With polls showing Florida’s governor’s race heading to a down-to-the-wire finish, Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink over the weekend hit last minute campaign staples – church services, barbecues and plain old-fashioned stump rallies – both practically begging like-minded voters to go cast their ballots.
The Halloween final Sunday before Election Day found the candidates feverishly working their respective bases.
Scott opened his Sunday at the First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks in Largo, courting evangelical voters who, across Florida, have already been on the receiving end of 3 million voters’ guides by the state’s Christian Coalition that favor the Republican nominee.
Sink, too, capped a weekend of touching just about every Democratic-leaning base, on Sunday barnstorming at predominantly black churches in Jacksonville, accompanied by local Congresswoman Corrine Brown.
Earlier over the weekend, she attended women’s voting rallies, a state teachers’ union conference, a Puerto Rican-Hispanic voting drive, an NAACP dinner in Miami, and performed the coin toss for the Florida A&M University football game.
By Sunday night, she was campaigning with running mate Rod Smith in Palm Beach County, seeking support from unions, condo leaders and ranchers.
Scott didn’t get a chance to address the congregation during his church stop – but with barbecues and meet-and-greets with voters planned Sunday along Florida’s Republican-rich Southwest, his strategy of base-touching mirrors Sink’s.
“My job now is to get out the vote,” he told the News Service of Florida. “Most of it is just meeting as many people as possible.”
“People are anxious to get the election over because they want me to get up there and get to work,” he said.
Sink is appearing to need help as the campaign closes.
Registered Republicans have built a tremendous 275,000-vote advantage in early voting through last week, according to the state’s Division of Elections. And while Florida Democrats and Republicans have effectively tied in homestretch fundraising, with both sides raising just over $30 million since late-August, new reports show, Scott has poured an unprecedented $73 million of his own money into the race.
“Our grassroots is going to beat Rick Scott’s money every day, and we’re going to do it again Tuesday,” Sink confidently said during a campaign stop in Delray Beach on Sunday.
Democrats were working hard to counter the GOP early voting advantage, taking voters to polling places in some counties where early voting continued on Sunday. At the Supervisor of Elections office in Duval County, a line of voters snaked out the door and around the corner as Sink supporters rallied across the street.
Voter turnout was the theme of the day for both.
“What we need to do is be sure to get all our folks to the polls and take nothing for granted,” said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who has campaigned with Sink throughout the fall.
But a poll released Sunday by the New York Times Florida papers gave Scott a 5 percent advantage – although that is considered within the survey’s margin-of-error. The poll-tracking website Real Clear Politics gives Scott a 1.7 percent edge over Sink by averaging four recent surveys, but still rates the contest a toss-up.
Sink acknowledged the tightness.
“It’s a neck and neck race,” she said. “Right now, for the next 48 hours, it’s going to be all about getting our voters and our supporters out to the polls.”
In a time of high unemployment across the state, Scott’s campaign has been less centered around social conservatism, but a Quinnipiac University poll released last week found him leading Sink by a 67 to 22 percent margin among self-identified white, evangelical voters.
And while voters angry about the economy are thought to be already likely to support Scott, traditionally conservative voters in the religious wing of the party haven’t been as high profile during this campaign.
Scott sought this weekend to make sure those voters go cast ballots.
At First Baptist in Largo, senior Pastor Jeff Parish said he wasn’t going to tell voters who to vote for, it was clear where the congregation stood.
“Stand strong, don’t change,” First Baptist Deacon Eddie Hartwell, 61, told Scott as he shook his hand after the service.
In Jacksonville, at St. Stephen’s AME Church, one of the oldest black churches in Jacksonville, church leaders weren’t coy about who they want to win. Sink’s caravan got to the church late – after the service was over – but many congregants stuck around to wait for her and church leaders prayed that voters “check the right box.”
After the service he attended, Scott said it was important that he meets as many likely voters as possible, acknowledging the closeness of the race. He projected confidence he would come out on Tuesday, however.
At a barbecue in the rangeline west of Delray Beach, Sink supporters pushed turnout — with an air of desperation.
Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, said that as a state lawmaker, “without Alex Sink, – can’t imagine how bad it’s going to be.”
Likening Scott to the evil Valdemor character from the Harry Potter series, Pafford said the Republican nominee is “bad. He’s reckless. I don’t want to be insignificant. I want the Legislature to make good, common sense decisions.”
Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson also goaded the crowd of 200 retirees, union leaders and party activists, warning that Scott could not be trusted. He cited Scott having evoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 75 times in a lawsuit 10 years ago involving his former company, Columbia-HCA.
“I think Al Capone only pleaded the Fifth Amendment maybe 20 times,” Aaronson said.
Sink, speaking from a stage topped with hay bales, tried to use Scott’s massive spending as a weapon.
“The people of our state know it can’t be sold to the highest bidder,” Sink said, drawing cheers.
She also implored voters to overcome the GOP edge in early voting with a strong. Election Day turnout. “The stakes are so high, we know what to do,” she said.
The gubernatorial contenders were among several statewide candidates doing church stops Sunday.
Independent U.S. Senate contender Charlie Crist, who drew record-setting, double-digit support from black voters during his 2006 election as governor, attended services at two black churches in West Palm Beach and – even there – sought to emphasize his willingness to challenge President Obama, whose rising unpopularity has turned into the pivot-point of the midterm elections.
“I’m going to stand up to him when he thinks he’s right,” Crist told the Redemption Life Fellowship Church. “But I’m going to stand with him when I think he’s right.”
Democratic U.S. Senate contender Kendrick Meek, also swept through black churches in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, where he was encouraged and told not to abandon the race despite such overtures from former President Clinton in an effort to help Crist.
Attorney General candidate Dan Gelber, a Democrat, stumped in Tampa with his wife and three children – and included some trick or treat time on his campaign schedule.
By John Kennedy
The News Service of Florida
