SUMMARY: Florida’s governor’s race is one of the most watched in the country. It pits former congressman Ron DeSantis [R] against Andrew Gillum [D] the mayor of Tallahassee. The outgoing governor, Rick Scott, is challenging incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Close races are also unfolding in at least five congressional districts. Judy Woodruff reports on tough races up and down the Florida ballot.
SUMMARY:Florida is yet again proving to be a swing-state election battleground. How do voters in the Tampa and St. Petersburg area see the midterms and other pressing issues? Judy Woodruff talks to five residents, ranging in age and political persuasion.
SUMMARY: In the last two governors’ and presidential races, the winners in the state have been determined by razor-thin margins. This year, the results could hinge on the participation, or lack thereof, of three groups: retirees, young voters, and an influx of Puerto Ricans. Yamiche Alcindor reports on the turnout efforts.
SUMMARY:From rising sea-levels to toxic algae, Florida voters have a host of water problems on their minds this election season. Governor and Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott saw his poll numbers slide as ‘red tide’ algae bloomed. Scott’s critics blame him for cuts to environmental programs. His supporters say a Scott win may mean more help from the Trump administration. Lisa Desjardins reports.
SUMMARY: Tamara Keith of NPR and Florida political expert Susan MacManus join Judy Woodruff in Tampa for a special Politics Monday. They discuss Trump’s strategy in the “Sunshine State,” his response to recent violence and voters’ concerns about the direction of the country.
SUMMARY:The 2018 midterms mark the first time most of those born in the year 2000 can vote in a national election. The PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab's Mason Berger reports on how organizations in Florida are trying to mobilize young voters around issues like the cost of college and gun violence.
SUMMARY: Ray Suarez visits Orlando, Fla., to talk to voters -- some decided, some undecided -- directly following the first presidential debate. Were the candidates convincing? Did the voters hear what they hoped to from either side? They discuss jobs, President Obama's consistency, Mitt Romney's softer side, and the role of government.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Next, two takes on last night's presidential match-up.
We start with Ray Suarez, who traveled to a Southern battleground state to gauge reaction there.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): We watched with a cross-section of Florida voters, Karlos Colon, a 30-year-old naturalized citizen and first-time voter who is leaning toward voting for Obama, 49-year-old Nancy Riordan, who's unemployed and planning to vote for Romney.
Retired schoolteacher 65-year-old Suzanne Kidd, is an Obama supporter. Twenty-year-old Chastity Pelham, a student at the University of Central Florida, is still undecided; 28-year-old Michael Weinbaum, a self-described social conservative, is also undecided. And Charlie Adkins, a 56-year-old real estate manager who is voting for Romney.
We met in downtown Orlando, in the heart of one of the most hotly contested regions of one of the most hotly contested states.
Experts Debate Facts of the Candidates' Approaches to Taxes
SUMMARY: After the end of the 2012 RNC, Ray Suarez talked to six previously undecided Virginians for reaction to that convention. Margaret Warner gathers the same group together again to debrief on President Obama's speech at the 2012 DNC and asks whether any of them are any closer to a choice.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The economy may well be the deciding factor for voters who still haven't made up their minds. Polls show just a sliver of the electorate is truly undecided this year, only 3 percent to 5 percent.
But a new ABC News/Washington Post poll today indicates that one in four registered voters may be -- quote -- "persuadable."
Ray Suarez sat down with some self-described undecideds in the swing state of Virginia, as they listened in on the final night of the Republican Convention.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): Virginia switched from being an historically red state to the blue column when it voted for President Obama last time. Now the battleground state is too close to call.
We gathered six Northern Virginia voters to watch Gov. Romney's acceptance speech carefully, and with 67 days until Election Day, they're still undecided.
Martha Paschal, 51, a life-long Democrat who voted for the president in 2008, but says she's reluctant to do it again.
Adam Salazar, a 26-year-old grad student, who considers himself a Republican, but voted for President Obama last election.
Annabel Foery, who voted Republican in the last two presidential elections, but isn't sure she trusts Gov. Romney and wants to see more cooperation on both sides to get things done.
Beth Hersom, 30, a registered Democrat who considers herself a swing voter. She voted for Obama, but declares herself disappointed, particularly on the issue of abortion.
Ben Harris, a 21-year-old college student who is casting his first vote and supported John McCain the last time around.
And Tom Wilson, an independent and Obama voter in '08 who is very concerned about the future of the economy for his family.
As I’ve noted before, Republicans often seem conflicted about which version of President Obama they should be attacking. Mitt Romney’s original theory was that he could paint Obama (the Good Obama) as a nice family man who’s in over his head on the economy; Romney’s aura of competence would be enough to persuade voters to pick him as an alternative. But Obama held a persistent lead in the face of months of criticism on the economy. So Romney shifted into a harsher resentment-based message to appeal to blue collar whites and maximize his white vote share, suggesting Obama (the Bad Obama) disdains their hard work and wants to redistribute what’s rightfully theirs downward to others.
The problem with an overly negative approach is that it risks a backlash among voters who like the President. And so, as Jim Rutenberg reports this morning in a must read, Romney strategists are well aware of the difficult balance they need to strike, and are working to get it just right in the home stretch. Romney’s brain trust thinks voters are reluctant to break from Obama because his initial victory felt historically transformative, and that they need to give voters a way to feel emotionally okay about ending their relationship with him:
The sort of visceral attacks that conservative talk show hosts are calling for risk sending them into a defense posture on behalf of Mr. Obama and, more to the point, of their own decisions four years ago.
Rather, strategists say, it requires providing a path that gives them permission to make a break. They need to be told that it is O.K. to remain proud of their initial support for Mr. Obama, but that they can be equally at peace with a decision to change their minds now.
“There is no need to make people feel bad about what they’ve done to feel good about what they’re going to do,” said Stuart Stevens, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney.
Romney’s speech tried to strike this balance; there were some red meat attacks on the Bad Obama but also testimonials to the historic nature of his victory and the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger suggestion that we’ve shown enough patience for Obama and it’s okay to turn the page now.
What’s particularly striking is the Romney camp’s view of this in such overly emotional terms, as if the undecided voter is like your high school daughter you’re trying to persuade to break up with a decent local guy who just isn’t going places. Romney advisers seem incapable of imagining that there are substantive reasons these voters might be sticking (at least for now) with Obama over him.
And this goes to a fundamental distinction that’s central to this race: The question of whether undecided and persuadable voters think Obama failed, or whether they are merely disappointed with the pace of the recovery but find it understandable, given the circumstances, that he has been unable to improve things faster. Judging by Rutenberg’s story, the Romney camp operates from the assumption that voters have concluded Obama is an abject failure but don’t want to part ways with him because it would make them feel guilty. This assumption is what has led Romney to adopt a strategy of being as vague as possible in hopes of making the race a referendum on the president; surely voters who have decided Obama has failed just need time to get used to the idea of dumping him, and won’t be too picky about the alternative Romney is offering
But persuadable voters may be taking a more nuanced view of the economy and this presidency. Perhaps they are no longer sure how much a president can do to fix the economy; they understand the depth of the crisis and of our underlying problems; they disapprove of the pace of the recovery but understand Obama faced relentless partisan opposition and haven’t concluded Obama’s approach is discredited. They actually agree with his basic priorities and governing goals in key areas, and they are open to the argument that Romney’s approach is not the solution to their problems. The simplistic Obama-as-abject-failure formulation may be a misreading of voter perceptions and of why some are remaining with Obama, and may hamper the Romney camp’s ability to make a stronger affirmative case for his alternative.
SUMMARY: Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and National Review editor Rich Lowry discuss the week's top political news, including how having Rep. Paul Ryan as the GOP vice presidential candidate has energized the Republican base, the debate of Medicare on the campaign trail and continuing calls to release Romney's tax returns.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): And we come back to the campaign and an increasingly polarized environment.
The passion from supporters of both parties leading up to yesterday's vote in Wisconsin is just one slice of a national trend, and one that is growing, according to a new poll. The Pew Research Center's American Values survey has tracked Americans' attitudes on a variety of issues over the past 25 years.
Asking about views on government, business, the environment and social issues, Pew researchers found this year that partisan divisions have grown more intense than ever.
Significant excerpt
ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Research Center: When we first started doing this in 1987, we found that income, education, race, and party affiliation were all about equally important or influential in shaping political -- views about values. Now, however, we find that education, income and the range of demographic factors continue to be as influential as they were in 1987, but the influence of party affiliation has doubled.
JUDY WOODRUFF: When Pew began asking its set of value-oriented questions in 1987, the average disparity by party was 10 percent. By 2012, the partisan gap had nearly doubled to 18 points.
ANDREW KOHUT: Almost all of the increase that we see occurred not gradually over the past 25 years, but in the past 10 years, that is to say during the administrations of George W. Bush and now Barack Obama.
By the middle of his first term, most Democrats strongly disapproved of George W. Bush. And almost from the get-go, most Republicans have strongly disapproved of Barack Obama. So part of it Is response to these presidencies and the political culture. Part of it, too, is the way the parties have changed. The parties have become smaller than they once were. We have a record number of political independents.
JUDY WOODRUFF:In fact, an unprecedented 38 percent of those surveyed identified as independents, the most to choose that description at any point in the last 75 years.
By comparison, just 32 percent said they were Democrats, and only 24 percent now call themselves Republicans. Throughout this election year, the NewsHour wants to hear from all these categories of voters from across the country as a part of our "Listen to Me" project. And while we're just getting started, by November 6, we will collect a rich tapestry of voices, including many independents.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
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