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According to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum has a 9-point lead over Republican Ron DeSantis in the Florida race for governor.
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Per CBS News, here is the breakdown of the poll:
— Women are his biggest supporters – 59 to 39 percent. Men are divided, with 51 percent for DeSantis and 48 percent for Gillum.
— Independent voters also strongly back Gillum 56 to 40 percent. Republicans side with DeSantis 90 – 9 percent. Gillum leads 96 – 2 percent among Democrats.
— Black voters support Gillum 98 to 2 percent
— Hispanic voters back Gillum 59 to 41 percent.
— White voters support DeSantis 53 to 45 percent.
History in the making
Gillum, 39, is on the verge of making history as the first Black Governor in the state’s history.
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Gillum’s platform includes $15 minimum wage, raises for public school teachers and universal healthcare.
“Tonight as the mayor of Florida’s capital city, I humbly accept the Democratic nomination,” Gillum said to loud cheers from watch-party attendees as they chanted “Bring it home! Bring it home!”
On the night he secured the Democratic nomination, Gillum wasted no time addressing one of his proposed changes: criminal justice reform.
“Beneath my name is also a desire by the majority of people in this state to see real criminal justice reform take hold,” said Gillum to the crowd.
“The kind of criminal justice reform, which allows people who make a mistake to be able to redeem themselves from that mistake, return to society, have their right to vote, but also have their right to work.”
This fall, he will face off against Republican Nominee, Ron DeSantis, to replace Governor Rick Scott.
DeSantis has faced a few racial issues during the campaign. Less than a month after telling Florida voters not to “monkey this up” after Democrat Andrew Gillum won the democratic gubernatorial nomination, one of his leading donors recently tweeted a racial slur directed at former president Barack Obama.
On Sept. 8, Steven Alembik responded to a tweet from the Republican National Committee that criticized Obama for correctly saying that “over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party.”
Alembik, who has given $23,000 to DeSantis, responded to the tweet by tweeting “F— THE MUSLIM N—–”, in reference to Obama.
Alembik told Politico on Wednesday that he understood that DeSantis’s campaign would need to distance himself from the comments — which the campaign promptly did.
Alembik’s racism is the fifth racist incident tied to the DeSantis campaign in the last four weeks. Gillum said that instead of calling these statements a racist dog whistle, he called it a “bullhorn” — with the state Democratic Party chairwoman calling the remark “disgusting.”
“There seems to be no end to the long line of white supremacists Ron DeSantis associates with, the latest being a donor who used the ‘n-word’ to describe President Obama,” Zach Hudson, spokesman for the liberal research group American Bridge, said. The group exposed Alembik’s tweets.
“These aren’t isolated incidents, these represent a pattern for DeSantis,” he said, “and that is what’s most disturbing about these connections.”