Two weeks before the November 3 special elections, the election campaigns have intensified in Florida, and influential figures have traveled to the state to support candidates from their own party.
Angie Nixon vs. Ashley Moody
During the week of October 19, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Angie Nixon campaigned across Florida, accompanied by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who identifies as a democratic socialist and sits within the Democratic Party.
Sanders stated that most Americans are facing economic hardship and reaffirmed his support for measures such as universal health care. Nixon said that Washington is riddled with corruption: “Because wherever I go in Florida, I always hear the same thing: people have had enough. We’ve had enough of corruption. We’ve had enough of working harder to earn less.”
Her rival, Republican Senator Ashley Moody—who is fighting to retain the seat to which she was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis in January 2025 following the departure of Marco Rubio, who became the nation’s Secretary of State—has closely aligned her campaign with Trump’s platform and has campaigned alongside him at official events.
David Jolly
On October 20, former President Bill Clinton campaigned in Broward County in support of David Jolly, the Democratic candidate for governor.
USA Today reports that Clinton claimed Trump treats “his allies like crap.” He added that Jolly would lower home insurance costs and expand Medicaid health coverage.
Purchasing power is a major concern for voters in Florida and across the country. Jolly said their message to voters was: “housing, healthcare, education, and no data centers (AI).”
Byron Donalds
On October 21, the Republican candidate rallied the Republican base in Broward County, telling his supporters that if they liked the way Florida had been governed so far, they would like it even more if he were elected governor: “The other 49 states envy us. And the reason we’re envied is that we’ve lived in our state for the past 28 years according to conservative and common-sense principles,” Donalds said, according to the Sun Sentinel. He added: “Why would we entrust our state to the same Democrats who have ruined so many other states in the North of this country? Why would we do that? We want Florida to stay strong, to stay free, to stay ‘red,’ and the Democrats won’t have power here.”
Broward County is the last remaining major stronghold of the Democratic Party in Florida, where Republicans rank third, with 25 percent of registered voters, behind Democrats and independents. During his campaign rally on October 23 at Alico Arena on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Trump praised Donalds and Moody. “Just go out and vote! If people vote, we’re going to win by a landslide,” the president said.
Poll
The average of recent polls shows that Moody leads Nixon by four to seven points, and that Donalds leads Jolly by two to seven points.
Translated with Deepl