Crist, DeSantis make final push ahead of Tuesday’s elections

MIAMI – Optimistic on the eve of Election Day, Democrats are confident that they will oust Governor Ron DeSantis.

On Monday night, Republicans sent a message pushing to retire Charlie Crist and make the run for a red tsunami across the state.

Speaker after speaker at Hialeah Park Casino beat the drum, encouraging the crowd to show up at the polls to turn Miami-Dade red, including Governor Ron DeSantis.

“We need everybody to make their voice heard. We got a historic opportunity to do great in this county and great all across the state of Florida,” said DeSantis.

The governor urges a strong showing reminding the voters of his narrow win in 2018.

“We were a half a percentage point away from having a much different future for the state of Florida,” he added.

“You would have Draconian rolling lockdown policies. You would have forced shots. You would have soft-on-crime policies. And forget about education. The kids would have been totally locked out of schools.”

Up the road in Wilton Manors, Democratic candidate Charlie Crist counters DeSantis’ freedom message.

“It’s been a nightmare under this guy. Taking away a woman’s right to choose. Not only that but making it harder to vote and harder for teachers to teach,” said Crist.

Crist also chastizes a recent campaign ad pushed to social media, showing DeSantis and references to God.

“So God made a fighter.”

“The other day, he put out a video. On the 8th day, God created a fighter. Oh god, who does that?” said Crist.

The DeSantis campaign communications director said on Monday, “I think what the First Lady says speaks to the ad.”

She tweeted: “On behalf of millions of people, never stop fighting for freedom.”

Crist points to that not being the case.

“The only thing he does is try to make his future bright. He doesn’t care about ours,” said Crist.

DeSantis points to his COVID policies as to how he fights for Floridians.

“In Florida, we held the line. For you, for your families, your jobs, your businesses, kids’ education.”

Both candidates stressed the importance of voter turnout, encouraging supporters to grab a friend, family member, or neighbor to get to the polls and let their vote be their voice. 

About one-third of registered voters in Florida had cast ballots as of Monday.

Data posted on the state Division of Elections website showed that 4,789,974 Floridians had voted by mail or at early voting sites.

Florida has 14.5 million registered voters. Registered Republicans were outpacing Democrats by about 320,000 ballots cast.

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Mark Earley, who is president of a statewide association of supervisors, said he hopes final turnout Tuesday will be above 50 percent.

“The turnouts I expect to be, if we hit expectations, in the mid-50th percentile range,” Earley said. “I will say the turnout is a bit lighter than we expected. I am not sure exactly why that is.”

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday across the state.