Florida: Gov. DeSantis leads former Gov. Crist 50%-47%; Sen. Rubio has a 49%-47% lead over Cong. Demings

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AARP Florida released key findings from a 2022 election survey that shows candidates should pay close attention to Floridians age 50 and older, with issues such as inflation, Social Security and Medicare, and taxes top of mind for these voters.

Florida residents 50+ are a crucial voting bloc, consistently showing up to the polls and making a key difference in election outcomes in Florida. In the state’s 2018 mid-term elections, the 50+ made up 62% of the electorate.

Gov. Ron DeSantis leads former Gov. Charlie Crist 50% – 47% in the race for Governor among voters overall, thanks to a 7-point lead among voters 50+. …

For the U.S. Senate race, Senator Marco Rubio has a narrow 49% – 47% lead over Congresswoman Val Demings. The Senate race is similar to the contest for Governor across demographic groups among voters 18+ and 50+. CONTINUED

Jamie Champion Mongiovi, AARP

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Democrats Winning Over the “Meh” Voter

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A big reason we pay so much attention to a president’s job approval rating, even in a midterm election when the president isn’t on the ballot, is the significant correlation between voter opinions of a president and their vote choice in an election. …

This year, however, Democratic Senate candidates have been consistently outpolling Biden’s job approval ratings in their states. And, when it comes to the House, the share of voters who say they would vote for a Democrat for Congress is anywhere from 1 to 8 points higher than the percentage of voters who say they approve of the job Biden is doing. For example, the most recent Quinnipiac survey showed Biden’s job approval rating at 40 percent, yet 47 percent of voters said they were supporting a Democrat for Congress in November.

In other words, many voters who are unhappy with Biden are nonetheless committed to supporting a Democratic candidate in November. CONTINUED

Amy Walter, Cook Political Report with Amy Walter

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Lies, Politics and Democracy

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FRONTLINE’s season premiere investigates American political leaders and choices they’ve made that have undermined and threatened democracy in the U.S.

Frontline, PBS

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Michigan: Gov. Whitmer’s lead grows as fall campaign begins

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Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s lead over Republican Tudor Dixon has expanded to 13 percentage points with two months remaining before Election Day, according to a new poll from The Detroit News and WDIV-TV (Channel 4).

The statewide survey of 600 likely voters in the battleground state found that 48% supported Whitmer, a former state lawmaker from East Lansing, while 35% backed Dixon, a political commentator and first-time candidate from Norton Shores. CONTINUED

Craig Mauger, Detroit News

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‘They’re getting killed among women’: Skeptical female voters stand in way of GOP Senate

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Republicans this election cycle thought they had finally achieved a breakthrough with suburban women after years of losing support. Now, as the primary season has all but ended, the GOP is back where it once was: Appealing directly to skeptical female voters, the women whose support will make or break the party’s drive to retake the Senate majority.

A sure sign: One after the other, Republican nominees in top Senate battlegrounds have softened, backpedaled and sought to clarify their abortion positions after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. Another is that male candidates have begun putting their wives in front of the camera to speak directly to voters in new television ads.

Those ads, along with public and internal polling data, suggest that the GOP’s struggle to attract women voters may turn out to be the biggest obstacle standing between the party and a potential Senate majority in 2023. CONTINUED

Natalie Allison, Politico

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These five states may send a powerful message about 2024. But will Republicans hear it?

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This November, the states that decided the last presidential race may send a powerful signal about the next one.

President Joe Biden assembled his winning Electoral College majority in 2020 by flipping five states that had supported Donald Trump four years earlier: Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin across the Rust Belt and Georgia and Arizona in the Sun Belt.

In November, voters in all five of those states will render verdicts on candidates virtually hand-selected by Trump in Republican primaries – including the GOP Senate nominees in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona and gubernatorial nominees in all five states, except Georgia (where Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is up for reelection, has feuded with the former President).

Across these tipping-point states, the success or failure of Republican candidates who are cast so firmly in the Trump mold may offer important insights about the viability of the former President himself in 2024. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN

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