- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Coming up, the results are in from the first election held under Florida's new congressional map.

And it didn't all go as expected.

One Democrat won a race she was expected to lose.

A longtime congresswoman faces her toughest election in 20 years.

And in Pinellas County, one of the closest races in the country is just getting started.

St.

Petersburg voters will decide their next mayor in a runoff, and a court ordered rewrite has changed the words you'll see on your ballot this November.

Plus a phone call, a fake deputy and $25,000 gone.

We'll look at how scams are evolving and what to watch for.

Our panel breaks it all down for you.

Next on Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back to Florida This Week.

I'm Lissette Campos.

Tuesday, Floridians went to the polls.

And what's next on the road to the midterm election?

Well, our panel today has a lot of ground to cover.

Joining us are Michael Van Sickler, senior political editor at the Tampa Bay Times.

We have Mitch Perry, senior reporter for the Florida Phoenix, and Jackie Callaway, consumer advocate and former investigative reporter.

We begin with the results of Tuesday's primary, the first election held under Florida's new congressional map.

It produced at least one genuine upset, one of the toughest races of Congresswoman Kathy Castor's career, and a toss up right here in Pinellas County.

Mitch, we begin with Angie Nixon.

She was out outraised money by Alexander Vindman, almost 27 to 1.

And yet money did not decide this race.

- No.

You could say people power.

Just better.

Better candidate.

Essentially, Alexander Vindman ran a very weird race.

He didn't really engage with people too much.

He raised a lot of money.

And that was kind of the thing that seemed to make him the more serious candidate in November.

But I will say this.

You're hearing a lot of people saying, oh, they defied the polls.

There wasn't really any polls taken in this race.

Most pollsters didn't want to spend the money on it, because they assumed somehow that Vindman was going to beat Nixon.

And so I was telling people in the last couple of weeks.

Maybe Vindman, I don't really know.

And so but the perception certainly was there, right, that this, this, this progressive activist and Angie Nixon, who raised not even $1 million somehow could be competitive.

But in terms of anecdotal information, you saw from people who were almost offended by Vindman, he didn't want to debate her.

Right.

His wife engaged in social media with a cutting crack about Angie Nixon.

And in fact, what is surprising, though, was that she won by 12 points.

Okay.

It wasn't even close.

- Right.

Yeah.

And to Mitch's point, there was no polling.

The money advantage was totally overblown because the candidate with the money wasn't spending it.

He had 6 million still in the bank.

So I think a big question is what happens to that money is going to go to Angie Nixon.

Where does it go?

- But did Nixon strike a chord with a group of voters that the others did not?

- I absolutely think she did.

It seems to me like instead of focusing on Trump, she focused on what people are most concerned about right now, which is pocketbook issues.

You can't walk into a restaurant or into a group gathering without someone talking about affordability.

That is like the topic.

I believe that in data centers, she focused on that about health care, free education, raising the minimum wage.

I think she struck a chord with our wallets.

- And she's a Florida native.

I mean, she's a Jacksonville representative with a huge base.

She knows that city.

She knows her issues.

Have you ever talked to her about the nuts and bolts of the Florida Legislature?

She'll talk your ear off.

So she was opposing this candidate who was relatively new to Florida.

So I think it was hard for him to shake off that "carpetbagger" label.

Um, you know.

- But but they didn't really work for it, though.

I think another level, it's simply a matter of who worked, who wanted it more, who worked for it harder.

As Mike says, you know, he had $6 million in the bank because I talked to one of his people a few weeks before the election, the primary.

And it's like they were talking to me about, you know, they were this is a late primary in the season, right?

There's only 11 less than 11 weeks to go now before the general election.

So all eyes were then were on Ashley Moody, and that was most of their targeting in their campaign.

They never they never engaged Nixon at all.

- And another, another candidate who's been getting a lot of attention is Kathy Castor, you know, veteran Kathy Castor here for 20 years.

The changes in the congressional map where St.

Pete was completely extracted from her district.

Now it's all Hillsborough.

And a lot of folks were wondering, like, how is this going to play out?

Her district looks different.

Here.

You have Mike Beltran won over seven other candidates.

How competitive is this race, or do the pundits believe that Kathy Castor will be the shoo-in?

- I think it will be.

I again, I'm kind of skeptical of polling.

A lot of Republicans off the record will say they respect Kathy Castor.

They think she's a fine candidate.

I think it swung quite significantly to a pro-Trump district.

But even with that advantage, a lot of people, a lot of Republicans even are saying they still expect Kathy Castor to win.

It's not officially likely to go to Castor, but it'll be tough for Beltran, who is a fine candidate to make inroads.

- Were you surprised that Beltran did so well against Kevin Steele?

- Well, it was between him and Kevin Steele, essentially.

And I thought he would win, but I didn't know he won by like 15 points.

That was a little surprising.

Kevin Steele.

Okay.

It was only Pasco County, but he was not really from Hillsborough County where this district is.

Yes, he voted in there.

He moved there.

He was.

I covered an event about six weeks ago.

In Plant City.

It was in Hillsborough, actually, and a big debate.

Hundreds of people there.

Hillsborough Republicans to hear all the candidates talk.

Kevin Steele was not there.

He was at a Byron Donalds event in Ybor City kind of hanging out.

Yeah.

I mean, he seemed like a little above the fray, as it were.

- We see a pattern there.

Vindman and Steele.

- Quote unquote carpetbagger.

- Okay, so let's take a look at Pinellas County because Anna Paulina Luna has been getting a lot of attention as well.

She's going to be facing Leila Gray.

The contrast between these two very powerful women.

One is the retired army general that is Gray.

And then you've got Luna who is the Air Force veteran.

How are these two going to be campaigning?

- I'm going to take exception to your lead in here, where you say this race is going to be incredibly competitive or it's tied right now.

I know it could be.

And maybe gray pulls off an upset.

I'm not going to say that couldn't happen.

I would say that this is a district that Luna has won by double digits in both 22 and 24, and the Democrats have thrown a lot her way in those two elections.

Now, because of the anti-Trump fervor that Democrats are very excited about, and that will help them in these competitive primaries.

You know, cut that ten points down.

Maybe it's already half that right now.

And so gray can prove, you know, effective on the campaign trail.

Maybe, maybe she does have a chance.

But I'm going to think that is that's a district that is maybe just changed a little bit with redistricting.

It's a pretty solid Republican district.

Again, it used to not be.

Pinellas used to be super competitive.

It really has gone in the era of Maga, Trumpism, if you will, a pretty strong Republican stronghold right now.

So, you know, I'm going to say that gray is going to have to really work really hard to pull off the victory there.

- Would you agree?

- Again, it's all hunches because we have no math to go by.

Um, I mean, there's a lot of things that are attractive about Leila Gray.

The Democrats have just identified that race as something that they want to invest money in.

So she's going to be getting national money.

She's been identified as a top-tier candidate, um, which they're not doing in other congressional races in Florida that Democrats are.

- Trying to win over the Orlando district.

Darren Soto.

He did not receive any funding from the.

- Leila Gray has some great credentials.

The brigadier general thing helps us, and I think there is a hope with Democrats.

It might be another.

You know, they're chasing after windmills here, but, um or is it tilting.

- But the formula is winning NPAs.

Uh, and Republican voters.

Okay.

That's as David Jolly talks about on the campaign trail.

You know, that's, that's the math.

If it's relying on Democrats only, you can't do it.

But yeah, she seems to be like a mainstream candidate that can pull some Republican votes with that military background.

- Well, let's turn to St.

Pete, the mayor's race.

That's the one race on primary night that could have been decided.

It wasn't because neither of the none of the candidates got the at least 50% of the votes.

So they're headed to the runoff.

It will be between Charlie Crist and Ken Welch.

It's a nonparty race, but party always plays into it.

Tell us about your thoughts on that race.

- Oh my gosh.

You want to take this on.

- To say.

- Well, I used to cover St.

Pete as a reporter, and one of the challenging things about covering it was it's extremely, um, a plugged in city so the neighborhoods know what's going on.

Um, I think Charlie Crist has already spent about 100 million.

I mean, $1 million in this race.

That's an absurd amount of money to spend in a small city like this where everybody knows each other.

So he got 35%, which is, I think, really good.

And he got, uh, I think he would get the largest constituency, maybe.

- Yeah.

Jim Moore did very well.

The nonpartisan, but a Republican definitely.

- Yeah.

The top three vote getters were Charlie Crist with 3,536% Welsh the incumbent 2,021%.

And then you had Jim Large who got 17 to 18%.

- So I just the only thing that says to me that Crist hasn't necessarily clinched it, and perhaps he has, because 35 is a strong number.

It's just the fact that, wow, he spent all that money and everybody knows Charlie anyway, and he still just got 35%.

- Well, here you have the third highest vote getter.

The difference between him and the incumbent was a mere two 3%.

That's surprising.

- Yeah.

Ken Welch.

Yes.

Yeah.

You know, I thought Brandi Gabbard was going to make it actually, the city council member.

And that had seemed to be a perception of Charlie Crist people, because St.

Pete shines the pack that has raised almost $2 million for Charlie.

They were sending out mailers and text messages in the weeks before the race targeting Brandi Gabbard.

They were fearful that she was going to surpass Ken Welch.

And then it'd be a Gabbard, uh, Crist matchup.

And that could have been maybe a little different dynamics for Charlie Crist going into November, because a lot of people might mention is the fact that people already have an idea of what they think about Charlie Crist.

They also do about Ken Welch now, having been the mayor for five years now.

They got their opinion on him, you know, and that's been pretty set.

- He did poorly in those neighborhoods that got really flooded by the hurricanes?

- Yes.

So before we head over to Vern Buchanan's old district, I do want to say that Kathy Castor has endorsed Mayor Welch.

And as we know, Senator State Senator Darryl Rouson has endorsed Charlie Crist.

So moving on to Congressional District 16.

This is the first congressional seat in the region that's open for the first time in 20 years, Vern Buchanan has retired.

Kelly Kirschner and Sidney Gruters will be facing off.

What should voters know about this particular race?

- Well, Sidney Gruters, of course, is the wife of Joe Gruters, who former state senator who was the Republican National Committee chairman, very tied to Donald Trump.

Trump has already endorsed Gruters.

This is a district that's been very well.

It's changed.

We should emphasize that.

It's got even parts of Pinellas County now in it.

And I think the Republicans are not concerned that might be overemphasized.

But I think they're not taking it for granted.

And they shouldn't because of the different dynamics that we've talked about already.

And Kelly Kirschner, I think, is a good candidate for mayor of St.

Petersburg, excuse me, of Sarasota also was Eckerd College.

He was an administrator there, and I think he has a really interesting biography.

- Michael, what do you think about this?

- A lot of energy, a lot of good progressive enthusiasm about Kelly Kirchner.

But Joe Gruters is one of those guys that the GOP is going to, like, totally do everything they can to support.

He was one of the first people to go out and support Trump, big ally of Trump's.

And the fact that Sidney Gruters is going to run.

I think the Republican Party would do everything it could to make sure that she wins.

- Well, let's move now to the governor's race, the governor's race as no surprises here.

Byron Donalds and David Jolly will be facing off in the election.

What are the two of you?

You've covered politics for so long.

What are the two of you specifically looking for to happen next?

- Well, I'm wondering how negative it's going to get.

I wonder how many times we're going to hear Socialism and transgender.

And David Jolly is probably the least socialist Democrat we've seen.

- And officially came out as a capitalist yesterday.

- So in case you didn't already know that.

So it's going to be interesting to see that develop.

- Endorsements from anyone in particular you're waiting to see.

- Well, I think endorsements, I'm interested to see if anybody crosses party lines basically to me.

I don't, you know, endorsement from a Democrat or Democrat.

Not that interesting.

Um, the thing is about this, I wrote about this today in the Phoenix, which is the fact that Jay Collins lost by 23 points, did win 14 counties in the Panhandle region, North Florida, and actually won 15 overall.

Uh, that is somewhat interesting to look at about what that means for Byron Donalds moving forward and whether David Jolly can exploit that.

And I don't know if he can.

The Republicans, the conservative voters of that area had choices.

Had Jay Collins had this guy, Bobby Williams, who didn't get much coverage at all, who actually came in second in some of these counties.

Uh, and, you know, obviously, um, David Jolly is a former Republican, which has hurt him with other Democrats up to this point.

He actually, I thought he underperformed on Tuesday night.

He got 60%.

Um, you know, he really wasn't running against anybody who put any campaign forward there.

And so, uh, but Angie Nixon's victory is going to help him is the consensus feeling, because it's going to make sure to bring those Black Democrats who may have been like, ah, the progressive Democrats do like, okay, you know, we're going to vote for Angie.

- David Jolly in South Florida, where any mention of a socialist is going to depress the vote for Democrats.

- Because she is a member of she.

- Is a member of the.

- Democratic Socialist Party.

That's right.

Okay, so beyond the results themselves, we wanted to take a look at what Election Day actually looked like on the ground.

Jackie, you've been looking at different aspects of it.

Tell us about some of that stuff.

- So, so much has changed.

You know, when I used to go out and cover election night, it was you literally years ago, spent all night getting B-roll and video of ballots being counted and checking in with the supervisor of elections every 15 minutes.

Technology has changed the game, as you two know and are living it, and how we are literally getting results at record speed.

I did reach out to the supervisor of elections offices in Sarasota, Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough County just to find out what they're seeing.

They have seen the usual amount of voter confusion because there have been changes.

People are wondering, can I still vote by mail?

Also, they're wondering about when can they vote and what's a closed primary.

So.

And they're also we're.

Brian Corley in Pasco County, said one of the biggest concerns for him is the number of people that are coming to him.

It's not that there are scams out there or that wrongdoing.

It's more about confusion.

They don't know what's going on.

People are waiting until the last minute to get their ducks in order sometimes, so they're being deluged.

These offices are.

Brian Corley was telling me that he's seen a lot of misinformation on social media.

What's really cool?

All four offices I talked to have special voter lookup tools.

They are blasting the information out on their website.

What to watch out for.

So everything is very easy to find.

And if you're on a website and it's like pinellas.gov.

Sarasota votes.gov, vote hillsborough.gov if it's a.gov and it says official website, you're in the right place.

- It does seem like we need to do a better job of educating the community about us being in a closed primary state.

There were a lot of NPAs and independent voters who got a different ballot than the one that they expected, but because of the closed primary, you will not get a Republican.

- We have over 3 million NPAs voters in the state.

And, you know, some people think it's an issue.

Some people don't.

The parties themselves, actually, the Democratic Party is still considering Florida Democratic Party.

I talked to Nikki Fried about this a couple weeks ago.

They are looking into the idea of making their primaries an open primary system.

They've got to maybe go through litigation.

The Republican Party does not want to do that.

But you mentioned we're in the minority of states that does have this.

And so for voters.

- People are showing up at the polls.

- Thinking.

- I want to vote for X.

- Right.

- Candidate.

And they can't unless they are registered in that political.

- And we also have the situation.

Maybe it's a good thing that we.

28 days you have to be registered in advance.

Now some states have same day registration are a little quicker.

You know, I mean, there's different things we could change for the.

It won't change though, because for Florida Republicans, it's been working great for decades now.

So they have no incentive to change what we have right now.

- That's what one side says.

Well, the other.

- Side, you know, I mean, that's what yeah, they're in control of the legislature basically.

- Well, something that we will all be talking about and hearing more about is what is on the ballot for sure in November, the property tax amendment, um, November ballot, even though it was not part of the Tuesday vote.

We do want to tell you that amendment three has been rewritten.

A judge ordered the state to rewrite the ballot language for the proposed constitutional amendment on property taxes.

The original title has been dropped.

It was worded as Save Our homes from excessive property taxes.

A judge ruled that it was more political slogan than the state mandated neutral description.

The new title is a long one.

It's hyphenated.

It's increased homestead exemption, lower cap on increases in non-homestead property assessments.

The measure itself hasn't changed.

It would raise the homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027, and to $250,000 in 2028.

We also want to say that in the summary paragraph that's included on the ballot, the language was deemed suggestive.

And so now that's gone.

It's important to note that every city will feel the impact in a different way.

We recently asked Lakeland Commissioner Ashley Troutman how Lakeland is preparing for a vote.

- Lakeland, however, is positioned quite uniquely.

Over decades.

We fatefully generated different sources of revenues, and it'll make the landing a little softer in many ways.

Um, again, that doesn't mean that we're immune to some of those impacts.

Some of the things that we, we immediately see are some of the discretionary services that are provided to the community, some of those discretionary services may have to go away.

And we understand that.

But the core services that we want to deliver, which is making sure that Lakeland stays safe, making sure that it stays open for business and remains a desirable community are things that we're committed to.

- Jackie, does neutral language really change the way people vote?

- I think it has to.

If you look at you mentioned the title Save Our Homes from Excessive property Taxes.

That's suggestive for some people kind of inflammatory.

We were talking before we went to air.

This is one of the most divisive, um, referendums, amendments to go on the ballot.

Maybe not as emotional, but we saw the same kind of vitriol and complete polar opposite sides when we're talking about abortion a couple years ago.

What we're talking about now, again, is hitting people's pocketbooks.

And that's a very emotional topic.

I think that this summary, you know, we're paying for these things to go out.

This summary should be like Webster's dictionary, which is what this judge is trying to get it to be.

It's a clear definition and it's transparent without trying to market.

There should never be marketing on a ballot.

- And the Attorney General is ordered by the judge to reword this within ten days.

And he did that.

Michael, there are voters who do support the idea of this amendment three.

Is there a clear champion for them over the next few months so that they can raise awareness of this position?

- Yeah.

None has emerged even.

Um, Byron Donalds, when he's talking about it, he seems to be hinting that he doesn't expect it to pass because he says if this doesn't pass, then he'll create a commission that will look at the taxes and then we'll really address it when I'm, when I'm governor, uh, which suggests that he says he's in favor of it, but I don't hear him talking about it.

I don't hear anybody talking about it.

And the people who are against it, the first responders are really against it.

So I don't really see a pathway.

- Well, I think the thing is, is that you don't necessarily need a big advocate.

Why?

Because as you know, affordability, like cutting my taxes.

I think that, uh, it doesn't necessarily need one.

Ron DeSantis has said he's not going to be this person to champion it.

Now, we in the press and we write about all these different groups who are against it, right.

But in terms of we haven't seen any commercials, for example, yet.

I know it's, you know, we're far away from the general election yet, but I think it's it's an information war.

It's an education war.

And I think that's up in the air right now.

60% is a formidable number to get to, to win.

But polls have shown that in some cases it is.

Again, we don't believe any poll that it's doing well and that maybe when people are informed more about the down side effects of it in terms of getting cutting revenues for programs they like, then they like it less.

But who's going to get that information out there?

- Journalists who I've talked to, who are going out and doing the man on the street sound bites.

They are finding that a lot more people are considering voting yes to the amendment three.

We're going to continue on now to our next segment.

We're shifting to AI and scams.

The bad guys are finding new ways of parting, making you part with your money.

$25,000 gone over a phone call.

That's what happened to a Tampa woman.

In a recent story by The Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Fudge was told that she had missed her jury duty and that she was facing the possibility of arrest unless she paid a certain amount of money.

The Journal reported that Fudge drove across Tampa gathering bail money while the caller stayed on the line with her, talking to her small talk, even talking about their kids.

She was directed to a convenience store and told to feed $4,000 into a cryptocurrency machine.

By the time that all of this was over, this woman had lost $25,000.

It's a stark story on its own, Jackie.

Do you see this as part of a bigger story?

- I can tell you this is the same scam, different twist.

I did this story a couple of years ago as a journalist.

I sat in the living room of a Temple Terrace.

Couple, educated couple entrepreneurs, a wealthy couple, busy business people.

She thought she honest to God, got that call and that it was real.

She'd never had a call like that.

The wife and she figured that her busy schedule and crowded inbox.

She really had missed jury duty.

They knew everything about her.

These guys are in.

Girls are spoofing phone numbers.

It's coming in.

Is that it's coming from the Hillsborough County Courthouse.

It's coming in from Hillsborough, Pasco County Sheriff's Office.

They know a lot about you.

They will text you a document that shows an arrest warrant with your name on it.

They will text you a document while you're on the phone that shows your name on a missed jury summons.

So this is exactly like the romance scammers.

They have all this information, and with the romance scammers, they're preying on your fear of loneliness.

This scam is preying on your fear of being locked up.

I mean, I just think about spending a night in jail.

And I mean, I just, you know, you get hives thinking about something like that.

This woman was directed a little differently from the Pasco County, but she was directed to do a money order, take that money order to a post office, give the tracking number.

All the while she is on the phone.

They have every piece of information.

They tell you that Lieutenant Jones from the Hillsborough County Courthouse is calling you.

Guess what?

You do a quick Google search while you're on the phone.

Oh, there's Lieutenant Jones.

It must be real.

Here's what happens if you miss a jury summons.

I mean, let's not do that.

But if you do, the first thing you're probably going to have to do is pay a $100 fine.

And let's say you skip that, which you shouldn't.

But if you do, then there's maybe a contempt of court order.

It would go through multiple steps and drag on for a long time before someone is going to actually arrest you.

- In the short time that we have left, you mentioned several different AI tools, mechanics that are being used in these scams.

Which one is being used most often in these scams?

- I would say probably the creation of documents.

You know, with AI, you can create an official document like that.

You put in a few prompts.

That's my, I would think that they're creating fake documents, which look real and that you can easily send to someone.

- And now it's time for our other big stories of the week.

Mike.

- Yeah.

I took a look at the candidacies of Byron Donalds and David Jolly, because for so long they got in early and they seemed like a cinch to win.

But by going back and reverse engineering how they did it, I was surprised, you know, they had to overcome a lot of skepticism.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

One of the reasons that we didn't touch on in the discussion here was a state Senate seat in the Tampa Bay area, uh, between Driscoll and Michele Rayner, both Florida House members from the Tampa Bay area.

I thought, you know, I thought it was the most interesting, intriguing races legislatively in the area.

Driscoll won and she won big.

That was a bit of a surprise to me, but she's the one who's already got a job now in the Senate because that she goes automatically to Tallahassee now after that victory.

- I think it's been interesting watching the transition of what we're talking about with relation to the elections.

We were talking so much about housing affordability, insurance affordability, candidates like talking about those things.

And it feels to me like a lot of the conversation is now switched to.

We're focusing on the data centers.

- Thank you so much for coming in.

We know that we covered quite a bit, but you all are such an important part of our panel discussions, and we really appreciate you coming in.

Again, our thanks to our panelists Michael Van Sickler, Mitch Perry, and Jackie Callaway.

We know you have plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

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