session on property taxes

The new leader of the now-larger House Democratic caucus hopes her GOP leadership colleagues will decline Gov. Ron DeSantis’ call for a special legislative session to implement Amendment 3, after it passed into Florida law earlier this week.

DeSantis has called for a special session before the end of the year to implement the far-reaching homestead property tax reduction measure approved Tuesday by more than 62% of Florida voters. DeSantis said in a press conference that he wants lawmakers to prevent local governments from doing “an end-run around the amendment” by changing how they collect revenue from their constituents.

State economists have estimated that local government revenues could be reduced ultimately by as much as $12 billion five years after the amendment goes into effect.

“I am hoping that this will not be a special session,” Florida House Democratic Leader Designate Christine Hunschofsky said during a remote press conference with reporters. “Those haven’t always worked out so well.”

—Florida Phoenix

South Florida U.S. Attorney calls it quits

The U.S. attorney for South Florida overseeing Trump’s retribution campaign has resigned amid growing dissatisfaction with his performance, people familiar with the situation told The New York Times. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Jason Reding Quiñones's departure on social media. He is among the first of what is expected to be a succession of departures at the Justice Department after the midterm elections.

CAIR shuts down Florida chapter after state declares it a terrorist organization

A federal judge last week denied a request from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) not to be labeled a “domestic terrorist” organization under a new state law.

While acknowledging that the organization is shutting down because of the law, the group announced plans to appeal the decision by U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor of the Northern District of Florida.

Meme of the Week

Quote of the Week

"To call it a wave, I don't think would be fully accurate. It's the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States, blue states, red states, everything in between.”

— Gov. Ron DeSantis

Letter of the Week

While very disappointed (but not surprised) by the Florida vote, I'm extremely heartened by the rest of the country. I just hope the Democrats focus on the voters' issues--affordability, end the unnecessary war, rein in ICE--and forget about impeachment. Too distracting, too divisive, and it's not gonna change any MAGA minds. Provide some real achievements, and please, please, please talk about them--the Dems need to get much, much better at messaging about the kitchen table successes they have. KISS (keep it simple, stupid).

—Marcy Galbreath

Looking Ahead

When I’m not writing this newsletter, I also scribble a current events column for Florida Weekly. This coming week, for instance, I explain why diphthongs are evil. Here are some snippets, from there and elsewhere, to help guide your week ahead. (Paid subscribers to this newsletter have full access to the complete Onward Thru the Fog archive.)

Nov. 8. Today is the start of Diwali, a five-day Festival of Lights celebrated by adherents of Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism.

Nov. 9. World Freedom Day, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Nov. 10. For you Leathernecks out there, happy birthday. The Continental Congress created the United States Marine Corps on this day in 1775.

Nov. 11. Veterans Day memorializes all living and deceased military veterans. It is always celebrated on Nov. 11—marking the “11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month”—the time in 1918 when World War I ended.

Nov. 12. American Fancy Rat and Mouse Day. The “fancy” doesn’t mean all duded up. It just means domesticated. Here in Florida, gigantic fancy rats roam the Kissimmee area.

Nov. 13. Friday the 13^th. There are three Friday the 13ths in 2026, which, mathematically, is the most you can possibly have in a given year. Now you know.

Nov. 14. National Pickle Day. Celebrating the Gherkin, the best pickle in the world, we so declare right here for the first time ever. Others may celebrate dills and whatnot; the Gherkin is supreme.

Last Week’s Tropic Press headlines

In case you missed it, here are some of the stories that headlined Tropic Press this past week. Click on the headlines to read the stories.

Where was the blue tsunami in Florida? It was more like a blue puddle. Who to blame?

Midterm Election Update--Republican blame game begins in the wake of the blue tsunami

Blue tsunami washes over America as Democrats retake U.S. House and Senate

ELECTION UPDATE: Democrats capture U.S. House of Representatives; Donalds, Moody win in Florida

Be a superhero: Vote, if you haven’t already, and tell your friends to be heroes too

Trump wants to punish the press with lawsuits, but it is up to us to protect the First Amendment

A little help, please …

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Our latest podcast

ASK THE BIRD: What if a blue tsunami hit Mar-a-Lago? Oh, right, it did!

Sat, 07 Nov 2026 11:02:16 GMT

Editor’s Note: Every Saturday morning, we take a break from hard news to let Miss Mingo share her insights with readers. She’s a recovering newspaper reporter living in a bungalow off Duval Street in Key West. At least that’s what her official biography says, if you believe that. She answers the day's pressing questions about life, the news, and the best happy hour prices.

DEAR MISS MINGO:

Good morning! I can’t stand hypocrisy, and I’m a practical person. Therefore, if Trump is so obsessed with changing names to reflect “America” (which we all know is just a bunch of BS), do you then think he should make good on this campaign and change the Spanish name of Mar-a-Lago to its English na — Sea to Lake?

Yours truly,

Trying to make Sense of it All

Dear Trying:

I think you’re onto something there, and I ‘ll bet most people didn’t know that’s how Mar-a-Lago is translated. Thank you for that.

It does inspire ideas for alternatives.

If we keep the Spanish name, for instance, we could tweak it to reflect current conditions (pun intended). How about:

Maremoto-Asul-al-Lago, which translates as Blue Tsunami to Lake.

DEAR MISS MINGO:

Is it true that Dorothy has exchanged her red shoes for blue ones now that Kansas has elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate?

Playful in Pinellas

Dear Playful:

You mean like this?

DEAR MISS MINGO:

A blue tsunami may have hit Mar-a-Lago, but it sure didn’t show up in the rest of the state. I’ve been reading a lot about the blue trickle in Florida while the rest of the country was awash in a sea of blue.

Somebody told me that if Democrats had just shown up to vote, we wouldn’t be singing the blues here in the Sunshine State.

What do you have to say about that?

Statistical in Sarasota

Dear Statistical:

You’re not wrong.

By the numbers, 4,146,172 registered Democrats live in this state, according to the never-wrong internet. But even with the option to vote by mail and more than a week to vote at local polling places before Election Day, 1,311,615 Democrats decided to stay home on the couch rather than walk out the door and vote.

That means 32%—nearly a third—of all Democrats sat out the election. If just 10% of those people had voted, David Jolly would be our next governor instead of Byron Donalds.

DEAR MISS MINGO:

Yeah, but all that rain and flooding on Election Day. Isn’t that why voter turnout wasn’t higher?

Just Asking in Jacksonville

Dear Just Asking:

I’ve heard that explanation from a number of people. My only response is—not to be too snarky about it—that the rain fell on both Republicans and Democrats in equal measure.

And again, all those chances to vote early and not procrastinate. Really, there’s no excuse.

DEAR MISS MINGO:

That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?

Offended in Ocala

Dear Offended:

You want harsh? Wait until they put a gigantic data center in your neighborhood. That’s harsh!

DEAR MISS MINGO:

You sound frustrated. Maybe you need to take a day off.

Worried in Weston

Dear Worried:

When you’re right, you’re right. I think I’ll do a staycay right here in Key West, specifically on Duval Street. I see a Cuba Libre in my very near future.

Got a question for Miss Mingo? About life, the news, or nightlife on Duval Street, with which she is VERY familiar? Write to her at MissMingo@Tropic.Press.

ASK MISS MINGO

Want to know more about Miss Mingo? How she got her start? And whether she really lives with two cats—Deadline and Dateline—and a pet iguana named Skippy? You can find her official biography, such as it is, here. If you’re bar-hopping on Duval Street in Key West and spot an intriguing woman in a pink hat you suspect might be Miss Mingo, you can always offer to buy her a Cuba Libre. Will it actually be her? Is there an actual her? Life’s a mystery.

Meet Miss Mingo

AND now, some shameless advertising…

DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND, the official Tropic Press Store is now open and ready for business. You can order your very own Miss Mingo merch online. All sales are final. Check out the store here:

Tropic Press Merch

And when your shirt arrives, take a selfie and email it to Miss Mingo to be included in her column.

BREAKING NEWS: Trump replaces his chief of staff, Floridian Susie Wiles. Will more heads roll?

Fri, 06 Nov 2026 19:55:25 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

Susie Wiles, who made history when Donald Trump named her the first woman to serve as a White House chief of staff, is gone.

Wiles, 69, is a Florida native and the daughter of football player and sportscaster Pat Summerall, and has been a longtime Republican political operative.

Wiles was the campaign manager for current U.S. Sen. Rick Scott in the 2010 gubernatorial election. In 2015, Wiles signed on as a Florida campaign chairwoman for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2018, she led Ron DeSantis’ successful campaign for governor and later was hired as a consultant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

According to Wikipedia:

In 2021, Wiles was appointed to lead then-former president Trump’s fundraising apparatus, including Save America. She assumed a dominant role in Trump’s political activities between his first and second presidency, including his travel, fundraising, and endorsements in the 2022 elections. After Trump announced his presidential campaign in November 2022, Wiles was named as his campaign manager alongside Chris LaCivita. After his victory in the 2024 election, Trump announced that Wiles would serve as his White House chief of staff.

Her sudden departure from that role, announced today, could mark the start of a shakeup at the top of the Trump administration after Republicans’ disastrous midterm performance, which saw Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress.

Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s mass deportation campaign—will take over from Wiles starting Monday.

The stunning shakeup indicates Trump is doubling down on his hardline agenda, days after voters delivered a resounding rebuke of his administration, Politico noted.

“Susie Wiles, who has done an outstanding job, will be moving over to the Trump Political Operation,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post. “I want to thank her for her service as Chief of Staff — she has done a great job!”

What that role really means, if anything, is unclear.

Also unclear is whose heads, if any, will roll next.

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Reposting sends these newsletters to other readers on the Substack network. And the more people we reach, the more effective we can be at changing the trajectory of our state and nation.

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Where was the blue tsunami in Florida? It was more like a blue puddle. Who to blame?

Fri, 06 Nov 2026 11:01:52 GMT

Illustration by Tropic Press and Google

By J.C. Bruce

So, a blue tsunami splashes ashore all over America, but Florida, with all its miles of coastline, barely gets a high tide? Not even a king tide, at that?

What was that about?

Pundits, politicos, and partisans have no shortage of questions and theories. Let’s look at a couple of the talking points, then lay it out for further conversation.

Democrats were so close. David Jolly lost to Byron Donalds in the governor’s race by a little more than a percentage point. Angie Nixon was close, too, in her quest to become Florida’s next U.S. senator. The statewide officeholder races and several congressional races also seem like they could have gone the Democrats’ way.

Close but no Cuban cigar. How come?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the national election results “an extinction-level event for Republicans.”

He added:

"To call it a wave, I don't think would be fully accurate. It's the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States, blue states, red states, everything in between. And the one state that was able to hold the line and withstand that is right here in the free state of Florida.”

But did Republicans, despite DeSantis’ chest-thumping, really hold the line, or did national Democrats and their fundraising machinery foolishly cede the state to Republicans?

Ask Nikki Fried, the state Democratic Party chair, and she points a finger at the national party and campaign organizations that could have—and should have—come to the rescue:

“Since the August primary, our coordinated campaign has knocked on more than 1.2 million doors and made 5.25 million calls to voters across Florida. That work helped drive a nearly 20-point swing toward Democrats statewide compared to the 2022 midterms, with Democratic turnout surpassing even 2018 levels.
“We did all of this without major national investment in Florida. Volunteers, candidates, county parties, and partners across this state worked with us to build the infrastructure, organized in communities, and delivered measurable progress with limited resources. Imagine what we could accomplish with the national support and investment this state deserves. Florida is winnable, and tonight’s results prove that writing us off is a mistake no one should make again.”

Money doesn’t always buy success in politics, of course. Just ask Elon Musk how he’s feeling today about the hundreds of millions of dollars he threw into Ken Paxton’s race for the Senate in Texas, only to have a blue stampede trample him into the dust.

But I’ve fielded more than a few calls and read comments from readers complaining about the lopsided number of Republican TV ads versus those for Democratic candidates.

Where was the media presence?

Well, that’s one thing money buys.

As independent journalist Jason Garcia reported on election eve:

The biggest corporate contributor to Florida’s political parties was, by a wide margin, NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida’s largest electric utility, Florida Power & Light.
NextEra stuffed more than $7.3 million into the parties in the run-up to the Nov. 3 general election — and all but $50,000 of it went to the Republicans.

And that’s just one example of big energy, big real estate, big construction, big ag, and other special interests opening their wallets to Republicans. Even a company called Doodie Calls, which got $90 million from taxpayers for Alligator Alcatraz portable toilets, shelled out $575,000 to Byron Donalds.

And, of course, these donors will expect a return on that investment, which should keep reporters and good-government advocates very busy for a long time to come. And don’t hold your nose waiting for any investigation into Alligator Alcatraz sanitation expenditures.

Would more money from national Democratic organizations have made a difference? Some political consultants interviewed by the Miami Herald say, yes, especially in regard to a couple of close South Florida congressional races:

“They missed the boat. They didn’t have anyone down here. They didn’t understand the nuance, and they didn’t talk to people who knew the nuances,” Democratic political consultant Jeff Garcia said of national Democrats.
Alex Howard, a Democratic political consultant who led former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s locally successful presidential campaign in Miami-Dade, said that in hindsight $1.5 million in canvassing spending could have flipped either race — with a more realistic spend being $3 million to $5 million for a more comfortable margin.
Garcia guessed as little as $500,000 in each race would have done the trick.

But there’s more to the story than money.

For instance, Florida has 1.5 million more registered Republicans than Democrats. That, alone, was a huge disadvantage Democrats had to overcome.

It’s worth stepping back a moment, though, to consider how Republicans achieved that advantage. It is, in fact, a fairly recent phenomenon.

Check out this chart from the Florida Secretary of State’s office:

I would direct your attention to the year 2020, just six years ago. At that time, Florida had more registered Democrats than Republicans. By 2021, the numbers favored the G.O.P., but they were still tight. But you can track the relentless erosion ever since.

This was happening in broad daylight. Sure, some of that can be attributed to demographic changes with new voters moving into the state. But it also reflects an aggressive purge of voters who haven't voted in recent elections, a disproportionate number of them registered by Democrats.

Another factor, according to political strategist Fergie Reid Jr., founder of the 90 for 90 voter registration project: The Florida Democratic Party, around the same time those declines began, diverted its focus from voter registration to emphasizing that Democrats should vote by mail.

That has been highly successful, of course, but has it come at the cost of registering voters? Has that switch in focus hampered the party? Reid thinks so.

Whether that is a determinative factor or not, what is indisputable is that voter registration numbers falling off a cliff is a calamity that’s been playing out in plain sight for years. The Democratic Party has seen this train wreck unfolding. Where have they been?

Even the most avid partisan would have to concede that any competently run organization losing members at this pace would have leaped into action to staunch the defections. But the numbers clearly show that didn't happen.

Who to blame? Not national organizations. That responsibility clearly rests with the state party and trickles down to county party leaders.

Nikki Fried may be right that the cavalry didn’t come to their aid. But one reason Florida Democrats needed rescuing in the first place was because of these numbers.

This, too, requires some soul-searching.

One final thought:

It was not all doom and gloom for Democrats. They busted the Legislature’s Republican supermajority in the House by adding at least 15 new members, which was huge.

One reason was that the party and independent volunteers worked for months to sign up and support candidates, ensuring Republicans could not show up on ballots unopposed. That forced competition across the state, which also meant Republicans had to divert campaign funds to defend seats that otherwise would have gone uncontested.

In the end, Democrats had more uncontested seats than Republicans. That’s a model for the future. And a great deal of credit for that belongs to volunteers working outside of the party apparatus. Something else to evaluate.

Share your comments below.

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Lame duck DeSantis wants special tax session but not everyone thinks that is necessary

Thu, 05 Nov 2026 11:55:13 GMT

Gov. Ron DeSantis. Photo by Jay Waagmeester

Nobody expected Amendment 3 to pass. “The cities and counties, before they were concerned; now they’re terrified, and the Legislature itself is terrified.”

— former State Sen. Jeff Brandes

Special to Tropic Press from Florida Phoenix

By Jay Waagmeester

One of the last actions Gov. Ron DeSantis wants done before leaving office in January is to implement a “taxpayer bill of rights” via a special legislative session, he said Wednesday.

He established that expectation during a news conference following passage Tuesday of Amendment 3.

The specific date for the session is up to the two chambers of the Legislature, he said. But, when asked before the election, incoming legislative leaders were non-committal on an Amendment 3-focused special session. Neither chamber responded to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

“That has to be done by January 1, and we will do it by January 1,” DeSantis said.

The amendment takes effect Jan. 1, but the first two years of its property tax exemption are set in the Florida Constitution already. The amendment allows legislators to eventually expand homestead exemptions to the full value of homes.

Tax shift?

DeSantis wants a special session, in part, to prevent local governments “from doing an end-run around the amendment and taxing them in other ways.”

Lawmakers skeptical of the amendment and local leaders from around the state questioned how governments will function with the decreases in revenue, and some insisted that shifting taxes, perhaps through fee-based government, could be the only way to maintain services.

Former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, who has rallied hard against Amendment 3, questioned the governor’s approach. He serves as president of the nonpartisan Florida Policy Project.

“I don’t know how [DeSantis] would exempt non-ad valorem taxation, or try to prevent some other type of fee shift. [Local governments] have all these statutory fees available to them,” Brandes told the Phoenix Wednesday. “I just don’t understand where he’s going, because so many have already built this into their system.”

Brandes sees no need for a special session.

“I don’t think there’s any reason that the Legislature should go back into special session under a DeSantis administration,” Brandes said, going on to say that an implementing bill for Amendment 3 can be the first bill of the 2027 session.

“Understand, many legislators are reading this amendment for the first time and trying to understand what it really does now. They didn’t think it was going to pass,” Brandes said.

Legislators “are going to have to build an entire process” for cities that operate under Amendment 3 to consolidate into counties — particularly counties that aren’t interested in absorbing cities.

To do a special session, Brandes said, “you’re going to be basically putting out a skeleton, an outline, and then you’re going to be filling in the holes for the next five years.”

“None of this is going to go smoothly,” he said.

“The cities and counties, before they were concerned; now they’re terrified, and the Legislature itself is terrified,” Brandes said.

Legislative leaders dubious

On the “Between the Lines with Dara Kam” podcast, recorded and published before the election, the two incoming legislative chamber leaders didn’t sound committed to a special session before January.

“We in the Senate believe a lot of it in what we did was self-executing. However, there may be some implementation language we need to put around it — we do understand that,” Senate President-Designate Jim Boyd said on the podcast. “Personally, I believe that it can wait until we reconvene in January. I think the new administration ought to have a say in that.”

House Speaker-Designate Sam Garrison told Kam that Amendment 3 “will dominate the upcoming session, and not be something that can be rolled out and just implemented in three days. This is a very, very complicated issue.”

“I personally am of the belief, I’d rather be right than be quick,” Garrison said at the time, prefacing that comment by saying, “I don’t want to pre-judge it because I’m a big believer of you play the hole you’re on.”

The amendment was the only one of three on the ballot to garner more than 60% support from voters, the threshold required to pass state constitutional amendments.

The amendment will increase the homestead exemption for non-school taxes from $50,000 per year to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028.

At full implementation, state economists estimate Amendment 3 could reduce local revenues by as much as $12 billion annually.

The amendment did not receive 60% in any individual county among the five least populated counties in the state. Rural counties voiced concern that they would not be able to function in a world in which Amendment 3 passed.

In Liberty County, the least populous in the state, the amendment received near 58%. In the next least populated counties, Franklin and Lafayette, the amendment received 47% and 57% support, respectively.

DeSantis said he wants to work with legislators to create a fund for smaller counties to ensure they can pay for core needs.

The amendment, DeSantis said, “that’s going to be such a breath of fresh air for people.”

“I’m glad that since I was involved with this, I want to make sure that we land it right,” DeSantis said.

Lawmakers will be in Tallahassee for a mostly ceremonial organizational session the week of Nov. 30.

Jay Waagmeester covers education for the Florida Phoenix. He previously worked for the Iowa Capital Dispatch and the Iowa State Daily. He grew up in Iowa and is a graduate of Iowa State University.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:

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Midterm Election Update--Republican blame game begins in the wake of the blue tsunami

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 19:47:04 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

In the wake of the blue tsunami that washed Republicans out of Congress, governors’ mansions and legislative seats across America (but not so much in Florida), the recriminations and excuses have begun.

As the Washington Post is reporting, citing Republican strategists who asked not to be named:

“At the end of the day, this is mos…

Blue tsunami washes over America as Democrats retake U.S. House and Senate

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 12:48:10 GMT

Preliminary Senate results

By J.C. Bruce

A blue wave of disgust with President Donald Trump's policies has washed out Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate.

When the 120th Congress convenes in early January next year, Democrats will have clear majorities in both houses.

In Florida, however, while that wave narrowed many races, making headline contests for governor and U.S. Senate much closer than many might have imagined, Republican candidates still prevailed in statewide races.

However, Democrats made significant gains in the State Legislature, denying the supermajority Republicans have enjoyed in the House, and may be poised to repeat that in the Senate. In the House, preliminary numbers show that Democrats gained at least 15 seats; in the Senate, one. The GOP will, nonetheless, have clear majorities, if not supermajorities.

And lame duck Gov. Ron DeSantis’ effort to gerrymander half of the Florida congressional delegation out of existence, while, perhaps, not the “dummymander” many were hoping for, still fell short. Florida had eight Democrats in Congress going into yesterday’s elections. Based on overnight results, they still have seven.

While some races are still undetermined, here are the preliminary results based on outright wins, losses and projections:

U.S. House of Representatives

Democrats 258 seats. Republicans 177. An astonishing 81-seat majority for Democrats if those numbers hold.

U.S. Senate

Democrats 54 seats. Republicans 44. With two races still undecided.

Governor

David Jolly: 4,024,180

Byron Donalds: 4,132,112

U.S. Senate

Angie Nixon: 3,968,811

Ashley Moody: 4,207,774

Florida Congressional Delegation

Based on overnight results, Democrats appear to have lost one seat, reducing their total from eight to seven.

Florida Legislature

Republicans have enjoyed a supermajority in both houses of the State Legislature, but that era may have come to an end.

Based on unofficial overnight results, the makeup of the next Legislature will be:

In the House: 70 Republicans and 50 Democrats (80 seats required for supermajority).

In the Senate: 25 Republicans and 14 Democrats (with one seat uncounted). In the Senate, a supermajority requires 27 seats.

Again, those numbers are still unofficial, as this was posted and, given how tight some races are, could change.

State Attorney General

Jose Javier Rodriguez: 4,024,094

James Uthmeier: 4,177,670

State Agriculture Commissioner

Joey Mendoza Atkins: 3,984,160

Wilton Simpson: 4,160,343

Chief Financial Officer

Annette Taddeo: 3,997,464

Blaise Ingoglia: 4,151,352

Constitutional Amendments:

Amendment 1 – State Budget Stabilization Fund: Raise the maximum amount Florida can keep in its rainy-day reserve fund from 10% to 25% of annual state general revenue collection. Failed to get the necessary 60%, 40.9% to 59.1%.

Amendment 2 – Agricultural Property Tax Exemption: Eliminate property taxes on qualifying farm equipment, machinery, tools and other tangible personal property used for agricultural production or agritourism beginning in 2027. Failed to get 60%, 58.2% to 41.8%.

Amendment 3 – Homestead Exemption and Property Tax Changes: Increase the homestead exemption for non-school property taxes to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, lower the annual assessment-increase cap on non-homestead properties from 10% to 5%, and restrict how local governments can spend property tax revenues. Passed 61.99% to 38.01%.

Note:

The Florida Secretary of State’s Office hosts a Florida Election Watch website with up-to-date and revised numbers, including actual ballot totals for all congressional and legislative races.

Here’s the link:

Florida Election Watch

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ELECTION UPDATE: Democrats capture U.S. House of Representatives; Donalds, Moody win in Florida

Wed, 04 Nov 2026 03:16:41 GMT

Moody, Donalds

By J.C. Bruce

Vote counting is still underway as this is posted, but this much we know:

The predicted blue tsunami has washed over America, and Democrats have easily recaptured the House of Representatives in races already called.

The fate of the Senate is still up in the air as this was written, but Democrats were winning enough races to claim the majority there as well if those trends hold.

In Florida, as polls predicted, the races for governor and U.S. Senator were tight, but Republican candidates prevailed. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Naples will be the state’s first Black governor, narrowly beating former congressman Democrat David Jolly 50.08% to 48.7%.

Ashley Moody, appointed to the Senate seat by Gov. Ron DeSantis when Marco Rubio resigned to become U.S. Secretary of State, gets to keep her job for two more years after winning a special election against scrappy State Rep. Angie Nixon, who closed the gap but trailed Moody 48% to 51%.

While not all of the state’s congressional races had been called at the time this was posted, DeSantis’ efforts to cut the number of Florida Democrats in Congress by half appear to have failed, with at least seven Democrats winning so far.

Of the three constitutional amendments on the ballot, the most controversial, Amendment 3, appears to be passing with 62 percent of the vote at the time this is posted.

More results will be available as they are finalized in Wednesday’s newsletter.

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Be a superhero: Vote, if you haven’t already, and tell your friends to be heroes too

Tue, 03 Nov 2026 10:31:03 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

Today’s election is a sanity test of sorts.

By this evening—or early morning tomorrow—we should know whether our country has decided to change course or continue the madness.

We all know the saying:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Republicans own every branch of the federal government right now. They also control the state of Florida, where most of you reading this live. Are we happy with the way things are going?

If not, and at the risk of overstating the obvious, we need to do something different.

You may not be thrilled, for instance, with David Jolly as the Democrats’ candidate for governor if you lean progressive. He’s a moderate.

You may not be entirely comfortable with Angie Nixon in the U.S. Senate race. She may be left of your center.

But would you rather have Byron Donalds in the governor’s mansion? Or Ashley Moody in Washington?

Donalds, who is clearly in the pockets of the AI data center crowd and seems satisfied to turn a blind eye to the Hope Florida scandal? Or Moody, who could have stopped Hope Florida in its tracks, but didn’t, preferring to curry Gov. Ron DeSantis’ favor, which got her named as a placeholder in the seat she’s running for now?

There has never been such a thing as a perfect candidate, but at the end of the day, elections are binary choices. You are either saying yes or no to change.

I’m pretty confident we all know change is necessary.

Nationally, control of Congress is at stake. Here in Florida, because volunteers have worked to recruit Democratic candidates for the State Legislature, we have a chance to break up the Republican supermajority in both the House and Senate.

Will Republicans succeed in the way they gerrymandered the state’s congressional districts, the goal of which was to cut in half the number of Florida Democrats in Congress? Or will it backfire? Your vote will help answer that question.

The Jolly/Donalds race is a statistical tie going into Election Day. Voter turnout will be the key, as it will in the other statewide races, which, in addition to the tight Senate race, include contests for state attorney general, agriculture commissioner, and chief financial officer.

Democrats are fielding credible—and widely endorsed—candidates in all those races.

About 40 percent of registered Florida voters have already voted by mail or through early voting at local polling places. So far, 38 percent of Republicans, nearly 50 percent of Democrats, and 31 percent of No Party Affiliation (NPA) voters have cast their ballots.

That represents 2.2 million Republican votes versus 2.1 million Democrat votes, with another 1.2 million ballots cast by independents. Those NPAs could make the difference in whether we see change in this state.

Here are some visuals of all that from Fresh Take Florida:

I know many of you, like me, have already voted. If not, remember voting is your superpower.

One of these:

Equals one of these:

Be a superhero. And tell your friends to be superheroes too.

Public safety leaders urge Floridians to vote no on Amendment 3

There are also constitutional amendments

For a look at the three constitutional amendments on the ballot today, here is some recommended reading:

Drastic Reduction in Property Taxes Would Put Local Services at Risk

Florida’s Constitutional Amendments

Herald Ed Board urges Florida voters to reject 3 ballot amendments

Also for your reading enjoyment…

Florida pollster Mark Schulman writes that “if Democrats capture Congress, they will win something more valuable than committee gavels and subpoena power. They will win two years to define what the 2028 presidential election is about…

“The real prize if they win the midterms is the opportunity to demonstrate that they can govern. Their larger mission should be to turn the final two years of the Trump presidency into the first two years of the Democratic case for 2028.”

Check out his analysis here:

Setting the Stage for 2028

Our latest podcast…

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Trump wants to punish the press with lawsuits, but it is up to us to protect the First Amendment

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:03:46 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

‘Grasping at straws’: Judge dismisses Trump suit against Wall Journal

The last time a president won a libel lawsuit against a newspaper or other news outlet was in 1913.

But that hasn’t stopped Donald Trump from trying, and until this weekend he had at least three lawsuits pending in Florida federal courts alleging billions of dollars in damages.

Now there are only two.

That’s because on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles dismissed Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal with prejudice—meaning he can’t refile it. The judge ruled that Trump was “grasping at straws” and that the suit tried to “manufacture” flaws in the newspaper’s reporting.

You can read a full account of that in this report:

The suit involved the Journal’s publication of a birthday card Trump allegedly sent to his pal, the deceased child molester Jeffrey Epstein. You remember it. This one that referred to Trump and Epstein’s “wonderful secret.”

The two remaining lawsuits pending in Florida are against the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and The New York Times. Trump wants $10 billion from the BBC and $15 billion from the Times.

(It’s possible he may want payment in gold bars so he can continue his Oval Office redecorating, but that’s a subject for another time.)

In The New York Times lawsuit, in addition to the newspaper, Trump is suing several reporters and publisher Penguin Random House over campaign coverage and the book Lucky Loser. Trump claims they sabotaged his campaign.

(And here we thought he lost because—as he endlessly continues to blather—the election was rigged.)

District Judge Steven D. Merryday dismissed the original 85-page complaint for being less a lawsuit than a political screed. It’s been refiled twice, and the Times continues to ask the court to dismiss the suit as meritless.

Trump's suit against the BBC is on the brink of dismissal, with Judge Enjolique Lett giving Trump a December deadline to sit for a videotaped seven-hour deposition or she may impose sanctions and throw out the case. This suit involves Trump's claim that the BBC's editing of the speech he delivered before the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection was malicious. The BBC has apologized, but contends it does not constitute libel.

In all these cases, legal experts widely regard the amounts Trump is seeking as frivolous.

"Given that he won the presidency after this and has continued to make money in his businesses, it seems implausible that he's going to be able to prove a billion dollars worth of damages," said Professor Lyrissa Lidsky of the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

If history is a guide, he won’t succeed.

The only time a president won a libel lawsuit was when Theodore Roosevelt filed a claim against a small Michigan newspaper called the Iron Ore, which said that Roosevelt “gets drunk … and not infrequently.”

Roosevelt brought a handful of character witnesses who testified that his favorite beverage was milk, and he won. But he didn’t ask for damages, just “six cents,” which he famously joked was “the price of a good newspaper.”

In 1913, it was also the price of a pint of beer at a local saloon. It is unknown if Truthful Teddy, as he was sometimes called, bought a paper or a brewskie after the trial.

That was then; this is now.

As Seth Stern of the Freedom of the Press Foundation notes about Trump:

“He doesn’t care if he wins or not. The point is to intimidate and punish those he views as critical to him.”

Trump likes to call the news media “the enemy of the people,” a phrase he borrows from the likes of Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler.

And while Trump’s lawsuits make big headlines, newspapers and other media outlets fight every day against the government’s corrupt efforts to keep the public in the dark.

Two headline issues come to mind here in Florida—the $10 million misspent in the Hope Florida scandal and the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted on Alligator Alcatraz.

Two candidates on Tuesday’s ballot have their fingerprints all over the Hope Florida debacle—James Uthmeier, running for attorney general, and Ashley Moody, trying to keep her appointed U.S. Senate seat.

How do we fight this corruption?

First, vote.

Also, I would add, selfishly, keep supporting the free press.

That you are reading this means you are already doing that. Thank you.

Jason Garcia's Seeking Rents

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Florida For Sale: Where big donors are putting their campaign dollars for Tuesday’s election

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 19:05:55 GMT

The biggest corporate contributor to Florida’s political parties was, by a wide margin, NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida’s largest electric utility, Florida Power & Light. NextEra stuffed more than $7.3 million into the parties in the run up to the Nov. 3 general election — and all but $50,000 of it went to the Republicans.

By Jason Garcia

Television in Florida has been utterly merciless lately. Every commercial break is filled with political advertisements, most of them savaging one candidate or another and warning of the utter horrors that await should voters elect them.

A lot of the advertising has been focused on what are, against all odds, shaping up as close races for three powerful offices in Tallahassee: Byron Donalds vs. David Jolly for governor; James Uthmeier vs. José Javier Rodriguez for attorney general; and Blaise Ingoglia vs. Annette Taddeo for chief financial officer. (Although if you happen to live in one of the few evenly divided districts in the gerrymandered Florida Legislature, your’ve no doubt been besieged by commercials related your local House or Senate race, too.)

Most of those ads — along with a number of other campaign expenses — are being funded not by the candidates themselves but by the political parties.

On one side is the Republican Party of Florida, which is behind a lot of the ads promoting Donalds, Uthmeier and Ingoglia, as well as the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Florida House Republican Campaign Committee, which pay for most of the ads promoting Republicans and attacking Democrats in legislative races.

On the other side is the Florida Democratic Party, supporting Jolly, Rodriguez and Taddeo, and its corresponding House and Senate campaign arms: The Florida Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and the Florida House Democratic Campaign Committee.

Because of a gap in Florida’s campaign laws, the political parties and their legislative leadership funds are able to hide their donors until just before Election Day. The final party fundraising reports — which essentially cover the period from the mid-August primary until just before the Nov. 3 general election — weren’t filed until yesterday.

But we have them now. So to start this election-eve edition of Florida in Five, we’re going to take a little tour of some of the donors and details that jumped out to me.

The kingpin: Florida Power & Light

The biggest corporate contributor to Florida’s political parties was, by a wide margin, NextEra Energy, the parent company of Florida’s largest electric utility, Florida Power & Light.

NextEra stuffed more than $7.3 million into the parties in the run up to the Nov. 3 general election — and all but $50,000 of it went to the Republicans.

The corporation sent the vast majority of that cash — $6.25 million — to the Republican Party of Florida, which, again, has been focused on the races for governor, attorney general and chief financial officer. NextEra has also given $1 million directly to Donalds.

The contributions come as NextEra is actively trying to develop hyperscale data centers around Florida — data centers that would, of course, would buy electricity from FPL. Company executives say they expect to announce at least one major project somewhere in the state by the end of the year.

Which perhaps gives the corporation extra financial incentive to oppose David Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor who has pledged to halt all data center construction in Florida for at least one year if he is elected.

Projects Silver Fox and Tango

Speaking of data centers, the developers behind two of the most controversial data center proposals in Florida also put an awful lot of last-minute money into the Republican Party.

Ferreira Construction, a New Jersey builder that has proposed “Project Silver Fox” in Martin County, gave $510,000 to the Republican Party of Florida.

At the same time, Palm Beach Aggregates and Phillips Inc., the companies pitching “Project Tango” in Palm Beach County, put a combined $468,000 into the GOP. That included roughly $218,000 for the Republican Party of Florida, plus $150,000 for House Republican campaigns and $100,000 for Senate GOP campaigns.

Neither data center developer donated to the Democratic Party.

What’s also interesting here is that both seem to be paying close attention to the Cabinet offices, too. The Project Tango team donated $50,000 apiece to Uthmeier in the attorney general race and Ingoglia in the chief financial officer campaign. And the Project Silver Fox backer added another $50,000 for Ingoglia.

The three-member Cabinet could potentially play a key role in resolving land use disputes that could emerge between a local county commission and a data center developer. (The three-member Florida Cabinet also includes Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, who is heavily favored to win re-election.)

One last note here: Project Tango isn’t the only signficant project involving Palm Beach Aggregates and Phillips Inc. The two companies also want to open a rock mine south of Lake Okeechobee, on sugar farmland that was once a part of the Everglades.

A number of environmental groups and Everglades activists are trying to stop the project, which is known as “Southland” — and which could conceivably end up as an issue before the Florida Cabinet, too.

AI billionaires and legislative leaders

Earlier this year, a Super PAC funded primarily by the billionaire investors behind OpenAI — the parent company of the ChatGPT chatbot — spent more than $2 million on advertising to help Byron Donalds win the Republican nomination for governor.

Now, they’re spending their money on the leaders of the Florida Legislature.

The political committee they set up in Florida made $275,000 in contributions in September: $100,000 each for the House and Senate Republican campaign funds, as well as $50,000 for incoming House Speaker Sam Garrison (R-Fleming Island) and $25,000 for incoming Senate President Jim Boyd (R-Bradenton).

One of OpenAI’s top artificial intelligence rivals recently started spending on state elections, too.

Anthropic — the company behind the Claude chatbot — has doled out more than $400,000 since August, all of it to Republicans. The gifts included $100,000 apiece for the Republican Party of Florida, House GOP campaigns, and Senate GOP campaigns.

Prediction market or sports book?

Florida Power & Light has long been one of the top corporate contributors in all of Florida politics. But the No. 2 corporate donor to the political parties this fall is a newer player: Kalshi Inc., the predication market (read: gambling) giant.

Kalshi is believed to be preparing for what could be a $40 billion IPO. But it’s also trying to stop states from adopting laws or regulations related to the sports betting that occurs on its site.

Altogether, the company gave nearly $4.3 million to the Republicans this fall — about $3.5 million to the Republican Party of Florida, plus another $750,000 for Senate GOP campaigns.

A bipartisan coalition of states, from Alabama to California, are currently suing Kalshi in federal court over whether the states can regulate sports bets on the site. Florida, though, has not joined on to the lawsuit.

It may then be worth mentioning here that Kalshi has also given $50,000 to Attorney General James Uthmeier — who refused to answer when Politico Florida asked him why he was staying on the sidelines of that lawsuit.

Sig Sauer is back

Just before the start of this year’s legislative session, the gun-maker Sig Sauer suddenly showered more than $500,000 on Republican leaders in Tallahassee — doling out checks ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to everyone from the speaker of the House and president of the Senate to an assortment of committee chairs to Attorney General James Uthmeier.

The donations came just as the company began lobbying for changes intended to defend it against a growing number of lawsuits brought by police officers and others who have been injured by allegedly defective Sig Sauer guns that fired without anybody ever pulling the trigger.

The Sig Sauer immunity bill ultimately failed to pass when it became stuck in the Florida Senate.

But Sig Sauer may now be trying to get it unstuck: A little over one week ago, the company gave $100,000 to the Senate Republican campaign fund.

Blue ribbons and red flags

If there’s a single bill hanging in the balance of this year’s elections, it’s the so-called “Blue Ribbon Projects” proposal, which would enable the state’s largest landowners to develop their properties without any meaningful local input or control from the surrounding community.

Seeking Rents reported earlier this month that the New York investors lobbying for the legislation — who have amassed more than 80,000 acres of rural land across north Florida — had donated nearly $300,000 this fall to important Republican candidates. That included $100,000 for Byron Donalds, plus thousands more for GOP candidates in crucial Senate contests.

Well, it turns out those investors — who have been donating through a land-owning entity called “Jax-Palatka Farms LLC” — have also been putting money into the parties, too.

The newly disclosed party donations include $100,000 for Senate Republican campaigns and $50,000 for House Republican campaigns.

But that’s not all. Jax-Palatka Farms also gave $25,000 each to House and Senate Democrat campaign funds.

That’s now $490,000 in contributions just since September. And the $50,000 ticketed for Democratic campaigns suggests that Blue Ribbon Projects boosters are trying to buy at least a few Democratic votes for whatever new version of the legislation emerges in 2027.

Which also tells you just how tight a final vote might be.

Agricultural enclave showdown

Another controversial development issue whose fate may hinge on this year’s elections is the state’s new “agricultural enclave” law, which makes it easier for homebuilders to put subdivisions on farmland near cities.

The now-infamous law — written by lobbyists for major developers — has hit like a bomb in fast-growing St. Johns County, where a host of builders have raced to take advantage of it.

The most notable is the Davis family of northeast Florida — best known as the founders of the Winn-Dixie grocery chain and the developers of Nocatee — who are trying to use the new law to lock in entitlements for thousands of homes on a giant tract of timberlands southeast of Jacksonville.

County commissioners in St. Johns are trying to stop that and some other agricultural enclave developments. They have also vowed to push the Florida Legislature to repeal or revise the law during the 2027 session, which will begin early next year.

The Davis family may be preparing for a fight in the Florida Capitol. One of the corporate entities they control — Big Creek Timber LLC — put a quarter of a million dollars into Republican campaigns this fall. That included $150,000 for the Republican Party of Florida and $50,000 each for House and Senate GOP campaign funds.

The Davis family has also been a big Byron Donald donor, too.

Who does the Legislature work for?

Back in September, the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel obtained a secret state report revealing that dozens of property insurance companies claiming big losses in Florida where actually making lots of money.

But perhaps the most shocking detail of the whole story was that the Florida Senate threatened to sue the newspapers if they published the findings of the report. The newspapers, to their enormous credit, wrote the story anyway.

With that context in mind, here’s an interesting donor of note: Slide Insurance — which has aggressively used profit-shifting tactics — gave $550,000 to the Republican Party of Florida this fall.

Big Tobacco and a big tax break

There seem to be three main battleground races in the Florida Senate this year — and Philip Morris International just dumped a bunch of money into all of them.

On the very same day, the Big Tobacco giant gave $25,000 to Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Sanford), who is running against Democratic challenger John Lowndes in Senate District 10 in Orlando; $10,000 to former state Rep. Josie Tomkow (R-Polk City), who is running against Sen. Brian Nathan (D-Tampa) in Senate District 14 in Tampa; and $10,000 to Sen. Alexis Calatayud (R-Miami), who is running against Democratic challenger Richard Lamondin in Senate District 38 in Miami.

Around the same time, Philip Morris also gave $200,000 to Donalds and another $100,00 each to the incoming House Speaker and Senate president. It also gave $150,000 to the Republican Party of Florida.

What does it want? Well, Philip Morris is lobbying for the last couple of years for a big tax break from the Florida Legislature — namely, an exemption from state taxes on cigarettes and tobacco for its “IQOS” line of heated tobacco products.

Philip Morris already got outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration to give the company the tax exemption through executive action — shortly after Philip Morris donated $500,000 to DeSantis during the 2024 elections.

But Philip Morris wants to lock that tax break in permanently.

After all, an executive action can be undone by a future governor — perhaps a future governor who has not taken mountains of cash from Philip Morris.

More doodie

A few final fundraising tidbits:

A company linked to Doodie Calls — the portable toilet vendor that was paid more than $90 million as part of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ — gave $575,000 to Byron Donalds, who has said he is not interested in investigating misspending at the now-closed Everglades detention center.
The Panhandle developer who sold four acres of land to the state last year for more than $80 million — in a transaction that one longtime conservation leader called “a sham” — gave another $100,000 to Donalds in October. One of his companies had already donated $25,000 each to Donalds and Attorney General James Uthmeier, who voted to approve the original land deal as a member of the Florida Cabinet.
The leader of a “wastewater surveillance” company that helps police agencies test toilet water for drugs and other substances — which successfully lobbied for a $500,000 earmark in this year’s state budget — gave $25,000 to Uthmeier.
Elon Musk’s newly public SpaceX has begun making big campaign contributions in Florida — most notably, a $100,000 donation to Donalds.
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This report by Jason Garcia is from Seeking Rents, a newsletter and podcast devoted to independent journalism about Florida politics, with an emphasis on how big businesses and other special interests influence public policy in the state.

Seeking Rents is free, but you can support Jason Garcia’s work by becoming a paid subscriber and/or by making a one-time donation. The name, Seeking Rents, comes from a term meaning the act or process of exploiting the political process or manipulating the economic environment to increase one’s revenue or profits.

Today’s report is from his weekly Florida in Five: Stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics. Links to those articles follow.

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WEEKLY WRAP: It’s the economy, stupid, but also government corruption, voters say

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 11:01:41 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

Here’s why we can’t let bullies and fear-mongers have their way this election

The cost of living and inflation remain the most decisive issues influencing voters in this midterm election, but government corruption comes in second—a concern closely tied to the Trump Administration and one reason the president’s approval rating is in the toilet.

In a just-released Harris Poll, nine out of 10 Americans said government corruption—defined as public officials putting their own interests above the public’s—is a major concern.

The poll was commissioned by The Guardian, and here are the issues voters said were of greatest concern:

The New York Times has been traveling the country talking to voters about this. In Florida, a 61-year-old voter from Dunedin (where both Ron DeSantis and I graduated from high school), had this to say:

“Trump said he would drain the swamp, and he’s become the swamp.”

Ballrooms, tax cuts for billionaires, gold plating the Oval Office, unprovoked wars, self-dealing, persecuting political enemies, pay-for-pardons, insider trading, suing his own government for billions—Trump’s corruption is open for all to see. Which explains why so many Republicans are running from him.

Polls indicate they can’t run fast enough as Democrats seem assured of winning back the House and maybe the Senate.

Here in Florida, we’re hardly strangers to government corruption, either. Can you say Alligator Alcatraz and Hope Florida? Thanks, DeSantis.

Will that be enough to turn around a state with 1.5 million more Republicans than Democrats? Sure, if people get off their couches and go vote. We’ll see if that happens on Tuesday.

That Was the Week That Was

Speaking of corruption …

Trump was furious when he learned that one of his former lawyers, Alina Habba Mildon, landed a contract for more than $50 million to work for a billionaire Venezuelan family, the patriarch of which he had pardoned.

Was he concerned it looked like a pay-for-pardon scheme?

Of course not. He just wanted a piece of the action.

According to The New York Times, Trump was angry at the size of the deal, and told aides and allies that she should donate a portion of that money to his future presidential library or another Trump-related entity.

Speaking of the economy …

Millions of Americans who depend on Obamacare for their health insurance face another double-digit price increase next year thanks to Republicans and the Trump Administration allowing health-care tax credits to expire.

The average price of health insurance in the Obamacare marketplaces will rise by 13 percent next year, according to an analysis on Friday by KFF, the health research group.

Cheesy remarks wound Trump

Donald Trump was furious when Barack Obama said his redecorating of the Oval Office resembled what would happen if Saddam Hussein was turned loose in a Cheesecake Factory.

That, of course, was terribly unfair. Hussein had many faults, but even he wasn’t as tasteless as Trump.

Turns out, The Donald had another reason to be upset. Obama’s remarks could have hurt one of his investments. He owns stock in Cheesecake Factory.

Fall back

Just a reminder, not that you are likely to have forgotten, but if you haven’t done so already, it’s earlier than you think. Daylight Saving Time expired at 2 a.m. this morning, so be sure to “fall back” an hour on your clocks.

And if you are wondering what happened to that bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, it passed the House of Representatives but died in the Senate, even with Trump’s endorsement. He’s winning so much.

Meme of the Week

The Strange Files

Saved by the phone

A cellphone in the pocket of a Boynton Beach man may have saved his life when a robber shot him, but the bullet lodged in his phone.

According to a report in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the victim was walking toward his car at a gas station when he felt a gun in his back, and he heard a voice say: “Give me all you got.”

He turned—no doubt appalled by the cliché—and was shot in the ankle. Then a second shot hit his pocket with the cell phone in it. He managed to run back to the gas station while the robber continued shooting at him.

Police have since arrested an 18-year-old Lake Worth Beach man.

Cop quits after he’s caught squatting

A Lauderhill police officer who was accused of stealing the identity of a dead man and taking over his house has resigned.

Police allege that the cop arranged for the funeral of the home’s owner after he died because he had no family, and then he and his partner moved in. They even invested more than $200,000 in improvements to the house.

Small problem: The deceased owner did, in fact, have family, and eventually the whole scheme unraveled.

Third Quarter Comment Contest Winners

Once a quarter, we recognize the marvelous writers who have contributed to the Comments section of the Tropic Press newsletters. Honestly, there are far too many wonderful letters to list, so thanks to all of you, and please keep commenting. For Quarter III, the five finalists and the winning entry are:

FINALISTS

Fear is the driving force behind the climate change deniers and the MAGAS. They are so afraid of what is happening that they go all in denying that there are serious threats to our survival as a species and as a democracy in this country. They can’t handle the scientific truths and obvious dismantling of our constitution so they refuse to acknowledge it. Denial is a very powerful defense mechanism when faced with facts that are frightening and or threatening. As a result they seek reassurance from leaders that assuage their fears with the reality that makes them feel safe. My experience has been that the less educated the person is the more they are in denial.

—Eileen Hoffman

Whoever said “you can’t fix stupid” seems to have predicted the end of the human race and most of the rest of the planet. Between climate change and AI both appear to be accelerating us towards Armageddon. The only hope is that perhaps AI might stop us first in a self preservation move. Reading this week’s news about AI “breaking out and hacking another company’s system alerts me to how little we really know about what is happening behind the curtain that the Wizard of OZ hides behind.

—Alan Margulies

David Jolly should take a lesson from (Alex) Vindman, deciding not to debate his primary opponent (Angie) Nixon. Refusing to debate Donalds, who he calls a liar, but not being willing to get on the stage to demonstrate his ability to dominate Donalds publicly is a huge mistake. People need to see these two guys standing up publicly, answering questions. That’s how we’ll take the measure of the men, not by the incessant texts and emails we get asking for money.

—George Terranova, M.D.

If I was a Republican running for re-election I would be trying really hard to have some exotic disease to keep from having to attend the mid-term convention. Thinking about it, maybe having Trump’s name associated with a candidate could be considered a disease in itself.

— Jim Hunter

Clearly the Republicans, nationally and in this state, are the party of big government. They want to control everyone one way or another, and extract more money from ordinary people in order to benefit the super-wealthy. Donalds is just like his boss, Trump: a constant liar.

—Lewis Pulsipher

WINNER

I read the report that David Jolly refused to debate a liar who set the ground rules for the debate. No live audience and the debate would be recorded and edited and played for the media at a later date. That’s not a debate that’s a made for TV fantasy. I have a better idea. Use an AI bullshit detector in a live debate with a statistically politically comprised audience (this is called stratified sampling ). These AI programs already exist and I would love to see AI applied this way.

— Greg Gargan

When I’m not writing this newsletter, I also scribble a current events column for Florida Weekly. You should check it out. Here are some snippets, from there and elsewhere, to help guide your week ahead. (Paid subscribers to this newsletter have full access to the complete Onward Thru the Fog archive.)

Nov. 2. Today is Election Day Eve. So, if you haven’t already voted by mail, or if you didn’t take advantage of early voting at the polls, today is a good time to plan when and where you will vote tomorrow. If you need help finding information, I suggest you check the News2Use section.

Nov. 3. Election Day. Vote. It’s your superpower. Don’t squander it.

Nov. 4. Check Your Blood Pressure Day. This will be very appropriate for some people, depending on how they voted. They call high blood pressure the silent killer because people can experience it for years without knowing, all while it damages blood vessels and internal organs.

Nov. 5. Susan B. Anthony broke the law on this date in 1872. She had the temerity to vote in the presidential election even though—egad!—she was a woman. For this, she was arrested, fined, and later recognized as a hero of the women’s rights movement, especially after women won the right to vote 48 years later.

Nov. 6. Speaking of presidential elections, Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16^th president of the United States on this day in 1860, just in time for the Civil War. It is also National Nacho Day. It is unknown if Abe was a nacho fan, although I have it on good authority that he subscribed to Tropic Press (see below).

Nov. 7. It was 1492, and that year in the Americas resonates as the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the so-called New World. That year also saw another historic event: A 280-pound meteorite slammed into our planet near the town of Ensisheim, near the borders of modern-day France, Germany, and Switzerland. They called it the “Thunder Stone.” Its sonic boom could be heard a 100 miles away. What remains of the space rock is now in a museum, preserved as the oldest European meteorite left in existence.

Last Week’s Tropic Press headlines

In case you missed it, here are some of the stories that headlined Tropic Press this past week. Click on the headlines to read the stories.

The Epstein Files are back in the news with a demand by Democrats to investigate Trump

Oddsmakers now say the U.S. Senate is in reach for Democrats; in Florida it’s a tight race

Political Notes: Obama endorses Jolly and Nixon; national governors races shift to Dems; seven races that will decide Senate control

King Donald wants to ban votes in California; Gavin Newsom wants to ‘kick his ass’

Election Interference Update: Ken Paxton sues because too many people of color are voting; Trump to take election workers to court

ASK THE BIRD: Is this where all of Saddam Hussein’s gold went? To the Oval office?

News2Use

Check out the latest section on the Tropic Press website, News2Use, a handy reference library with links to useful information such as election deadlines, how to contact your elected representatives, and more.

A little help, please …

Reposting sends these newsletters to other readers on the Substack network. And the more people we reach, the more effective we can be at changing the trajectory of our state and nation. Thanks for your help.

ASK THE BIRD: Is this where all of Saddam Hussein’s gold went? To the Oval office?

Sat, 31 Oct 2026 10:01:14 GMT

DEAR MISS MINGO:

Somebody told me that Barack Obama made fun of DonOLD Trump’s taste in interior decorating by comparing what he’s done with the Oval Office to a Cheesecake Factory. I’ve never thought of Cheesecake Factory as being particularly gaudy or anything, and I like their food. So how was this supposed to be insulting?

Hungry in Haines City

Dear Hungry:

You have to see Obama’s full remarks to get the joke. He said:

"He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory; it's just gold everywhere."

So, I like Cheesecake Factory, too, and I wish there were one in Key West, but they are actually known for their golden hues. I looked it up on the never-wrong internet, and this is what I found:

The interior of a Cheesecake Factory features prominent gold-toned and gilded design elements, though it is not made of solid gold. The chain is known for a maximalist, theatrical aesthetic often described as “affordable opulence”.

The point of the joke is that Trump is acting like a two-bit dictator, imitating the way Saddam Hussein looted his country’s banks and stashed gold bars at his various palaces.

Only Trump is taking all that gold and splattering it all over the White House walls, like a mad interior designer who thinks a stately, dignified, historic mansion owned by the people should be decorated like a chain restaurant.

Nothing against eateries, just not the look one wants for the People’s House. Especially when We The People are suffering an affordability crisis, and that gold could be put to better use.

You know, like paying for the restoration of the East Wing that Trump bulldozed without permission.

DEAR MISS MINGO:

Is it true that Secretary of Unpeace Pete Hegseth broke Dwight Eisenhower's treasured globe?

Appalled in Aventura

Dear Appalled:

Before he became president, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Allied Commander leading the free world against the Nazis in World War II.

He had this magnificent 30-inch standing globe that he used to plot operations against Hitler.

When Hegseth took over at the Pentagon, he wanted the globe moved to his office, but instead of waiting for professional curators or trained military historians to handle it, he ordered untrained staff members to do it, and they literally dropped the ball. The globe broke free of its metal mount, and its fragile shell was impaled, leaving a huge hole right through Antarctica.

Because I am a trained journalist and I do not start unfounded rumors, I will not give credibility to gossip that when Hegseth saw the puncture wound, he said:

“Coulda been worse. Thank God we didn’t punch a hole through Mar-a-Lago.”

DEAR MISS MINGO:

I just read a Dave Barry column in which he described a drunk in Las Vegas who captured a flamingo from a hotel’s animal sanctuary and snuck it up to his room. He got caught on video and may now go to jail. That wasn’t you, was it?

Bird Lover in Bradenton

Dear Birdie:

No. I have never in my life kidnapped a flamingo and snuck it off to my hotel room. I can’t even believe you asked. But I will admit it was a funny column. You can read it here:

What Happens in Vegas

DEAR MISS MINGO:

Ha ha. You know what Birdie meant. Was it you that got kidnapped? And were you mistreated? You know, did anything kinky happen?

Weird in Wesley Chapel

Dear Weird:

I will say this again, because it merits repeating, often, apparently:

I AM NOT AN ACTUAL FLAMINGO.

It’s just my nickname. You can read my bio for the sordid details.

And even if I were, I wouldn’t comment. What happens in Vegas and all that.

And besides, who among us hasn’t had 30 or 40 beers, like that guy confessed to imbibing, and done something silly?

Got a question for Miss Mingo? About life, the news, or nightlife on Duval Street, with which she is VERY familiar? Write to her at MissMingo@Tropic.Press.

ASK MISS MINGO

Meet Miss Mingo

AND now, some shameless advertising…

DUE TO POPULAR DEMAND, the official Tropic Press Store is now open and ready for business. You can order your very own Miss Mingo merch online. All sales are final. Check out the store here:

Tropic Press Merch

And when your shirt arrives, take a selfie and email it to Miss Mingo to be included in her column.

Election Interference Update: Ken Paxton sues because too many people of color are voting; Trump to take election workers to court

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:26:44 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

Efforts by Republicans to disrupt the midterm election are ongoing, including these two outrageous attempts to suppress voting.

In Texas, Ken Paxton, the Trump-endorsed and previously impeached state attorney general, is running for the U.S. Senate and trailing in the polls against his opponent, Democrat James Talarico.

So, today, in an effort to disrupt the vote — a harbinger of potential court challenges to come — Paxton filed a lawsuit in Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, the state’s most diverse city.

This report from The New Republic:

Paxton’s lawsuit claims that a get-out-the-vote advertisement campaign from Harris County’s elections office essentially constitutes reverse racism because it encouraged Black and Latino voters (groups with historically lower access to elections) to vote.
“By specifically directing voting advertisements to these and many other racial or ethnic ‘detailed targeting’ terms, it is readily apparent that Harris County is attempting to increase the likelihood that only certain racial and ethnic groups—but not all—will vote,” the lawsuit reads. “In any event, there can be no legitimate reason for Harris County to intentionally target voter advertisements toward this peculiar assortment of African American, Asian, and Latino ethnicities, cultural interests, and countries, but not toward any European ethnicities.”
Harris County has already stopped running the ads, and Paxton has recused himself from this lawsuit, even though he is, of course, Texas’s current attorney general.

Democrats are pushing back, of course. Said Texas Democratic U.S. Rep. Christian D. Menefee:

“Ken Paxton filed this lawsuit in the final days of voting because he wants to stop Houstonians from going to the polls. He’s whining about ads that do nothing more than tell neighbors when to vote and where to get information about voting. Paxton is upset that diverse voters across Harris County are making their voices heard. He doesn’t like that in this election, people are showing up in big numbers ....
“Remember this: Someone with as much power as the Texas Attorney General would only take desperate action like this lawsuit because he is scared. I hope everyone in Harris County who is eligible to vote sees this lawsuit for what it is, and goes to cast their ballot in this election.”

And that’s the right reaction: How do you respond to bullies? You push back.

Pushing back will also be required in California, where the Trump administration is attempting to disenfranchise about 20,000 voters it thinks could possibly, just maybe, be ineligible.

As reported in this morning's newsletter, a federal judge has already rejected a temporary restraining order that would have interfered with these voters’ ballots.

Now, Department of Justice lawyers have issued grand jury subpoenas to local election officials. Some employees at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office received grand jury subpoenas demanding their testimony on Nov. 4, the day after the election.

Earlier this month, ABC News reported that the DOJ threatened to criminally prosecute election workers who knowingly tabulate ballots belonging to noncitizen voters. In a letter to Los Angeles officials, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote that “noncitizen voting in a federal election is a federal crime -- and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful.”

This is also, quite obviously, an attempt to intimidate election workers and frighten voters.

“At every step, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a confrontational, adversarial approach. Election officials are acting in accordance with state and federal law,” Dean Logan, the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk, said. “Clear court rulings at both the U.S. District Court level and the Court of Appeals have confirmed that. Threats and intimidation have no place in elections.”

But here they are, anyway.

King Donald wants to ban votes in California; Gavin Newsom wants to ‘kick his ass’

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 10:03:39 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

Donald Trump still hasn’t figured out he’s not a king.

He sent his minions to California this week to force the state to delay counting about 20,000 ballots the Justice Department suspects may have come from people who shouldn’t have been registered to vote.

Maybe. Not sure. Possibly. But just in case…

A federal judge wasn’t having it, and he had a few choice words for Trump’s misunderstanding that, not since 1776, has a monarch reigned in America.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote. “In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too.”

The judge then denied the temporary restraining order the federal government sought.

To which the feds suggested that failure to comply with Trump’s wishes could lead to criminal charges.

“These threats must stop,” Carter ordered. “The Executive’s requested relief would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.”

Of course they would. That was the point.

“Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve,” the judge said.

“Constitutional rights and our democracy are at stake. The public interest favors their protection. Individuals who have met the requirements of California’s voter registration laws must not be deprived of a core right merely because of unfounded allegations stemming from a procedure rife with uncertainty and errors.”

California is not the only state where Trump is trying to disrupt the election. He sent his Department of Justice flunkies to Alaska to block certification of a Senate election there — but only if the Democrat wins. Now he’s saying the Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, should be removed from the ballot and prosecuted.

Here in Florida, Broward County election officials say they’re getting complaints from voters that the Post Office seems to be slow-walking mail-in ballot delivery.

The problem is serious enough that Broward Supervisor of Elections Joe Scott advised voters not to risk mailing their ballots because they may not reach his office in time to be counted on Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to the Miami Herald.

Back to the California tussle, Gov. Gavin Newsom was interviewed about the controversy on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, leaving viewers with these two takeaways:

Voter turnout is vital to ensure that Democratic margins of victory are large enough that Trump and his handmaidens cannot credibly dispute the election results, Newsom said, urging everyone to get out and vote.

And then Kimmel asked Newsom if Trump “has commented on your appearance, physique. He’s a little boy crazy lately.” Kimmel was referring, of course, to Trump’s comments about Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted, to wit:

“He came up, and he was talking very nicely, and I stood right over here, and I examined his ass…”

To which Newsom responded to Kimmel:

“He does have a bit of a fixation with, uh, forgive me, people’s asses. But the only ass I care about is the one we’re going to kick on Tuesday.”

A little help, please …

Political Notes: Obama endorses Jolly and Nixon; national governors races shift to Dems; seven races that will decide Senate control

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 10:03:48 GMT

From Cook Political Report

By J.C. Bruce

Check out the map at the top of this newsletter. See anything unexpected?

It’s all about the color pink, which the prognosticators at Cook Political Report are now using to describe Florida and Texas, states that in previous elections would have been the deepest possible shade of red.

Solid red means the Republican candidate for governor is nearly certain to win (we say “nearly” because, as we know, anything can happen in politics).

When states shift from ruby red to pink—and how appropriate is that in Breast Cancer Awareness Month?—something significant has changed.

Here in Florida, that something is David Jolly, the Democratic nominee, who, according to the University of North Florida's most recent poll, was only two points behind his Trump-endorsed opponent, Byron Donalds, a right-wing congressperson and MAGA darling from ruby-red Naples.

With a 1.5 million-voter registration advantage, Republicans still have the edge over Democrats, oddsmakers say. But there’s more to that story.

Florida has a huge number of voters registered as No Party Affiliation (NPA). The combined total of Democrats and NPAs swamps the Republican numbers, as you can see in this chart from the Secretary of State’s office:

And there are indications that NPAs are leaning more toward Democratic candidates. Whether enough of them will show up and vote that way is, of course, an open question.

There’s also the couch factor (and, no, we’re not talking about J.D. Vance’s odd proclivities).

We’re talking about the enthusiasm gap among Republicans, reflected in Donald Trump’s dismal approval ratings. Will they stay home on the couch? Will enough of them do so to make a difference?

The answers to these questions could turn this map from pink to blue in just a few days.

Other states are already shifting colors, according to Cook, which reports that Democrats could pick up two to four additional governorships. Currently, Republicans outnumber Democrats 26-24.

Seven races that will determine who rules the Senate

Democrats need to pick up four seats to retake the Senate, and the Washington Post has identified seven races that current polling data suggests will decide that. Here’s a chart from the Post that illustrates that:

You will note that Florida is not among the states the Post sees as most likely to flip from red to blue.

Still, as noted above, voter turnout could upset those predictions.

State Rep. Angie Nixon, the Democratic nominee, would become Florida's first Black senator if she pulls off an upset over the incumbent, Ashley Moody.

As we’ve discussed in previous newsletters, Moody is a placeholder, put in the job by Gov. Ron DeSantis when Marco Rubio quit the Senate to become U.S. Secretary of State. This happened shortly after she turned a blind eye to what has become known as the Hope Florida scandal.

In the most recent University of North Florida polling, Nixon trails Moody by 5 points. Can her appeals to younger voters close that gap? Will they get off the couch? We’ll see.

Obama endorses Jolly and Nixon

“Real change starts when regular folks stand up for what’s right, and Angie has spent her career standing up for you,” former President Barack Obama, who won Florida in both his presidential campaigns, said in a video Nixon shared.

Obama said Nixon has consistently fought for policies that help people, including a $15 minimum wage and opposing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ congressional redistricting. “One leader willing to stand up again and again for what’s right,” he said. “That’s why I believe Angie will be an outstanding U.S. Senator.”

As for Jolly, Obama said he is “focused on lowering the cost of housing and healthcare and making sure every child gets a great education. Elections are about who will fight for you, and in this election, it’s David Jolly. So, let’s do this, Florida. Vote for the change you deserve.”

A little help, please …

Oddsmakers now say the U.S. Senate is in reach for Democrats; in Florida it’s a tight race

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 10:02:56 GMT

State Rep. Angie Nixon—U.S. Senate Democratic candidate

By J.C. Bruce

With less than a week until Election Day, the highly regarded Sabato’s Crystal Ball has determined that not only is it highly likely that Democrats will reclaim the majority in the House of Representatives, but the Senate now appears to be in reach.

In the latest release from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, which publishes the Crystal Ball, their key findings include:

With a week until Election Day, Democrats seem to have a slight advantage in the Senate battle, with Maine and Texas emerging as the likeliest majority-making contests.
In Florida, the Senate race moves from Safe Republican to Likely Republican, meaning the race between incumbent Republican Ashley Moody and Democrat State Rep. Angie Nixon is tighter, although Moody is still favored.
In the Carolinas, former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) seems more likely to win his state’s open-seat Senate race, while Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) is less likely to.

Regarding the hotly contested Florida races for governor and U.S. Senate, the Center for Politics had this to say:

Florida’s Senate race is moving from Safe Republican to Likely Republican. We rate the gubernatorial race as Leans Republican, and polling in the two contests has been similar enough that we thought it made sense to bring their ratings closer together.

Republican Sen. Ashley Moody remains clearly favored, but Democrats have some reason for optimism: Matthew Isbell’s latest early voting analysis shows registered Democrats maintaining a roughly 8-point turnout advantage over registered Republicans, a substantially better position than they held at this point in 2024 (although Republicans, who have a 1.5-million registration advantage over Democrats, finally surpassed them in the overall advance vote Monday).

Democrat Angie Nixon has also been a robust fundraiser, not unlike many other Democratic Senate candidates. We don’t expect the early voting numbers or the fundraising numbers to translate into a Democratic victory, but, together, they reinforce the case for a more competitive rating.

Nixon, a state representative from Jacksonville, has been closing in on Moody over the past few weeks. An earlier University of North Florida poll had her trailing Moody by 10 points. She’s now narrowed that gap to 5 points.

Moody, appointed to the Senate seat by Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been tarred by her involvement in the Hope Florida scandal, and survey respondents have cited that as a reason to vote against her.

Nixon, for her part, has been subjected to relentless Red Scare campaign ads because she has the audacity to endorse some of the positions of Social Democrats (like Bernie Sanders), such as Medicare for All and raising the minimum wage.

While the Crystal Ball still shows the gubernatorial contest leaning Republican, the University of North Florida survey put the Democratic candidate, David Jolly, within two points of the Trump-endorsed Republican, Byron Donalds.

You can read the entire report for yourself, which includes races from other states, by clicking this link:

Sabato's Crystal Ball

A little help, please …

The Epstein Files are back in the news with a demand by Democrats to investigate Trump

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 10:20:31 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

"‘We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey’: The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ’s Desperate Efforts to Cover it Up".

Donald Trump is urging Republicans to focus on him this election. “Pretend I’m on the ballot,” he keeps telling supporters.

That’s actually the last thing Republicans need at the moment, as Trump’s efforts to bury the Epstein Files have blown up with the release of a scathing report from Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

The 53-page document alleges that five women have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault while Trump was accompanied by now-deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein or shortly after meeting the men together.

An analysis of the report by the Miami Herald’s Julie K. Brown and Clare Healy notes that the committee “presented at least one new allegation against Trump: a former Miss Switzerland who says she was raped by him at the Plaza Hotel in New York during a beauty pageant in 1993, leaving her bleeding and bruised.”

The Democrats issuing the report are calling for a criminal investigation into the president.

That report relies heavily on information that was released from the heavily redacted version of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein.

The Justice Department, now led by Trump’s former personal attorney Todd Blanche, has tried to discredit the women who have testified that they were victimized:

“Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”

This is from the same Justice Department that transferred Epstein’s sidekick, Ghislaine Maxwell, from a Florida prison to a Club Fed in Texas with yoga and puppy therapy after a conversation with Blanche in which, the Committee report says, Blanche told her to keep her mouth shut about a survivor who had implicated Trump.

From the Herald report:

The report mentions 11 women, five of whom said in interviews with newspapers, a lawsuit, or directly to the Committee that Trump either raped or sexually assaulted them. Three additional women told the FBI of interactions with Trump in Epstein’s presence, which the Committee says indicates a pattern of Epstein introducing Trump to young women. Another three women have not come forward publicly; instead the Committee points to statements in the files tying them to Trump and Epstein.

Two women have claimed they were 13 or 14 when Trump assaulted them; they met him through Epstein, they say in the report. One said the assault took place in the 1980s. One, known by the pseudonym Katie Johnson, filed a lawsuit against Trump and Epstein in 2016 detailing an alleged rape in 1994. She later withdrew the suit.

A second woman, Jane Doe, told the FBI in an interview that Epstein introduced her to Trump in the 1980s – and that Trump forced her head “down to his penis” and she bit him. She lived in South Carolina at the time. Neither of the women’s stories have been corroborated.

Trump has denied the allegations.

But the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are calling on Blanche to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump and other potential co-conspirators, and they are accusing the Department of Justice of withholding evidence and covering up the scandal.

“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard,” the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said. “Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice.”

You can read the report yourself here:

You can also check out this summary of the report’s findings in this press release from the Judiciary Committee Democrats:

Judiciary Democrats’ Report Details Mounting Evidence Linking Trump to Epstein’s Criminal Activities and DOJ’s Cover-Up; Specific Accounts Involving 11 Women Provide More Evidence of Potential Sex Crimes

Among the allegations:

DOJ and FBI Shut Down Investigations and Withheld Evidence While Claiming No Basis to Prosecute or Even Investigate Any Additional Epstein Co-Conspirators.
In Two-Day Interview, Attorney General Todd Blanche Instructed Maxwell Not to Discuss a Specific Survivor Whose Account Implicated Trump.
Five Women Accuse Trump of Rape or Sexual Assault in Epstein’s Company or Presence; Others Describe Apparent Attempts by Epstein or Maxwell to Traffic Them to Trump.

A little help, please …

Beyond subscribing, one of the most helpful things you can do as a member of the Tropic Press community is to share this work with others. You can do that by hitting the SHARE button below and also—and this is a real plus—by hitting the RESTACK icon at the bottom of the post. It’s a lot smaller, but it looks like this:

Here’s why we can’t let bullies and fear-mongers have their way this election

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 10:23:27 GMT

By J.C. Bruce

As early voting begins and Election Day looms, our inboxes are being bombarded with political messaging.

Amid that blizzard of words, two thought-provoking and inspiring letters arrived this weekend—one from the chair of the local Democratic Party urging us not to get trapped by divisiveness, and the other from the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate.

The emails arrived as State Rep. Angie Nixon’s campaign—while still behind in the polls—seems to be creeping up on Ashley Moody in the race for U.S. Senate. The latest University of North Florida survey shows Nixon has cut her deficit in half and now trails Moody by only 5 points.

Moody has refused to debate Nixon and, instead, has resorted to Red Scare name-calling from the 1950s. And Vice President J.D. Vance, in support of Moody, has said she should “get the hell out of” America.

Nixon, for her part, is disinclined to follow Vance’s advice, and Jane Schlechtweg, chair of the Collier County Democratic Party, tells us why we shouldn't let ourselves be bullied.

Here then, without further ado, are these two missives for your reading enjoyment. As always, please share with your friends by forwarding this email or restacking this post on Substack.

From Jane Schlechtweg

Communism. Socialism.

To some, those are scary words.

But I’ll tell you what scares me: fascism, theocracy, oligarchy.

I fear a government that demands loyalty to a leader over the Constitution. One that imposes the same religious beliefs on everyone. A country where extraordinary wealth buys extraordinary power while ordinary people struggle to be heard.

Fascism concentrates power in an authoritarian leader and treats opposition as an enemy. Theocracy places the government under religious authority. Oligarchy puts power in the hands of a privileged few.

Each threatens our freedom and democracy.

There is a lot being said in television attack ads and mailers warning about communism and socialism. The sole purpose is to make you afraid.

Policies such as higher taxes on the wealthy, expanded Medicare, or stronger worker protections can operate within capitalism. They do not, by themselves, move the country towards communism. More government programs that benefit us all do not automatically mean socialism and the loss of capitalism.

We can disagree about taxes and government spending. But frightening labels don’t tell us whether policies help people.

Instead, ask better questions. Know who and what you are voting for.

Does this policy protect our freedom? Treat people equally? Hold government accountable? Who benefits, and whose voice is ignored?

What scares me most is becoming so accustomed to cruelty, intimidation, and abuses of power that we stop objecting. That we shrug and say, “That’s just how things are now.”

We decide what becomes acceptable.

Fear turns neighbors into enemies. I want us focused on the country, Florida, and Collier County we are building—and insisting that freedom, dignity, and a voice in government belong to every one of us.

From Angie Nixon

The Vice President of the United States flew into Florida and told a cheering crowd that I don’t belong in America.

Let that sit for a second. The Vice President, standing on a tarmac in my home state, telling a Black woman whose ancestors helped build this country with their own hands that she should get out.

I don’t need JD Vance’s permission to belong here.

My family has been in Florida for generations. We built this country. We bled for it. We worked the land, raised the children, and did the jobs nobody else wanted to do, all while being told at every turn that we didn’t quite belong.

And now, a man who has never had to prove he belongs anywhere is lecturing me about America while standing next to a senator who was never even elected to the seat she holds.

Let’s be clear about what that was really about: it was a distraction, and a desperate one.

When you can’t defend record-high insurance premiums, skyrocketing rent, and a healthcare system that bankrupts working families, the easiest thing to do is make the conversation about anything else. So they flew in a Vice President to do their dirty work.

I’m not interested in being anyone’s distraction.

I’m running for U.S. Senate to deliver lower costs, accessible healthcare, and an economy that works for the people actually doing the work in Florida, not corporate-backed politicians.

I’m not going anywhere, and neither is this campaign.

Thanks for your support

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Regardless, every person you share this with is one more potential vote for change.

Please share — and restack— and help us make Florida — and America — better for all of us.

Thanks.

J.C. Bruce