- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Rob] Right now in WEDU, Donald Trump wins in historic victory in the presidential election, recreational marijuana, partisan school board races, and abortion rights win majority support, but under Florida law, the measures did not get enough votes to be placed in the Constitution.

Republicans increased their super majorities in Tallahassee, and Democrats in Hillsborough and Pinellas are overtaken by the red wave.

Political insights next on "Florida This Week".

(triumphant orchestral music) - Welcome back.

Joining me on the panel this week, Alex Sink is the former Florida Chief Financial Officer and a Democrat.

Carmen Edmonds is the chair of the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee.

Daniel Ruth is the Honors College Visiting Professor of Professional Practice, rather, at the University of South Florida, And Darryl Paulson is the Professor Emeritus of Government and Politics at USF St. Petersburg.

Nice to have you all here, and thank you for doing the program.

Well, Donald Trump made history Tuesday by being only the second president ever to win reelection after being turned out of office.

The vote count went smoothly, and in the early hours of Wednesday morning, he declared victory.

- It is now clear that we've achieved the most incredible political thing.

Look what happened.

Is this crazy?

I wanna thank the American people for the extraordinary honor of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president.

I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe, and prosperous America that our children deserve, and that you deserve.

This will truly be the golden age of America.

That's what we have to have.

- [Rob] His democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, made her concession speech that afternoon, telling supporters, "Do not despair," and urged them to keep fighting for freedom, opportunity, dignity, and fairness.

- Now, I know folks are feeling and experiencing a range of emotions right now.

I get it, (chuckles) but we must accept the results of this election.

Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory.

I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition, and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.

(crowd cheers) A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results.

That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it.

- [Rob] Trump's decisive win was not forecast by many pollsters.

The New York Times analysis found Trump expanded his 2020 margin in almost 2,400 counties nationwide and decreased his performance in only 240 counties.

USA today reports Harris underperformed with voters of color, especially Latino voters, but also black voters in urban centers such as Philadelphia, Detroit, and Milwaukee.

Four years ago, Biden won black voters and Latino voters by wider margins than Harris did this year.

In two Florida counties with large Latino populations, Miami-Dade and Osceola, Trump won.

In the last elections, those counties went democratic.

In winning Florida, Trump got more than 54% of the vote in Miami-Dade, which is majority Latino, Hillary Clinton won that county with 63% of the vote in 2016, and President Biden won it with 53% in 2020.

Harris also lost ground in many college-educated suburbs, which have become democratic strongholds in recent elections.

Trump won blue collar voters who lack college degrees 55 to 42%.

That's better than 2020 when Trump won voters who lack college degrees by a narrower 50 to 48% margin over Biden.

In an exit poll from Edison Research, about two thirds of voters considered the US economy in poor shape.

Some 46% said their family's financial situation was worse than four years ago.

Harris won 53% of the women's vote while Trump won 55% of the vote by men, with Trump performing slightly better with both groups compared to 2020.

Darryl, what do you think the other reasons were that Trump won this election so decisively?

- Well, I think the major factor was Trump did better than almost any Republican has ever done among various demographic groups.

For example, if you look at voters under the age of 30 who have traditionally supported Democrats in the past, half of them voted for Harris this time around, but four years ago, 60% of them voted for Biden.

If you look at black voters, 80% of them voted for Harris.

But four years ago, 90% of them voted for Biden.

If you look at Latino voters, half of them voted for Harris, but four years ago, 60% of them voted for Biden.

So he made large headways in these traditional Democratic groups.

She really didn't make any substantial headways in other groups that had traditionally voted Republican, so that's certainly one of the factors.

The other side of the coin is Harris.

Harris had her own difficulties and problems, not all of them her fault, you might say.

Certainly the fact that she got a very late start in the campaign didn't give her much time to identify herself.

That in itself was a major problem for her not being able to identify herself.

She kept talking about we're gonna have a new generation of democratic leadership, a new generation of leadership period.

And yet, when asked the question, how would you differ from Biden, what would you do differently, she said, "I can't think of a thing."

So how do you have a new generation if you can't distinguish yourself or separate yourself from the other side?

But the big issue, I think, was the economy.

And it seemed very strange, because if you look at it, the economists will tell you the economy of the United States has been quite good.

We've got a low employment rate.

Yes, we had a high inflation rate at the beginning of the Biden administration, but the inflation rate has come down substantially, and Biden perhaps should get credit for that, but he certainly didn't.

But there's no doubt that was a major factor.

And if you just look at a couple of the key states this time, well, look at the United States.

Four years ago, 50% said the country economically was in a poor or bad situation economically.

This year, it was 68%.

In Georgia, it went from 47% four years ago saying the economy was bad to 73%, and you go down all of those competitive states, everyone thought the economy was bad, when in fact, it was quite good.

And so, you get the difference between perception and reality.

People perceive the economy to be bad.

- Well, Dan, would you agree?

And do you think that the Democrats did not do a good job, arguing their case about the economy?

- I think Kamala Harris ran a great campaign and she did articulate economic issues about making housing more affordable, and helping small businesses get started, which would've benefited all these demographic groups.

You know, Darryl knows this from his years as a political scientist.

There's that old saying that the citizenry gets the government it deserves.

And what we learned here, I think, is that character no longer matters.

We just elected a guy who's been convicted on 34 counts, who surrounds himself with racists, and the Madison Square Garden rally was sort of a microcosm of his campaign.

And there was a great story in the New York Times, Peter Baker noted, in 2020, George W. Bush referred to Clinton and Gore as bozos, and there was this great human cry.

"Why, this is not presidential.

You know, this is a violation of the traditional rhetoric we expect from," I mean, at that rally, they were calling Hillary Clinton a son of a bitch, they were calling her a whore and her advisors pimps.

Character no longer matters.

- [Rob] Yeah.

Carmen, I want you to respond to that, but also want to ask you, what should be the number one item on incoming president Donald Trump's agenda?

What would you like, or what do you think the voters would like to see him do first in his first weeks in office?

- Well, I think, definitely, the economy was the big deciding factor, so I think most Americans would like to see, one, us become energy independent again.

I think as we start producing our own oil again, we bring gas prices down, that's going to bring down the price of goods because people can say the economy's better right now or inflation or whatever, but people still aren't feeling it in their pocketbooks.

We go to the grocery store, groceries are still very expensive, your utility bills.

So all of the things that rely on us being energy independent, that can help that trickle down effect to grocery stores, groceries, farming, everything.

You know, once energy is cheaper, then the price of goods will start coming back down.

- [Rob] That's what you'd like him to do, but what about his other promises that he's going to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, that he's gonna put higher tariffs on imported goods, he's gonna end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, he wants to free some January 6th rioters.

What about those promises he made?

- I think that those are things he should definitely get to.

I think that those are things the majority of his supporters would like to see him do, but I think, one, when you fix the economy, that helps every American, whether you're a Democrat, non-party affiliated, Republican.

we need to get to a place where every American feels the benefits of the policies that he's going to put in place.

Those other things may be a little more side things.

I think the border needs to be fixed.

As far as deportation, I do think that, you know, people that are here illegally need to go back to their country.

They need to come in the correct way, and I have neighbors that are Hispanic.

They came in, they became legal citizens, and even they are worried about the border and people coming in illegally because they don't know, you know?

They're just as concerned as the rest of us.

We don't know who these people are that are coming into our country right now in mass numbers.

- Alex, when you hear the incoming President Trump said, "Drill, baby drill," and he wants more drilling, what does that mean to you?

- Well, we are energy independent already.

We are actually an exporter of natural gas.

And so, to me, it's not an energy independent issue.

It does go back to the economy.

When you have young people like my own children who are in their early thirties who are struggling to figure out how to buy a house, it's no joke that young people, you know, voted for Trump.

And it's all about change.

- Why didn't young people hear that message from Kamala Harris when she said she was gonna give them assistance to buy a first house?

- You know, Daniel is exactly right.

She had policies out there.

But I think the mindset is that, just like, how did Trump get unelected the last time?

It's because people weren't feeling good about the state of the country, and they switched over to Biden.

So there was no way for Biden to overcome this perception, and also, the reality in terms of the pocketbooks of young people, middle aged people, that they are not as well-off financially.

I don't disagree with the fact that they're not as well-off financially.

Although the economy, the stats, the unemployment rate, the wage increases are all booming, she just could not overcome that.

- [Daniel] And if these people who voted for Trump think the economy is bad, wait 'til Trump takes over the economy.

If he imposes these 200% tariffs and engages in these tariff wars with our allies around the world and with China and others, it's gonna blow.

You talk about inflation, the prices will go up.

And if he start does things like, he wants to eliminate the tax and social security.

I get social security, it would be nice not to have to pay taxes on it, it would be catastrophic.

- [Rob] Because the future of social security would then be shortened.

- That's right.

- Well, I'd say the Democrats are not gonna do themselves any favor if their simple explanation for what happened is the electorate was stupid and they elected Trump as president.

That's gonna be a losing strategy for the Democrats.

They've gotta figure out what's wrong with us, not what's wrong with the Republicans.

The majority of Americans voted for Donald Trump.

In fact, Donald Trump was the first Republican in over two decades to get a majority of the presidential vote.

That's a big plus.

He was also the first Floridian ever to be elected president, so there's a lot of firsts for Trump, for whatever reason they voted for him.

But Democrats have to look at themselves in the mirror and say, "What did we do wrong?

How do we have to restructure the party?"

Every party goes through the soul searching when they lose, and the Democrats lost substantially when they had what they thought was a very strong candidate who was both a woman and a black, and they expected to turn out the women's vote, and the majority of the elector is black.

It's about 52% women.

- Well, as a Democrat on this panel, I will say that we're not making any excuses.

And I agree that we need to go back and say, "What's wrong with our message?"

- [Rob] Okay.

- But back to a point that Daniel made, and I have to bring this up.

If you ask me what Donald Trump should do on day one, he should figure out a way to assure women that he is not going to denigrate us and call us names like trash and the C word, and the language that came out of the mouths of Donald Trump and JD Vance about women was so abhorrent.

He needs to bring the country back together.

- Can we have the same promise from Democrats that they'll stop calling all Republicans deplorables, and garbage, and misogynists, and racist?

And we have been dealing with these name calling things for almost eight years now, where we have been called everything in the book, racist, every -ism, every -ist everything.

- When you have language that is racist, we need to call it out.

- [Carmen] But you guys are doing the same thing to us, so the rhetoric on both sides needs to stop, name calling needs to stop.

- I would agree with that.

- And we need to come back to common sense policy, learn to work together, and stop the name calling and forge a way forward.

- Okay, Show almost over.

Okay.

(all laugh) - Now, here's some of the results in some of the statewide races.

Incumbent Florida US Senator Rick Scott was reelected Tuesday over former Democratic US Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

Scott defeated Mucarsel-Powell 56 to 43%.

Several polls had suggested that the race would be much tighter.

Florida voters passed two amendments this time, establishing the constitutional right to hunt and fish and adjusting homeowners property taxes for inflation, both reaching above the 60% threshold needed for passage.

Two of the most highly contested amendment proposals did receive more than 50% of the vote, but not the 60% necessary in Florida.

They were amendment three, the legalization of recreational marijuana, and amendment four, creating a constitutional right to abortion.

Creating partisan school board races and eliminating public financing of campaigns also have majority support, but not enough to become part of the state constitution.

So Dan, the amendments that would enact abortion rights and also recreational marijuana had even bigger numbers than the school board question or the public financing questions.

- That's right.

- But still, in Florida, the way our system is set up, they don't win.

- [Daniel] It's designed by a gutless legislature that makes it very, very difficult to commit democracy in this state.

You know, 57%, any place, else you win.

But the way the legislature has designed the constitutional amendment process, it really just freezes people out.

But it should send a message to the legislature that a majority of Floridians, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, voted to legalize marijuana, and they voted to expand abortion rights in the state by a substantial margin, and the legislature should pay attention to that.

- Just disagree a little bit with Mr. Ruth again, because, talking about this is not democracy, but in fact, you could say it was democracy.

This was put on the ballot.

Floridians voted for this.

They had the option of turning down that 60% requirement.

They voted for it, and so, majority rules, he can say super majority rules now in the state of Florida.

Yeah, it's a much tougher threshold.

I don't like it.

I don't see need for it.

I think the majority should rule, but this is what Florida citizens voted on.

It wasn't necessarily one party or the other, - [Daniel] And it didn't pass by 60%.

- Carmen, Carmen, I wanna ask you and Alex really quickly, the governor spent probably $20 million more state money to influence the election.

He says it was for information on marijuana and abortion.

What do you make of the use of state money to influence an election?

- Well, I think that was one of the amendments we voted on too, with having taxpayer money used towards campaigns.

So right now, it's a law, and it can be done, so, I mean, I think it's up to the discretion of whoever's in charge, but it is constitutional.

- [Alex] No, it's not.

(laughs) - [Daniel] Well, they were threatening TV stations with the loss of their license.

- Yeah.

Alex, what do you think?

The governor stepped in and had his administration run essentially ads against the abortion amendment and mariajuana amendment.

- Here's the thing.

I was the Chief Financial Officer of the state, and I was elected to hold those politicians in Tallahassee accountable for the way they spent the taxpayer dollars.

There are no checks and balances.

It was totally wrong for him to use my taxpayer money for his personal agenda, but there's nobody up there who's gonna hold up their hand and say, "Let's look into this, and is this legal or is this not legal?"

- And there is a law in the books that says that, - It was not.

- States should not influence elections.

- Absolutely.

But who's gonna tell him he can't do it?

And just to go back to your point, the amendment around the public financing of elections has nothing to do with the constitutional issues.

- Okay, well, on a related issue, on Tuesday, Republicans held onto their super majorities in the state legislature, which gives them almost unchecked power to pass laws.

As of now, Republicans will have 86 seats in the house for the next two years, and Democrats, only 34.

That's a pickup of one seat.

In one house race in Pinellas County, there was a ray of hope for Democrats.

Republicans were not able to win the District 60 seat, despite spending more than a million dollars on television ads against Democratic incumbent Representative Lindsay Cross.

Cross defeated her Republican challenger Ed Montanari with nearly 54% of the vote.

Meanwhile, Republicans maintained super majority control of the Florida Senate with 28 seats versus the Democrats' 12.

So Alex, what does it mean for the Republicans to hang on to their super majorities in Tallahassee?

- Well, it's huge.

A year and a half ago, I said after the midterm elections that this election of '24 would tell us a lot about who we are in Florida.

Biden had just lost by three points, then, during the midterms, DeSantis won his reelection by 19 points, so what does that mean?

Are we a purple state, or are we a red state?

And I would say, after this week, we're a deep red state, which means that the Democrats who are in the minority need to learn how to be an effective minority party.

Republicans have total control as they have for 25 years in Tallahassee, and so, we need to be sure that they're held accountable for what they do and the impact they have on everyday Floridians.

- [Rob] And Carmen, I'm wondering, what does it mean for insurance, for electricity costs, home rule, schools, the environment?

What does it mean for the Republicans to hang onto their super majority?

- I think it's huge, but I do agree that any politician needs to be held accountable.

Whether you're a super majority or what, I totally agree with you on that because there's certain things that, you know, we as a county party don't agree with, sometimes, the decisions they make, but I do hope that they look at fixing the insurance issue here in the state, and there's a lot of things.

People are struggling, and under a Republican super majority, they need to listen to the people, or they'll start losing seats again.

They need to listen to the people of what we're struggling with.

With property insurance, and taxes, and all of that stuff.

We're almost outta time.

In some of the down ballot local races in the Tampa Bay area, Republicans also made solid gains.

Hillsborough County voters elected Suzy Lopez to be their state attorney, rejecting Andrew Warren, who had won two elections before being removed from the job by Governor DeSantis.

The governor cited statements signed by Warren pledging not to prosecute cases involving abortion or gender affirming care, but a federal judge found that DeSantis violated the Florida Constitution and First Amendment in suspending Warren for those reasons.

Republicans also picked up one additional Hillsborough County Commission seat, and the job of Clerk of Courts.

In Pinellas, Republicans picked up two more county commission seats held by Democrats.

A Moms for Liberty candidate was defeated for school board in Pinellas.

Instead, voters elected first time candidate Katie Blacksburg.

Property tax increases to pay for education were okayed in both Pinellas and Hillsborough.

The community investment tax also passed in Hillsborough.

Carmen, why did Republicans do so well at the county level, especially places like Hillsborough?

- I think, one, it's the hard work by the Republican party.

We really invested more money than we ever have into this election cycle.

We had a ton of volunteers, we were out door knocking, just all sorts of things where they get out the vote, but I do think that, you know, again, people are struggling.

They want common sense solutions to the economic problems that we're facing, and I think our Board of County Commission, people, especially here in Hillsborough, we're tired of the property taxes, we're tired of, you know, the overbuilding, and hopefully, we've gotten people in that can do more common sense legislation.

- Daniel, the marquee race in Hillsborough County was the state attorney's race between Suzy Lopez and Andrew Warren.

A lot of money was pushed in, especially from out of town billionaires into the Warren and race opposing Warren.

Monique Worrell, who was in a similar position, Osceola in Orange County, she won.

Kind the opposite of what happened to Andrew Warren.

What do you make of what happened to Andrew Warren and Suzy Lopez?

- Oh, one of the great lies in politics is one politician that says, "My close friend, my dear friend, now, my good friend!"

You know, Chad Chronister was supposed to be a good friend of Andrew Warren.

- [Rob] Talking about the sheriff from Hillsborough County?

- Yeah, and he stabbed him in the back, you know?

I mean, he could disagree with him, but he jumped on the bandwagon, and they were supposed to actually be friends.

This also pointed out that, once again, they brought up, you know, the Blofeld-like image of George Soros sitting in some mountain redoubt, petting this cat and plotting against.

The idea that they introduced Soros to this campaign is absolutely ridiculous.

- [Rob] They tied more into Soros.

Yeah.

- In George Soros.

But it's a name that carries so many images, negative images, especially with Republicans, that they just couldn't help themselves.

And it's a shame.

- And Suzy Lopez had support from her own billionaires, though.

She had support from billionaires.

- Well, those billionaires are okay!

- Okay.

- Those are.

They're fine.

They're just fine.

- So, Darryl, we just have a few seconds left.

I mean, the Republicans did well in Pinellas County, too.

- Absolutely.

They picked up a couple of seats on the County Commission over there, so it's a strong Republican control right now, but Republicans did well across the state of Florida.

I mean, it's quite apparent when you just look at the numbers and the Democrats that hoped to pick up some seats in the legislature, they didn't.

The good news for Democrats is Republicans once again have a super majority.

How is that good news?

There's nobody to blame but Republicans if these problems don't get solved.

And the big problems are the condominiums in Florida, the issue that they have to engage in maintenance and pay for the maintenance cost, and also property insurance rates in Florida, which everyone is upset with, Republicans and Democrats.

So if they don't fix it, the finger's gonna be pointed at the Republicans and nobody else.

- [Rob] And skyrocketing electricity costs.

- That's a political opportunity.

Yes.

- Alright, well thank y'all for a great show.

We just blew off the time for "Story of the Week".

- [All] Aww.

- Thank you very much.

That's it for us this week.

Thanks to our guests, Alex Sink, Carmen Edmonds, Daniel Ruth and Darryl Paulson.

If you have comments about this program, please send them to us at FTWWEDU.org.

Our show is now available as a podcast and from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(triumphant orchestral music) (triumphant orchestral music continues)