I spoke to voters in Venice, Sarasota, St Armands (just across the water) and Longboat Key. Mostly retirees.
The bulk of the conversations reflected the polarized times: people knew who they were supporting and had strong feelings about the race.
But there were nuances...
Biden supporters would shoot a look that said "how could you even ask, ya dope" when asked why they were supporting him.It was, to them, self-evident: because Trump!
Trump supporters were more mixed. A few were hardcore. But most injected some to-be-sure note
It was either "the tweets" or "the tone" or "his mouth." @Peggynoonannyc made this pt in last column - outside his rallies, Trump supporters are far more willing to be candid about his flaws.
But after their to-be-sures, they'd quickly pivot to...
to the pre-virus econ, what they see as his get-it-done leadership style or, most often, making the case *against* Biden and Dems. Ye ole negative partisanship, which was, to put it mildly, also the animating force driving the Biden voters.
What was mostly lacking w Trump supporters, tho, was the sort of contempt for Biden you'd hear about the Clintons four years ago. They'd mock him, repeat Trump lines. But there were little attacks on his character.
*in the way of attacks on his character. ^
Candidates aside, the most striking part of the convos was how they brought pol science alive.
By that I mean the degree to which voters now use events to retrofit their preexisting partisanship...
Reporters talking to voters generation ago would found them moved by events - econ is up/down etc - to support an R or a D. Now events are mostly the raw material voters use to justify their already-determined vote.
NOT in all cases.
Events - the virus, biggest of all - *have* hurt Trump, esp w seniors. The "LOL nothing matters" bit is inaccurate. But in a polarized moment, the shifts are at the margins.
Fla, tho, is a margins state.
And if Trump can't sustain his support in places like Sarasota Co. - where Hillary lost by 11.5 after Obama nearly *won* there in '08 - he won't win Fla again. And he likely can't win the WH without Fla
So people like Michelle, she w/ the wheaten terrier, in the story matter.
Speaking of voters, I encountered.
Dept of Ya Can't Make It Up.
Longboat Key is known as a haven for Midwestern retirees and, sure enough, I happened across the sister-in-law of Mercer Reynolds at the Publix.
Reynolds was nat'l finance chair for W, is from Indian Hills
...and speaking of Cincy, does anything scream “Midwestern transplants” like the below (taken in the Sarasota airport)
And speaking of eats, didn’t know there were Columbia outposts beyond Ybor City!
Got that grouper and yellow rice in St Armands, the first key across water from Sarasota 👇
But if you’re in Sarasota, or just driving up or down 75, can’t recommend Indigenous Restaurant enough. Charming old house, somehow tucked away in downtown Sarasota. Lots of outdoor seats.
Got there during gov race in ‘18 - and it was on point again
In the weeks after Democrats lost the presidency, Emanuel was like a lusty knife-and-fork man eyeing the buffet laid out before him. He wanted to dig into it all: DNC chair immediately, Illinois governor in 2026, the state’s maybe-soon-to-be-open Senate seat held by Richard J. Durbin the same year, Chicago mayor in 2027 and yes the presidency in 2028.
However, the party chair contest became a student government race among committee members, Gov. JB Pritzker is widely seen as seeking a third term, Emanuel surely doesn’t want to risk ending his career losing a primary for a Senate seat he doesn’t crave and he’s already been mayor.
There’s something larger than the musical chairs, though.
Presidential races are about timing, and if ever there was a period where Emanuel would be viable, it’s now. Democrats are as demoralized as any time in modern history, their voters desperately want to win and were open to untraditional candidates even before Trump (see Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg) and the new attention economy favors the pithy. Oh, and they’re also dying for somebody who can wield a blade and take it to Republicans.
He’s so full of ideas, angles, proposals and one-liners that in the pandemic days of 2020 — a year removed from city hall and already itching — he called, texted and emailed former President Joe Biden’s campaign so often that aides had to eventually assign pollster John Anzalone to also handle the Rahm account.
By the end of Trump’s term, voters may not want to see the president on camera every day — which the president seems determined to be — but it’s hard to imagine another Democrat who could find a way into seemingly every issue.
Vance didn’t offer a word of reassurance, skipped over Ukraine almost entirely and instead used his remarks to tell Europe that, actually, their biggest challenge was from within and they should heal thyselves by being more accepting of far-right parties.
Never mind the worst land war here since World War II, Vance seemed to say, and never mind the fascists who began last century’s war. Loosen up and drop the political firewall meant to stymie the rise of latter-day Nazis, he said.
It would have been akin to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flying to North Carolina last year, as the floodwaters raged, and telling Americans that their real problem was portion size.
If there was any heartening news for Europe, it was that they were impressed by how engaged Secretary of State Marco Rubio was and that he was willing to sign a G7 communique. The statement from the foreign ministers gathered here pledged their “unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”
Meeting away from the security forum in the ornate Holnstein Palace, the residence of Munich’s Catholic archbishop and once the home of Cardinal Ratzinger — later Pope Benedict XVI — Rubio assured the nervous diplomats that Trump’s phone call with Putin was so long mostly because of the time needed to translate the conversation, an official present at the palace told me. Rubio urged them not to dwell on Ukraine joining NATO, reminding his European colleagues that there were countries here that were also uneasy about accession.
The question, from American officials and those abroad, is how long Rubio can last and what clout he’ll carry in an administration in which Trump is the decider, and an impulsive one at that.
First, it was the height of irresponsibility for Biden to insist on running for reelection in his 82nd year. It was also an abdication of leadership by his advisers and elected Democrats to never even question his determination to seek a second term until he forced their hand with a catastrophic debate performance.
You know what ad would have replaced the trans surgery spot, had Biden not quit? An endless loop of his unintelligible answers at that debate.
Biden revived Harris’s career after her flop of a primary bid, kept her on the ticket this year despite her low approval ratings and then crowned her within minutes of dropping out of the race in July. With the Democrats’ next-generation talent on deck, Harris would never have been a competitive candidate for her party’s nomination had Biden not made her vice president in the first place.
Democrats are a healthier, better organized, more hierarchical and even ruthless party. Unified against Trump more than they are dedicated to any ideological project, they’ve adopted what’s effectively an Al Davis platform: Just win, baby.
President Biden is finally going to give in? Get in line behind Harris — now.
The vice president is discarding her now-inconvenient left-wing proposals from her 2020 primary bid and airing tough-on-the-border ads? Nod.
She’s inviting a cast of Obama-era Democratic consultants onto the campaign she inherited from Biden? Salute.
After so many years in which our British cousins have adopted American political tactics, Democrats finally took a page from Westminster. When prime ministers struggle or become impediments to the party’s success, their colleagues abandon them or pressure them until they step down. It’s not personal, it’s business.
NEW: On the vindication of VP’s comfort food pick, the first signs that she’s running in a general election + the shades-of-2008 moment last night that triggered Repubs
Oh, and one victory lap: I told Walz in Dec either he or Beshear would be Kamala’s running mate (he didn’t push back!)
The “only in America” line that triggered the “U-S-A” chant has some Dems wanting more
Including Wes Moore
He thinks Harris should drape her nominating convention later this month, literally and metaphorically, with the stars and stripes.
“This needs to be framed as a celebration of America,” Moore said of the Chicago conclave, urging Harris and Walz “to be unapologetic in speaking about their love of country.
Here’s that memorable Obama to- camera opening spot of the 2008 general I mentioned