Charlie Crist

I’m a registered Republican in Florida yet the only email offer I received to be a campaign volunteer this season was from the Democrats. Is this a function of Google subverting my Gmail inbox or Republican dysfunction? I have no idea, but I was surprised to get a message on November 4 from “Official Democratic Headquarters” asking me to make phone calls on behalf of Democratic candidates. “With so much on the ballot this Tuesday — from Social Security and Medicare to reproductive freedom and even the future of our democracy — we need all hands-on deck to help Democrats win across the country,” the message read.

Live analysis as the results come in from your favorite Spectator editors, staffers, columnists and contributors (and some you don’t like, for good measure).

Remember the outrage when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis sent 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard? Apparently Florida Hispanics, many of whom arrived as asylum seekers themselves, aren’t feeling it. A recent Telemundo/LX News poll finds DeSantis with a seven-point lead over Representative Charlie Crist, and the same margin approves of his relocation of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps even more interesting, while Florida Latinos born in the United States back the decision by four points, Florida immigrants support the move by 11 points and independents by 18 points. DeSantis’s relocation scheme has inspired lawsuits, calls for a Department of Justice investigation, and pearl-clutching indignation in newsrooms across the country.

“Charlie is running against Donald Trump incarnate,” President Joe Biden strangely remarked of Democrat Charlie Crist, who is running against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump is, of course, still very much in the flesh, and is also Biden’s likely opponent in 2024. But rhetoric is hardly Brandon’s strong suit in his sunset years, so we can surmise that what he meant was there isn’t much difference between Trump and DeSantis. What Biden doesn’t seem to realize is that, for most Floridians, that’s a good thing. Biden was in South Florida this week for a three-stop tour to buck up failing Democrats. In what's becoming an increasingly red state, all state-level offices apart from agricultural commissioner are held by Republicans.

Amid 40-year-high inflation, dwindling investment portfolios, and 20-year high mortgage rates, the Democratic Party appears most concerned with protecting the abortion rights of rape and incest victims. I live in Florida, and almost every day in recent weeks, I've gotten at least one flyer warning me that one Republican candidate or another wants to “imprison victims of rape.” Last week, I got three different flyers about “extremist Audrey Henson,” a young Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, all concerning her alleged support for criminalizing abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. One featured an image of a book supposedly written by Ms. Henson with the title, “Why I am Pro-Life as a Millennial Woman.

Besides the 13 mentions of “MAGA” and how it represents a threat to our democracy, I’d say President Biden’s speech on Thursday night was a real kumbaya moment for the country. With the hellish red lights drenching the stage, two Marines positioned behind him and his old man face taut with rage, Biden railed against his political opponents in a taxpayer-funded tirade. While this was undoubtedly the strongest example yet of Joe’s divisiveness, it was only the cherry on top of months of disgraceful statements made by the Unifier-in Chief. Fueled by desperation and a myriad of disasters, Biden is ramping up his attacks on anyone who might question the left’s progressive plans to radically transform America.

“I became a Democrat because I am sincere.” So insisted Florida gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist while campaigning earlier this year. Crist is so sincere, in fact, that he is the only person in American history to have run for state-level elective office as a Republican, Democrat, and an independent. He has lost at least once in all three guises. Crist has been pro-life and pro-abortion. He has opposed and supported LGBTQ rights. He has opposed tax increases and raised taxes. He has been for and against gun control. He has wanted to repeal and to maintain Obamacare. As Buzzfeed accurately put it the last time Crist ran for governor in 2014, “there is almost nothing Charlie Crist hasn’t flip-flopped on.