Florida's Latest News

Trump to court Latino votes in Miami as campaigns battle for Florida in final stretch

President Donald Trump is planning to court Florida's crucial Latino population – specifically Cuban Americans – during a whirlwind tour to Miami this week, underscoring the importance of a demographic highly sought after by both campaigns.

After weeks of flooding TV and radio airtime in the state aimed at Cuban Americans, Trump plans to hold a Latino-focused roundtable in Miami on Friday, the campaign announced Wednesday. Similar events held recently in Arizona and Nevada have taken on the air of a trademark Trump campaign rally.

Others are watching to see if Trump will use the trip to meet with appeals court Judge Barbara Lagoa, considered a frontrunner for the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death Friday of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump has said he "may" meet with Lagoa, the daughter of Cuban exiles, during his two-day trip to Florida. 

‘Something’s in the water’: Florida Republicans see surge in voter registration

Republicans have closed the traditional voter registration gap with Democrats to an historically small margin in Florida, triggering a wave of Democratic apprehension in the nation’s biggest swing state.

Top Florida Democrats and longtime activists have increasingly groused in private that they feel pressure from Joe Biden’s campaign to refrain from door-to-door canvassing or holding voter registration drives due to the potential spread of the coronavirus and fears of muddying his messaging on the pandemic.

In the absence of such efforts, a concerted drive by President Donald Trump’s Florida campaign to register voters has helped cut the state’s long-standing Democratic advantage to fewer than 185,000 voters, a gap of just 1.3 percentage points, according to data from the Florida Division of Elections released this week.

Florida attorney general asks for investigation of Bloomberg’s fundraising push to cover fines for felons who want to vote

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody sent a letter to the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement this week, asking them to investigate the millions that billionaire Mike Bloomberg helped raise to offset fines and court costs for felons so they can vote.

Moody’s letter says, in part, an “even otherwise innocuous offering of an incentive simply to vote could run afoul” of Florida elections laws. “Incentives could be offered to a voter in a way that would be designed to directly or indirectly cause the voter or a larger group of voters to vote in a particular matter.”

This would violate Florida statutes, which make it illegal to “directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another in casting his or her vote," Moody’s letter says.

State Board sets education priorities in budget request

As school district leaders statewide fret possible revenue cuts, the Florida Board of Education on Wednesday unveiled a legislative budget proposal that would protect current spending levels.

The $22 billion plan includes a $10 per student increase in the base student allocation, and accounts for enrollment to rise by just over 30,000 children. Overall, it would put an additional $264.8 million into the Florida Education Finance Program, which officials said set a new record.

Board member Ben Gibson noted that the recommendation faces likely changes as lawmakers discuss appropriations. Still, he said, “I appreciate the priorities that are laid out here.”