The Friday Florida stump at Lake Miona was part of a Kamala Harris campaign strategy to diminish Trump-dominated regions.
THE VILLAGES — Many Central Florida Democrats pinned their hopes on a lucky Friday the 13th in The Villages.
The community’s Democrats, and many outside the oak-lined senior community, gathered for a blue-spangled rally headlined by the Second Gentleman, Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff.
Emhoff, though visibly road-weary, was his cheery, affable and endearingly goofy self. He proclaimed himself an athlete because he won a medal at camp once and talked about his Jewish heritage, saying it might be the first time the White House will have a mezuzah at the entrance.
He even mimicked his mother squeezing his wife’s face and assuring her in a crackly New York accent, “You’re much prettier than you are on TV.”
Emhoff’s speech included a lot of the same talking points, including the $6,000 child tax credit and small business incentives, that came up in recent speeches and during the debate, but he also tried to send home the point that his wife is a “badass” and a strong leader who made mincemeat of her opponent on the debate stage. He reiterated Harris’ moment of looking directly at Trump and calling him a disgrace, and he emphasized the contrast between her and Trump, who avoided her gaze.
His barbs at Trump, on behalf of his wife, were pointed, to say the least.
“She revealed to the entire world what he is: a fraud,” Emhoff said about the debate between Harris and Trump.
“He’s a fraud on every level; he didn’t know anything. He literally didn’t know anything about anything except lying, and she just exposed him: The emperor has no clothes. … The one thing, the one thing he’s been talking about for 10 years, taking your healthcare away, he still doesn’t know how to do that.”
The Friday Florida stump at the Lake Miona Pool and Recreational Center was part of a Harris campaign strategy to chip away at Trump strongholds. Democrats, who have not been visibly prominent in The Villages community in the past, have been out and proud, campaigning for Harris.
Attendees and Florida Democratic candidates and former office-holders showed up to the cushy clubhouse-like nautical-themed facility as early as mid-afternoon. They waited in long lines for Emhoff to appear at The Villages on Friday at 6:55 p.m. Some attendees required seating and campaign staffers had to scramble to find chairs for them.
Points of view from the crowd and candidates
Talking to attendees, the hope was that Emhoff’s stop at Lake Miona would build on the excitement of the recent Democratic National Convention and presidential debate between Harris and former President Donald Trump.
“I think the momentum is palpable,” said Nikhil Daniel, chair of the Florida High School Democrats. “Right now it’s unifying people who have different ideas, and it has the opportunity to bring people out and make sure that the United States stays democratically strong.”
Do the young Democratic leaders feel that Harris has what it takes to hold billionaires and corporations’ feet to the fire to prevent price gouging and a skyrocketing cost of living?
“She has the experience as a prosecutor and holding corporations and oil companies accountable,” said Vice Chair Emily Dorman. “She has the groundwork and the plans to do that in the future. … There’s a big difference between Trump and Kamala in terms of having that plan for the future. A lot of people realized that during the debate. She has specific policies and specific intentions that she plans on carrying out in the future, and I think the American people can really see that.”
In Florida, the rising cost of property insurance came up in conversation with state Rep. Jennifer “Rita” Harris of Orlando, District 44; Florida House of Representatives District 22 candidate David Arreola of Gainesville; and U.S. Congress candidate Barbara “Barbie” Harden Hall of Lake and Orange counties. She running against Daniel Webster in the 11th congressional district.
Arreola was impassioned about solving the state’s insurance problem “not by catering to insurance companies like we’ve seen the legislature do. They’ve made it harder to sue, harder to file claims, easier for them to drop you. I want to have consumer protections … and put a limit on how much those premiums can increase every year. I understand that the market has to set the prices.”
Hall gave a speech in the lead-up to Emhoff’s and called out her opponent, Webster, as ineffective, with a high absentee record in Congress. She also shared that her son’s death prompted her to join the race.
“I decided to get in this race after losing my son to a fatal rare condition two years ago,” Hall told the Daily Commercial, adding that the bureaucratic red tape at the federal level, preventing people from getting the necessary care they need in times of crisis, was a big factor in her joining the race.
“Families that are being told by insurance companies that their child’s not sick enough to justify certain medical treatments, even when their child has a fatal diagnosis. My advocacy work pushed me to do this … to me as a woman, as a mother of two girls, being able to fight for their rights, my rights as a woman, is incredibly important to me.”
Nikki Fried, former state agriculture commissioner and gubernatorial candidate, also showed up. So did David Jolly, an attorney, former lobbyist and Republican politician who served as a U.S. representative in Pinellas County 2014-17. He was among the speakers at the event.
Treva Roberts, vice chair of the Lake County Democratic Party and a Lady Lake town commissioner, cheered on Emhoff on the stage with Fried. She told the Daily Commercial that she was “starstruck” after seeing Coach/VP candidate Tim Walz speak at an event in Washington, D.C.
The ages of the attendees ran across the spectrum, and the enthusiasm was high across the board.
“I think the turnout for Democrats will be a hundred percent, ” Maddy Bacher, a Villages resident, said.
A Villages school employee, who asked that her name be withheld, said that a lot of Dems in The Villages had previously kept their political views quiet, but that the Harris campaign has them coming out of the woodwork.
Before Harris entered the race, the person said, some of her neighbors had been “scared to death.”
“My 92-year-old neighbor wouldn’t put up a sign or do anything. She’d been scared like a lot of the older ones in the Kennedy generation — when you were proud to be a Democrat — because it’s been so violent. She wears a little tiny bracelet that has ‘comma-La’ on it, and she actually had on a T-shirt the other day, and she goes out with her walker.”
One group of cheerful women passed the time playing a card game called Samba.
Can the Villages overcome its GOP dominance?
According to Florida Politics, the most recent polling of the race, via Morning Consult, suggests the presidential race is close in Florida despite a 1 million-voter advantage for Republicans.
The Harris campaign managed the event, handing out “New Way Forward” signs and “, La” buttons. A handful of Trump supporters outside scoffed at “New Way Forward,” shouting to the Dems in attendance, asking why “a way forward” from an administration Harris herself has worked in?
The Villages’ Dems shouted back on their way to the golf cart parade, “We won’t go back!”
Bob Berg, the president of the Sumter Democratic Party, introduced Emhoff and offered his insights on what’s important to local Dems.
He lamented a 3-to-1 dominance of Republicans over Democrats in The Villages.
Related coverage from USA TODAY: Campaigning for wife Kamala Harris, Doug Emhoff embodies (and redefines) masculinity
“We have a beautiful, beautiful community in part because of the residents, in part because of the developers. This engine of development, to me, runs on the benefits that we get from Social Security and Medicare. … So, my issue is Social Security and Medicare. Your issue could be whatever is important to you; be it a woman’s right to choose or common sense gun safety or whatever. These are the things that Kamala Harris believes in.”
Emhoff exited the event after taking a megaphone and ushering the Villages-for-Harris golf cart parade.
Republican Vice President nominee JD Vance’s infamous quip about childless cat ladies running the country made it into the parade: One driver wore a black feline cat costume head and a T-shirt that said, “Cat Ladies for Kamala.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-14 06:15:00
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