Unpacking Florida's Election: Key Winners, Losers, and Emerging Dynamics

[00:00:01] Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike's on Mic, a conversation about politics, government, and Jacksonville with 50-year opinion leaders Mike Hightower, Mike Tolbert, and award-winning broadcaster and longtime political observer, Mike Miller.

[00:00:18] Welcome to another episode of Mike's on Mic. I'm Mike Miller here in the studio. My colleagues, Mike Tolbert, Mike Hightower are both in their remote studios, and we're delighted to have you with us.

[00:00:28] Listen, we're producing the show today on Wednesday, November the 6th, following the general election. Normally, we tape on the Tuesdays.

[00:00:38] But prior to the election day, many said that we probably wouldn't know what the results were going to be until maybe even up to this next weekend. But they were wrong.

[00:00:46] We know that Donald Trump was elected president for a second time. Senator Scott was re-elected without much trouble, and both the abortion and marijuana issues failed.

[00:00:56] Interestingly, however, Amendment 1 for the politicalization, if you will, of the school board, that did not go. So that was interesting.

[00:01:05] I thought out of all of the things, that seemed to be more the outlier than anything else.

[00:01:09] But today we want to discuss what happened and compare the results with the UNF polling lab surveys that were done before the election.

[00:01:15] We're going to do all of this with one of our favorite guests, Dr. Michael Binder, the professor at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Florida.

[00:01:25] And Dr. Binder, of course, is the director of UNF's Public Opinion Research Lab.

[00:01:30] Michael, nice to have you back with us. Thanks so much for joining us.

[00:01:33] Thanks for having me.

[00:01:34] Before we begin, though, I thought we would ask the Mike Sound Mike colleagues of ours in 10 words or less.

[00:01:40] That ain't gonna happen.

[00:01:42] What were your first thoughts following the results of the election?

[00:01:46] And Mr. Tolbert, start it off.

[00:01:48] I'm counting words, by the way, here, so keep it to no more than 10.

[00:01:52] Sorry.

[00:01:54] Mike, frankly, shut up, Pat Dow. It's my time.

[00:01:58] Oh, good. We're all back to normal.

[00:02:02] Once I heard the results, to be honest with you, I feared that America woke up much meaner on Wednesday morning than it had when it went to bed Tuesday night.

[00:02:13] That's interesting. We'll delve into that.

[00:02:16] Mr. Heightower?

[00:02:17] That was more than 10 words.

[00:02:20] You've just used four, so be careful.

[00:02:23] All right. Here's my statement.

[00:02:26] Worked on this all afternoon.

[00:02:27] An extraordinary and unprecedented nationwide political comeback of tectonic proportions that will result in a complete remaking of the major parties as we know them in the years to come.

[00:02:42] Whew.

[00:02:43] Wow.

[00:02:44] Profound, Mr. Heightower.

[00:02:47] I'm good.

[00:02:48] That's all I've got for the rest of the year.

[00:02:49] Okay.

[00:02:50] Thank you very much for joining us, and we'll find somebody else to sit in when you can't be here.

[00:02:53] You got Dr. Mike.

[00:02:55] You can come in next week.

[00:02:56] There you go.

[00:02:57] Mine is very short and very much to the point.

[00:03:01] The Dems took a shellacking, and that was the beginning, the middle, and the end of it, and that's how it went.

[00:03:08] But now let's go to Dr. Binder.

[00:03:10] How well did Duval County do in the state, for that matter, when it came to conducting the election and getting the votes counted as they did, which were much faster than I thought they'd be?

[00:03:19] Florida has always, recently, Florida has been very good at counting votes.

[00:03:23] Vice President Gore is on the phone.

[00:03:25] Recently, they've been very good.

[00:03:26] But it's because of what happened in 2000 that in 2024, we are able to get these votes out early.

[00:03:35] We do have tremendous early in-person voting.

[00:03:39] We calculate our mail ballots as they come in a couple weeks prior to election day, unlike states that maybe start counting on election day or even election week.

[00:03:49] When they close.

[00:03:49] Yeah.

[00:03:50] When they close some cases.

[00:03:52] Right.

[00:03:53] It's also true that in Florida, we don't allow mail ballots to come in after election day.

[00:03:58] So even if it's postmarked prior to election day, if it doesn't arrive till today, that vote does not count.

[00:04:04] It's not a legally cast ballot.

[00:04:06] Other states, California in particular, and if we're talking about house races and why some of them are dragging out, you can get up to a week or longer after it's been mailed to arrive and it's still a legally cast ballot.

[00:04:18] So give it a grade.

[00:04:21] I think the statewide was probably an A minus, A, very good.

[00:04:25] A couple of hiccups here and there.

[00:04:26] There was a couple of precincts that were really slow to report in Duval in particular.

[00:04:31] And there was one where there was a questionable package, was there not?

[00:04:34] Sure.

[00:04:34] To take it out.

[00:04:35] And we're not even talking about what happened up in Georgia with bomb threats and those sorts of things.

[00:04:39] But again, if you've got literally thousands and thousands of precincts across the state, pretty darn smooth in all honesty.

[00:04:50] And even nationally, minus a couple of hiccups here and there, which are always going to get to some level.

[00:04:54] Yeah.

[00:04:55] Dr. Bender, we gave our one sentences, or some of us did, about our first thoughts.

[00:05:01] What did your headline take away from Tuesday's results?

[00:05:05] What would you say?

[00:05:08] I don't have the 10 words or less.

[00:05:10] I wasn't writing it down all morning like Hightower was.

[00:05:13] I didn't spend my day planning for this.

[00:05:15] You've got to remember, this is his life.

[00:05:17] He doesn't have a life outside of this.

[00:05:21] I don't know.

[00:05:21] Max would resent that comment.

[00:05:23] I do think that in some ways this is a telling election, but I don't know that everybody's going to take the right message from it.

[00:05:38] And there's folks on the left that are particularly worked up, the country's sexist, the country's racist, all those sorts of things.

[00:05:45] And listen, that's true, right?

[00:05:47] I'm not going to lie and say there's none of that out there.

[00:05:49] It's out there.

[00:05:50] Yes.

[00:05:52] But there is women senators that won in states where she did not.

[00:05:57] And there's other, Obama won, right?

[00:05:59] But that doesn't, it's also true though, that this is not, and I'm going to disagree with Hightower here.

[00:06:04] I don't know how long this particular coalition of voters holds together for the Republican Party.

[00:06:13] One thing that we've seen is Donald Trump is really good at pulling together support for Donald Trump.

[00:06:21] When Donald Trump is not on the ticket, suddenly that coalition begins to fracture and it begins to fall apart a little bit.

[00:06:29] But in 2028, presumably he's not going to be on the ticket.

[00:06:35] What do Republicans do then when they're defending the White House and having been the party in charge if the economy isn't perfect?

[00:06:44] If they don't have the perfect candidate, if the Democrats get somebody who's charismatic and has time to build a campaign and the country can get to know them?

[00:06:54] Well, let's go back to Duval County, Dr. Bender.

[00:06:57] In Duval County and then in Florida, so it's two takes.

[00:07:00] It's two questions and each have two parts.

[00:07:02] Duval and Florida, who do you see as the biggest winners and the biggest losers and why?

[00:07:09] We'll say Duval and in Florida, winners and losers.

[00:07:12] So I think in Duval, the biggest losers probably Donna Deacon.

[00:07:15] And I say that because she went from being a mayor, one of the few Democratic mayors in a big city in Florida with a Democratic administration that she had connections to.

[00:07:26] Now she's a Democratic mayor who, like it or not, as crazy as this sounds, is staring at an election not too far away where your county just voted for a Republican and you've now got not only kind of enemies in Tallahassee, enemies in Washington, D.C.

[00:07:44] D.C.

[00:07:45] Big winners in Duval County, I think is if we want to expand what we think about as far as Duval County goes, is Susie Wiles and Brian Hughes to some extent.

[00:07:57] They are in prime position to be players in Washington, D.C. going forward for the next four years.

[00:08:05] Statewide, I think this is the biggest loser is obviously the Democratic Party of Florida.

[00:08:11] They had a dozen, maybe a dozen and a half seats if you squinted in the state house that were potentially up for grabs.

[00:08:19] They won one and only by a percentage and a half from somebody who just got indicted on forgery charges.

[00:08:28] It's crazy to think that they whiffed so badly.

[00:08:32] But I think those are some of the losers.

[00:08:34] The winners statewide are interesting in that DeSantis wins by not getting the two amendments passed.

[00:08:42] Right.

[00:08:42] He even though they got 57 and 55 and change support, he still looks like a winner, even though the majority of Floridians wanted these policies and he prevented it from happening.

[00:08:52] But he gets credit for those amongst his people that support him.

[00:08:56] But Trump also is now the president.

[00:08:59] And it is abundantly clear that the relationship between those two is fractured at best.

[00:09:05] And that's going to create, yes, Republicans won.

[00:09:10] But whose state is it?

[00:09:12] And if it's Trump's state, what does that mean for the legislative session?

[00:09:16] And it's clear that it's probably not going to be DeSantis' state if Trump is interested in sticking his finger in the Florida pie.

[00:09:25] That was one of the things I wanted about, too.

[00:09:29] Correct.

[00:09:29] I just step back to a further that.

[00:09:31] What do you see as some of the other winners and losers, whether it be state, within Duval or in the state?

[00:09:38] What do you see as some other winners and losers?

[00:09:40] I think winners, the state legislature, by keeping their supermajority, the Republicans are free to essentially go unchecked as far as the policies that they want to pass.

[00:09:51] That's certainly a big winner.

[00:09:52] I think losers, you could say the 55 and 57 percent of Floridians that had a majority supporting ballot measures that are not being enacted.

[00:10:02] I think that's something that's worth paying attention to.

[00:10:05] And the Democrats, I keep going back to losers being Democrats in the state of Florida.

[00:10:12] And they didn't have anybody come out of this as the potential next star, right?

[00:10:19] There's no person that won a seat where you're like, oh, look at that.

[00:10:23] They really worked a campaign good or they have some charisma that could really make them the next step.

[00:10:28] And maybe in a couple of years, they could be a state senator.

[00:10:30] Maybe they can have their eyes on this battleground congressional district or something like that.

[00:10:34] But the candidates that won were essentially unchallenged locally, right?

[00:10:39] Angie Nixon and Tracy Davis had right in candidate opposition.

[00:10:42] So there really wasn't an opportunity for them to have big wins.

[00:10:46] You made a point when you said it's going to be interesting to see who Florida belongs to.

[00:10:51] Is it going to be the president-elect Trump or is it going to be Governor DeSantis?

[00:10:56] And I'm wondering, obviously in my amateurish mind, is DeSantis going to be able to do anything without first getting blessed from the White House?

[00:11:05] I think the short answer is probably yes to that.

[00:11:08] And I say that because it was really interesting if you think back a year and a half ago when or almost two years ago now when DeSantis was really in the heat of his run for the president's.

[00:11:21] And where the endorsements came from.

[00:11:23] He basically swept nearly all of the state legislative delegation's initial endorsements.

[00:11:29] And Trump got nearly all of the congressional endorsements.

[00:11:33] And it stayed that way.

[00:11:34] And then obviously once Trump won, he picked up all the endorsements after the fact.

[00:11:39] But as Trump remembers who endorsed him and when they endorsed him.

[00:11:43] Let me just throw this in.

[00:11:44] I was just hearing this on CNN on the way in this afternoon for the taping.

[00:11:49] And I heard them say that one of the things that Trump is doing is making a list of those who endorsed him before Iowa and those who endorsed him after Iowa.

[00:11:59] And they're claiming that those that endorsed before Iowa are going to be the ones who are going to be looked upon much more kindly than those afterwards.

[00:12:07] Absolutely.

[00:12:07] And that's typical Trump.

[00:12:09] Thousand percent.

[00:12:10] And in some sense, it makes sense, right?

[00:12:12] It does make sense.

[00:12:12] Are you a supporter?

[00:12:13] Are you on board early?

[00:12:14] Are you a bandwagoner?

[00:12:15] Yeah.

[00:12:17] With that being said, all of the, not all, but most, the vast majority of the state legislative districts were DeSantis people.

[00:12:24] And so I think he still has a lot of sway there.

[00:12:27] And it's clear that he still has sway inside the state.

[00:12:30] Listen, he was campaigning against Amendment 3.

[00:12:33] I don't want to say that Trump was heavily campaigning in favor of, but he did come out.

[00:12:37] He did endorse it.

[00:12:37] And it lost.

[00:12:38] And it polled less than he did.

[00:12:40] Yes.

[00:12:41] Lower percentage, less votes.

[00:12:42] It's going to be, I think DeSantis is able to do more than we think he's going to be able to do, but it will be fascinating if and when Trump wants to get involved.

[00:12:52] So it really, those two measures really had no impact on the rest of the ballot, did it?

[00:12:56] No, they didn't.

[00:12:57] And people vote on ballot measures in the vast majority of time in an oven on themselves.

[00:13:05] And when you're looking at two candidates, both of which were flawed candidates, none of those people that went to those polls, except maybe a very few, were like, oh my gosh, I love this person.

[00:13:15] I love everything about them.

[00:13:17] They are the perfect candidate.

[00:13:19] So whatever they think, I'm going to think down the line, it was both, a lot of it was, wow, I like this person a little bit less than the other one, so I'm going to vote for the other one.

[00:13:28] I'll tell you, and this is, this surprised me a lot.

[00:13:32] I was doing exit polling yesterday.

[00:13:34] And part of that job is you have to read all of the surveys back to the company, Edison researchers who I was working for.

[00:13:40] And I was surprised at how many people were voting yes on four, but voting straight Republican for the entire rest of the ticket.

[00:13:48] And of course, I wasn't in the position to ask a person, so doing a podcast on this tomorrow, why did you do this?

[00:13:54] I wasn't able to do that, but I just found it very interesting.

[00:13:57] That was one area where people did separate from the rest of their political thinking.

[00:14:01] And that's easy to see, right?

[00:14:03] I can very clearly be somebody who thinks, maybe I'm not a huge fan of abortion, but I think what amounts to basically a ban all the way across the board is too much.

[00:14:15] And I can look and see women wanting to have a small government or Republican wanting to have the ability to make these decisions with their doctors.

[00:14:24] But at the same time, I can say, I like a closed border.

[00:14:26] I also like economic freedoms and all this other stuff.

[00:14:30] I can vote on those things and I can still vote on this over here.

[00:14:35] Dr. Bender, I have a question when you made the comment.

[00:14:38] Sorry, we're off script.

[00:14:39] I stay off script.

[00:14:40] But when you said there isn't a person within the Democratic Party who is the person they're going to go to.

[00:14:46] Coming back to this thing between DeSantis and Trump.

[00:14:50] Okay.

[00:14:51] He's there for two years.

[00:14:52] Trump's there for four years.

[00:14:54] Who's in charge of the Florida Republican Party going forward?

[00:14:59] I think it's going to be fascinating to see play out.

[00:15:02] And I think in the short term, it's DeSantis and it's in Tallahassee.

[00:15:06] And that's absolutely true.

[00:15:07] Unless on occasion, Trump wants to meddle, but he's got bigger fists to fry.

[00:15:12] There might be something that tweaks him that gets him involved on this particular issue.

[00:15:16] The real fascinating intrigue, the palace intrigue is going to be the endorsements for governor for 26.

[00:15:24] And is there a circumstance that plays out where DeSantis backs somebody and Trump backs somebody different?

[00:15:31] And are they able to marshal resources for each of those candidates?

[00:15:35] It's very clear that a sitting president would be able to raise money for their preferred candidate for governor in their home state.

[00:15:41] Sure.

[00:15:41] You would think that DeSantis would be able to do that, too, based on his history of having been able to raise money.

[00:15:46] But you don't know because he wasn't able to cash in.

[00:15:50] And maybe some of those deep pockets maybe are a little bit shallower this time around.

[00:15:54] I keep hearing a rumor that Casey DeSantis is thinking about they're trying to get her to run for governor next time.

[00:16:01] Can you imagine a scenario where she's running for governor of Florida and Trump is in the presidency?

[00:16:08] This keeps on going on and on.

[00:16:11] That's just my editorial comment.

[00:16:12] I'm not looking.

[00:16:13] That'd be wild.

[00:16:14] That would be wild.

[00:16:15] We polled on her years ago, a couple of years ago, before anybody started talking about her.

[00:16:19] And she polled great amongst Republicans.

[00:16:21] What that race would look like for the primary with, let's say, a Byron Donalds or a Matt Gaetz endorsement from Trump versus Casey DeSantis would be fascinating to see how something like that would play out.

[00:16:33] Let me move to Senator Scott.

[00:16:35] But in your last poll, he had a three-point lead.

[00:16:42] He ended up winning by 12.

[00:16:45] He's never done that before.

[00:16:47] Tell us what you think caused him to win so big.

[00:16:50] Was he on Trump's coattails in Florida?

[00:16:53] Did that help him?

[00:16:53] Did Trump help him get that many more points?

[00:16:56] The short answer is, and we talked about this when I was here last time, I wasn't fully on board with those numbers.

[00:17:01] I didn't really quite believe them then.

[00:17:03] I don't know that I thought 12 was going to be the number he got to.

[00:17:06] I thought he would be a couple of points behind Trump like a lot of other senators were.

[00:17:11] But one thing we saw here in Florida is there really was no break off between the top of the ticket and the bottom of the ticket as far as vote choice goes.

[00:17:20] There was so much more consistency.

[00:17:24] And, yeah, a few thousand votes, a half a percentage point, whatever.

[00:17:27] But there was really no difference.

[00:17:28] I don't think in this polarized environment, particularly in Florida, that people were splitting their ticket for candidates.

[00:17:35] Ballot measure is a different story.

[00:17:37] But for candidates, I don't think much, if any, of that really happened.

[00:17:41] And even here in Duval, where Trump wins the county, he won the county by about the difference in partisan registration turnout.

[00:17:53] Like the raw number of votes, it was a little bit about 13, 14,000 more Republicans voted.

[00:17:58] That's basically what he won Duval by.

[00:18:00] Yeah, I think you may have touched on it, but I'm going to expand it.

[00:18:03] When you talk about President Trump's victory, what about the future of politics in America?

[00:18:10] Now, we don't have all the votes they're in, but he's already won the popular vote.

[00:18:17] He's flipped the Senate.

[00:18:19] He possibly could get the House.

[00:18:21] And he's got the electoral college.

[00:18:23] What do you see of how his impact is going to impact politics in America?

[00:18:28] And the second part, going back to show how old I am, second part of that is, where does that, how does that impact those of us, all Republicans, when we refer to our party of Lincoln, Reagan, and the two Bushes?

[00:18:42] How does that, you got two different things.

[00:18:45] Yeah, I'll start with the second one first, in that it is a different party.

[00:18:49] This is not your father's, your grandfather's, or in this case, your Republican Party of yesteryear.

[00:18:56] It is a very different Republican Party.

[00:18:58] It is a isolationist Republican Party.

[00:19:01] It is a foreign policy based on maybe more personal relationships than maybe geopolitical strategic thinking.

[00:19:10] And that is going to play out internationally.

[00:19:13] And we're going to see that.

[00:19:15] Domestically, the types of policies that you're going to see get enacted, tariffs, that's antithetical to the old school Republican free trade press.

[00:19:25] We're going to see some.

[00:19:27] And bleeding into the first part about what the question and what does politics look like, I think Trump politics you're going to see.

[00:19:34] And it looks, again, it's early, we don't know, but it looks like Republicans are probably going to win the House as well.

[00:19:41] But they're only going to have it by a slim majority, maybe a couple of seats at the most, more than they have now, maybe where they're at now.

[00:19:48] Now, that's going to be hard to manage.

[00:19:50] We saw Mike Johnson have difficulty with that.

[00:19:53] The Republicans struggled to find a speaker last time, ousted the speaker.

[00:19:57] It's been a mess.

[00:19:58] They're potentially in a position to have that same type of infighting, particularly because of the type of victory that Donald Trump had.

[00:20:06] And those MAGA type extremist Republicans in the House will feel emboldened.

[00:20:12] They'll feel like they have a mandate.

[00:20:14] And that's going to make the nuts and bolts governing of getting things done at the House level difficult for whoever that next speaker is.

[00:20:21] But if they can get their act together, if they can elect the speaker, if they can keep their coalition intact, you can think back to the first part of Obama's terms where he did have large majorities.

[00:20:34] And what happened particularly with getting Obamacare passed and regulating financial markets and those types of big policy changes, you can see that from Trump early on.

[00:20:45] And you don't have to necessarily wiggle everything through budget reconciliation, although you can do a lot of that to avoid the filibuster.

[00:20:55] Just to follow up, I have one question that maybe you'll come back later and ask that.

[00:20:58] Given the fact is that all he has is four years, it's about four years.

[00:21:03] And if in fact is he's got the House, the Senate, and he can say the Supreme Court.

[00:21:09] He was going to say he only have a couple of more.

[00:21:11] What do you see?

[00:21:11] What do you see?

[00:21:12] How is he going to do that different?

[00:21:14] What do you see?

[00:21:14] He's only got four years.

[00:21:16] I think you're going to see movement right away, right?

[00:21:19] Now that you have a sense about how I can impact these agencies, how I can impact policy, you're going to see a lot more executive orders.

[00:21:27] You're going to see a lot more and faster appointments to heads of agencies that are Trump loyalists.

[00:21:35] He was scrambling in 2016 trying to find people they weren't expecting to win.

[00:21:40] This time they were, right?

[00:21:41] They've got a plan in place, right?

[00:21:43] You can think about Project 2025 and what that looks like upon implementation.

[00:21:47] Like those are all the real outlines of what this administration is going to look to do in the coming months and what that first year or two looks like.

[00:21:55] Because we all know outside of-

[00:21:57] They've got a transition team working for several months now.

[00:21:59] Yeah, they're ready to go.

[00:22:01] And they learned.

[00:22:03] This is something that you say they have four years.

[00:22:06] They might only have two because, as we've seen historically, that midterm is a tough midterm, especially if you've got all three branches of power.

[00:22:14] But the question I think a lot of the Democrats may be asking themselves and each other now is, what do we do next?

[00:22:21] You said yourself, there's really no heir apparent.

[00:22:24] I'm sure Nikki Freed's going to feel the heat out of yesterday's election and probably have to leave that post.

[00:22:31] So somebody else will probably head the Democratic Party.

[00:22:35] But A, is there a party to lead at this point?

[00:22:39] And B, what do they stand for?

[00:22:42] That's a great question.

[00:22:44] I don't have the answers to it.

[00:22:45] I'm not one that necessarily believes that Nikki Freed's going to get ousted.

[00:22:50] Partly because I don't know who you're going to replace her with.

[00:22:53] And secondly, if you draw the analogy to sports teams, she took over an 0-16 team, right?

[00:23:01] It's not like she took over a playoff contender and she drove it into the ground.

[00:23:05] She took over an empty cupboard.

[00:23:09] And it's still empty.

[00:23:11] And so can you blame her too much for that?

[00:23:14] It's hard to at this point.

[00:23:16] They're going to need to look at somebody.

[00:23:17] They're going to need to look at somebody, right?

[00:23:19] And you asked a more important question, though.

[00:23:21] What is the Democratic Party in Florida and what do they believe in?

[00:23:26] And that, I think, is something that I don't know if they have a great answer to.

[00:23:31] And you can look to particular members, Angie Nixon locally, right?

[00:23:37] She's a very progressive, passionate in her feelings, comes from very left side of the political

[00:23:45] spectrum and very ideologically pure.

[00:23:49] But that doesn't necessarily translate particularly well to maybe moderates or even Democrats in

[00:23:55] other parts of the state.

[00:23:56] That's a bridge that the Democrats haven't quite figured out how to harness some of the

[00:24:03] youth and some of the exuberance and some of the progressiveness.

[00:24:08] But marrying that with maybe some of the more moderate policies that you might need to take to corral

[00:24:15] some of the folks maybe in central Florida or maybe out toward the pain alley, you're going

[00:24:19] to have to start making gains.

[00:24:21] It's not just about holding your own anymore.

[00:24:22] You got to make gains.

[00:24:24] But on that point, though, because when you go back to how long I've been told I've been doing

[00:24:29] this, Dade County, 57% Republican.

[00:24:34] Now, I can remember when, go back to 2000, Broward, Dade, Palm Beach.

[00:24:41] But Dade was, that was the big motherlone.

[00:24:44] Not this past election.

[00:24:46] No, and even in 22, it wasn't.

[00:24:49] In 22, it was hard because of the turnout differences.

[00:24:51] But listen, yesterday, 68-ish percent of NPAs turned out, which isn't great.

[00:24:59] 77.6% of Democrats turned out to vote in the state of Florida, which was on average with

[00:25:06] what the state turned out, the state turnout numbers were.

[00:25:09] But Republicans were 84 plus percent turnout.

[00:25:12] If you're out registered and you're out turnout on a percentage basis, it's a bad combination.

[00:25:19] The Democrats aren't able to mobilize the way that Republicans are, and they're losing

[00:25:24] ground.

[00:25:25] And if you look at Florida and who Florida is, yeah, we can talk about the Latino vote

[00:25:30] in Miami-Dade, and that is, you know, in a decade, it's flipped almost, right?

[00:25:36] It's crazy to look at that.

[00:25:38] But if you want to make gains in Florida, you need to make gains with old white people.

[00:25:41] And if you can make gains with old white people, you can really make a move in this state.

[00:25:46] Except that the popular belief that most of the older people in South Florida particularly

[00:25:54] were Democrats and emigrated from Democratic states is no longer the case when you take

[00:26:02] a look at it.

[00:26:02] Sure.

[00:26:03] Right.

[00:26:03] No, the older white folks that are emigrating, the retirees, the snowbirds, yeah, during the

[00:26:08] Seinfeld era, there were a lot of old Union Democrats coming down here.

[00:26:12] Now that's not the case.

[00:26:14] That demographic is heavily Republican.

[00:26:17] Yep.

[00:26:18] But there are issues that you can speak to that can move those folks over, I think, if

[00:26:23] you make a concerted effort among your party to speak to those issues and not maybe get

[00:26:28] caught up in some of the culture war issues that are maybe losing issues, even though they

[00:26:32] might be on the moral correct side of history.

[00:26:35] They're losing issues at the ballot box in 2024.

[00:26:38] I have a very simple answer to it all, Dr. Bender.

[00:26:41] I think the Republicans play politics like the Kansas City Chiefs and the Democrats are

[00:26:48] playing like the Jacksonville Jaguars.

[00:26:50] Or Chicago Bears.

[00:26:51] There's no way to win.

[00:26:53] No way to win.

[00:26:54] That's the most profound statement for this whole podcast.

[00:26:58] I didn't mean for it to be profound, but listen, we're about to run out of time, Dr.

[00:27:03] Bender, but you mentioned Susie Wiles earlier on as being one of the big winners in Florida.

[00:27:10] There's no question about that.

[00:27:11] She woke up Wednesday and she didn't get out.

[00:27:14] She might not even go on to bed.

[00:27:16] She did not wake up Wednesday.

[00:27:17] She felt really good late Tuesday night.

[00:27:19] Whenever she woke up as one of the most powerful people in the United States of America, and

[00:27:24] she earned her stripes.

[00:27:25] We've all known her, like we said, for a long time and have disagreements and still respect

[00:27:30] her.

[00:27:30] I respect her a great deal and am in awe of what she has accomplished and the way she

[00:27:35] went about it.

[00:27:36] Yep.

[00:27:37] My interaction with her-

[00:27:38] Do you think about inviting her to come talk to your political science class?

[00:27:41] I'm not sure if she's going to be in Duval that often anymore.

[00:27:43] I think she might have an address a little north of us.

[00:27:46] But no, I've had great interactions with Susie and anything, anytime that she talks, it's

[00:27:51] worth listening to hear her speak.

[00:27:52] But I will say this, and yes to all the things that you said, but Donald Trump is still Donald

[00:28:02] Trump.

[00:28:03] And anything can set him off and you're on the outs.

[00:28:08] So that's something to be wary of.

[00:28:10] Just because you're in with him today.

[00:28:14] And if you look at his first administration, oftentimes you are not in with him two, three,

[00:28:19] and four years later.

[00:28:20] Another edition of Mike's on Mic.

[00:28:21] Thank you all very much for joining us.

[00:28:23] As always, we appreciate Mike Bender for coming over and being part of the broadcast.

[00:28:27] And we hope to have him many times.

[00:28:29] Even though the election's over, folks, there's a lot to do and a lot to talk about.

[00:28:33] And we want to get to work and get those things done.

[00:28:36] As always, we want to thank our sponsor, the Jacksonville History Center, Alan Bliss,

[00:28:40] and the fine donors who keep the cameras rolling and the lights lit.

[00:28:44] And we also want to thank you for joining us all these many months on Mike's on Mic.

[00:28:48] And we hope to be here for a lot longer as well.

[00:28:51] So join us again next week and tell your friends.

[00:28:53] Appreciate it very much.

[00:28:54] Take care.

[00:28:55] We'll see you next week.

[00:28:56] Mike's on Mic.

[00:28:57] With Mike Tolbert, Mike Hightower, and Mike Miller can be found on your favorite podcasting

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[00:29:04] Visit the website at Mike'sOnMic.com.

[00:29:08] Join us next time for more conversation with Mike's on Mic.

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[00:29:15] Mike.