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[Music] - Hello everyone.

Floridians are feeling the squeeze from multiple directions.

Electric bills remain among the highest in the country, and gas and diesel prices are climbing again.

At the same time, national political money is starting to pour into Florida's congressional races.

A property tax amendment on this November's ballot is also drawing new lines between supporters and opponents, and the two major party candidates for governor are offering very different approaches to Florida's property insurance problem.

What does it all mean for Floridians?

Our panel weighs in next on Florida This Week.

[Music] Welcome back everybody.

I'm your moderator, Lissette Campos.

Affordability is shaping up to be one of the biggest questions heading into the midterms, how far a paycheck will go, what utilities and insurance will cost, and who voters think can actually fix it.

Joining us today is Patrick Manteiga, columnist and publisher of La Gaceta, and Michael Van Sickler, political editor at the Tampa Bay Times.

Let's start with the cost of living in Florida.

Regulators this week sided with customers over utility companies.

On a key rate question, the Florida Public Service Commission's own staff had proposed repealing a decades old rule that currently passes a tax savings along to customers as lower bills.

Utilities argued for the change, but the commission voted 4 to 1 against it, keeping the savings in place for customers for the average Tampa electric residential customer.

That's a difference of about $1.12 a month.

But that's just one part of the affordability picture.

Tampa area electric bills have ranked among the highest in the country.

Just this summer, we know that you've seen the high gas prices as well.

Florida's average diesel price topped $6 a gallon for the first time ever.

And now, you know, voters are asking, where do we go from here?

Let's look at the electric bills.

What can voters expect their elected officials and regulators to actually do about these prices?

Michael, I'd like to start with you.

- Well, I think the Public Service Commission vote was a surprise because their staff was recommending siding with utilities.

And I think it's maybe an indication that the commission, which is appointed by governor DeSantis, recognizes that, hey, it's an election year and why don't we vote against you know, for the consumers because they rarely do that.

So I was surprised by the vote, especially with the staff siding with utilities.

But what would we expect with the two governors.

Well, I think, you know, it would be more of the same if Donalds were to win.

You would have a very you would have a public service commission that would favor utilities in most circumstances.

And I think David Jolly has been on record saying that he's going to be more consumer oriented.

I mean, you need to strike a balance.

Either you don't pick a side when you're on the commission.

- But, Patrick - you know, I think we need some big reforms here.

You know, I'd love to see the legislature vote on some caps on increases so that you can't get these big rate increases.

I'd love to see an elected public service commission.

Uh, you know, if we get a new governor who's a Democrat, hopefully they'll kick out as many of the current PSC members as they can to get a new group in there.

Um, you know, and even, you know, most of us suffered this summer with the remnants of the hurricane.

So the electric companies had these big losses, and we basically acted as their insurance company and repaid them for their losses.

Well, if we're going to be their insurance company, I'd like to act like it.

Let's give them a deductible.

Make them pay 20% of their of their losses.

And and I'd like to audit what they're offering, saying their losses are because my insurance company certainly doesn't pay what I tell them to pay when I have a loss.

They normally, uh, mess with me and, and take the money down to a - lot of residents would agree that they're in the same boat as you are.

What is the case that the state's current approach to utility regulation is working for Floridians?

And what's the case that it isn't?

- Uh.

Let's see.

Um, I can better make the case that it's not working.

Uh, just if you look at the campaign contributions from the major utilities, FPL especially, but Duke and TECO as well.

Uh, they just, they have money to spend for campaign contributions.

And even with Democrats, they have enough money to sprinkle around.

So there is such a, I think a, a relationship, a causation that we see that the PSC and the legislature largely favor, uh, the, you know, the investor owned utilities.

- Patrick, you've covered Tampa politics specifically for, for decades.

Is the affordability squeeze actually changing how voters are feeling when you talk to them for your stories?

- You know, I think that the affordability issue is causing people to say, okay, we've got to make a change in government.

I think that's hurting the Republicans.

The problem Democrats have is, is that people aren't saying, gosh, I think the Democrats have great ideas.

So for them, you know, if we have a blue wave, it's going to be because people are upset with the Republicans, not because they're happy with the Democrats.

And Democrats have to, you know, if there is a win here on the governor's race or in any of these, they're going to have to try and make hay with it very quickly and show that they're the party about affordability, that they are willing to make the tough decisions.

They're willing to take on big insurance, big electric utilities, because people are hurting out there.

I mean, you know, uh, you know, there's obviously a group out in Florida and in Tampa that have a lot of money and seem to have a lot of money to spend.

But it isn't most of us.

- And this is the time of the year where we see more of the political ads on the radio, on the television, on streaming, on all the different platforms.

Um, do you... - It will get worse.

- And so I wanted to ask you, Michael, do you think that this affordability will play a big role in this election season?

Because so many times in the past, there's another issue that comes in and kind of steals all the attention.

- That's a great question.

Um, affordability, if you survey the voters is the number one issue.

Um, if you're a Republican and you've been in power for the last 30 years.

You might want to change the topic.

So excuse me.

I think in October, you know, we usually expect October surprises.

Mhm.

How far will the Republicans go to change that topic and what will we see?

Are we going to see anything?

You know, it might pass without any big scandal, right?

But usually I think Republicans might want to change the subject.

- You know, I think affordability is the overall issue.

But you'll find pockets where obviously polling has told people there's some other issues I see, like in some of the South Tampa races, people are talking about, you know, out of control development and things like that where neighborhoods are feeling squeezed.

I'm sure over in the beach areas, people are going to be talking about the fact how hard it has been to rebuild houses and to get back in their houses after the hurricanes and how government's gotten in the way of that.

And so I think you'll find these little pockets of different kind of issues here in Tampa.

You might have an issue over the Rays that could affect some people's re-electability if they voted for the race.

- And in other parts of the state, rural parts.

The AI data center issue is huge.

- It's huge.

We're going to turn now to the midterm elections.

National political groups are starting to put serious money into the congressional races around the country, including right here in Tampa Bay.

Trump-aligned super PACs have reserved nearly $138 million in ads over just the past ten days.

Some of that spending is targeting Florida Democrat incumbents, including Tampa Bay's Kathy Castor in District 14 and Darren Soto in the Greater Orlando area.

Michael, how do you see this?

You said that you expect to see a whole lot more ads.

Tell us about that.

- Well, Trump is sitting on about 400 to $500 million.

So he's opening the purse strings a little bit.

I think in the Kathy Castor race, he's giving Beltran about 200,000.

That's, you know, in the scheme of things, that's not going to really change the race, but I think it's an indication that it's there.

Everybody's expecting some sort of money dump.

Although with Trump, you never know.

- How competitive are these races?

- Well they're competitive.

I mean the Darren Soto district was completely redrawn.

So that, that's now a district that went 58% for Trump in 2024 and basically took out the entire Hispanic population that Darren Soto had.

So he's also but Darren Soto is a strong candidate.

He's raised like $2 million.

His Republican challenger has represented not even close to that.

And Castor, of course, we know in Tampa her name recognition is really top notch as far as people knowing at least the name recognition.

And she's raised a lot of money.

So she's raised, I think around 2 million.

So it's competitive.

- Patrick, your columns are famous for knowing you know what's going on behind the scenes.

Why would national Republicans spend this kind of money on seats that they're supposed to?

Most people think when very easily.

- It's because the economy, the economy is working against them.

Their president's working against them.

The president's not on the ballot.

So they don't know if his loyal supporters are going to come out and vote.

These races should not be competitive.

Kathy Castor should be losing big time.

But so far the polls have not shown any of that.

David Jolly shouldn't have a chance at all.

And the polls show that he's right there.

Um, you know, and so there's a worry.

I mean, you know, Gus Bilirakis, who had a very safe seat, now has to run in parts of Tampa.

And he hasn't run down here in such a long time.

Um, and so he's now got to reintroduce himself to a whole group of people that he hasn't seen in a long time.

And, and so, you know, in the congressional seats around the Bay area, probably Laura Lee's got the safest one at the moment.

But, you know, everything's in such a flux right now.

You know, people vote on the economy.

The Republicans are going to have a problem.

- Michael, when voters start seeing all the ads, um, what should they be looking at in terms of trying to understand who's behind them?

Who's who is funding the ads?

- Well, first, I wish there was an eye test, but just be careful of AI.

You know, a lot of the video that we're seeing on some of the ads, we saw it with Jay Collins and the governor's primary.

It's AI produced.

So that right there should eliminate any type of taking it seriously.

But usually on a TV ad, you'll see the little fine print at the end saying, and maybe there's a voiceover saying, who paid for the ad?

- Pay attention to that.

- Pay attention to that.

And then if you can, Google it and see who's behind that committee or, or PAC.

- And another affordability question will go directly to Florida voters this November.

We are talking about the property tax measure, something that we've covered here on Florida this week for many months.

The sides are now taking shape.

Florida Republican Party is backing amendment three.

Florida Realtors also put $10 million behind the campaign opposing it.

The Florida Sheriffs Association, fire chiefs, police and firefighters along with the Florida Democratic Party and local government groups.

And now many environmental groups like the Sierra Club also are opposing it.

How do you both see this happening, Patrick?

- Well, the statewide polls are showing that, uh, that, you know, the local governments might be saved by the by the voters, but it's very close.

But I think that the real issue is going to be on some of these counties, that the urban counties that should be a little bit more pro-government and normally might vote 55% for this ballot, which of course has to get passed the 60% threshold.

But I also think there's some local issues that are happening that could create a problem.

The real deal here in Tampa, in Hillsborough County, if that makes a few voters angry about it, and they say, well, if they got enough money to do a stadium, they've got enough money to take this tax cut.

If that's a 5% swing in voters, well, that means that this county could end up voting at 60% for this.

- I've been expecting some sort of backlash, but I haven't seen anything that indicates there is a backlash.

Are you hearing anything.

- Until the vote comes in?

I mean, that's going to be the measure.

I mean, because, you know, I've run into people, even myself today.

I wrote the column for tomorrow where I am endorsing voting no on amendment three.

But I have to say, I was mad about it.

I was a lot easier to vote no three months ago than I am now, because my governments are not spending their money wisely.

They are not being good stewards.

I don't believe they are.

And so if they're not going to be good stewards, why should I continue funding them at the same rate.

- And we have.

- Heard that from guests to Florida This Week who've talked about specifically guests who come from the Hillsborough County area, who have said that they initially were thinking of voting no on amendment three.

But after the vote, they were angry at the ballpark and the investment of public funds, and now they're considering voting yes.

But that's Hillsborough County.

There are other counties in the region that may go a different way.

- I completely understand the frustration that is out there regarding, you know, there's there's boondoggles.

Everybody's unhappy with something that their government has done.

But, you know, I think our dialogue, the way we talk about government spending is, is not enlightened.

I think this DOGE argument where we break it down per capita in a very basic way that doesn't give any room for nuance that like, sure, we might have an exploding population, but that means we need more services.

We have aging infrastructures.

We have a need for the best personnel possible to plan out how we.

We plan for the future.

And if we constantly talk about cutting government without any type of argument being made for what is government for?

It is a thing.

We do need it.

It's civilization.

- Well, government.

Governor DeSantis was talking about this all last year, repeatedly.

And then once it was approved for the ballot, he has not been at the forefront of this conversation.

Remind remind our viewers why.

Well, and do you either of you anticipate that he will perhaps take now a lead in talking about this?

- I don't think so.

Do you, Patrick?

- I don't know if he could help by talking about it, frankly.

I mean, at this point he's got he's got his but he's got his own baggage at the moment.

And the affordability issue is you can't blame Democrats in Florida on this.

- Alligator Alcatraz doesn't help his argument.

Yeah.

You know he's making Florida.

Neither does South Florida.

I mean, that's a great example.

Like he's he's stood on this platform that he's he's a fiscal conservative.

Those are two great examples of him, uh, being almost reckless with how the state spends its.

- Money, gave away 100 acres to the race for what?

What was the deal?

No.

Any affordable housing?

There's no deal whatsoever.

Ballpark deal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, we just we just bought property.

We just bought property for $80 million in the Panhandle.

That was not worth that amount of money.

- Exactly.

The land giveaways.

So, um, you know, if DeSantis does get involved, I don't know if it would help the way Byron Donalds talks about it, I just don't he almost, uh, he always prefaces what he says about the amendment by saying, if it doesn't pass, if it doesn't pass, if it doesn't pass, almost as if he expects it not to pass.

- Well, I am I am worried at some local issues that if you have local issues in Miami-Dade or some of these bigger counties that you hope are going to save governments on this, and you get voters angry in those local counties, you could have a problem.

If you have a problem in Hillsborough because of the Rays, maybe there's something in orange that they're upset with that creates a problem there.

And maybe there's something in Miami-Dade that creates a problem there.

And so I think I'd like to see more, more county by county polling on this to have a better idea of how this actually is going to work out.

- And you both have covered campaigns for a number of years.

My question to you is, is the loudest voice does that is that a guarantee that voters will go that route?

Or have you seen instances where the advertising and the political discussions are advocating for a certain way, and then voters get to the poll and they vote another way?

- I believe this is going to be a vote on whether voters blame Republicans for the current economy.

If they do, then Democrats will benefit.

I do not know if this is a vote on individual policies of individual politicians.

Last few elections have been party votes.

They really have been.

It hasn't been about the success of that particular politician.

And so I'm waiting to see if this is in that same trend.

And if this is just a straight party vote, either I'm against the Republicans or for the Republicans.

- But with the amendment, to your point earlier, I think it's going to come out locally how people feel about their local government and if they're unhappy with government right now, that might fuel support for amendment three.

And everybody's looking to cut costs because of the rising costs.

So they're just going to look at the bottom line and say, oh, I can save on property taxes.

And then there's the nuance argument of like, well, if you cut your property taxes, you're going to lose maybe these services or they're going to not improve.

And that might have.

- Well, most of us are in a situation where in our businesses and our home lives, we're trying to do more with less.

I mean, we're both in an industry that you just have to do more with less, right?

But yet government doesn't seem to be acting the same way.

They're giving raises that are, you know, large raises.

They're, they're spending money like they have it, they're borrowing money like they have it.

And, and, you know, and it's hard to sympathize with somebody when you're struggling and they just seem to be saying, oh, well, no, we have to do this and we're going to do this.

And no value engineering.

They say they want to build a road, but yet they build a bike lane.

- And another one of the of Florida's biggest affordability questions is the issue of property insurance.

The two top candidates for governor, Republican Byron Donalds and Democrat David Jolly, are now offering different approaches to how the state should handle catastrophic storm risk.

Jolly is proposing a state backed catastrophic fund that would move hurricane and wind coverage out of the private market.

He says it could cut premiums 60 to 70%.

Donalds has proposed keeping DeSantis era lawsuit reforms in place.

He'd also reform the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund and then create an insurer scorecard for transparency.

And this is an issue that so many of our viewers told us they wanted to hear more about the reforms in the insurance industry.

Ever since 2024, storms.

And so, um, the fact that both of these candidates are talking about it, that may also garner some more votes because depending on where you stand on the issue, how do you all see it?

- Well, it's another issue that if you're a Jolly and the Democrats, um, you haven't been in power.

So if you're unhappy with your property insurance or your flood insurance or your hurricane coverage, you very well should be looking at the party that's been in power for the past 32 years.

Um, Jolly's coming in with some ideas that he's going to bring in this idea of a catastrophic fund to take out the wind and the hurricane insurance and have the state back that in order for that to be covered though.

Like right now.

You know, he's probably if he can flip the Catastrophe Fund, which currently covers insurance companies, you're looking at about 8 million there to do everything else, though.

There's a delta of about 25 million or $25 billion.

Excuse me.

So how would he cover that?

He's talking about a tourist tax, which I'm not sure how he would do that, given that he would be a lone Democrat in a capital dominated by Republicans.

Tourist taxes are also mostly controlled locally so I don't know how that would help finance it.

And then he would have to get the legislature to play along.

And I'm curious as to how Jolly would do that.

- It's it's a difficult thing.

It's complicated.

And and Donald's is attacking him Jolly about this being a hurricane tax.

And and the commercials are somewhat effective.

But I have to say that if you're somebody wants to take a look at this.

The reality is, is that the ratepayer.

The person who's buying the insurance is currently investing in a catastrophic fund its reinsurance, its Lloyd's of London's of the world reinsurance.

These insurance.

So so at the end of the day, the consumer is still paying the full freight for this.

So the question is, is how do we pay this full freight and is there some savings in it?

And so Jolly is going to have to show that by doing our own Catastrophic Fund, that it means that we can do this as a non-profit.

And whereas reinsurance is done at a profit level, and somehow we can have savings, but it's also going to have to show a direct correlation between you invest in this and your rate goes down.

And if you can do that then I think it's a great thing.

But what I don't see any of them really talking about that I would really love to be talking about.

In fact, I think Donald's actually is more in favor of doing more tort reform.

Is, is that the amount of bad faith we have in this state with insurance companies?

Insurance companies are just not insuring people.

They're not doing what they say they're doing.

They're not writing the checks when they're supposed to be writing.

And neither side is really talking about putting some regulations in that force them to do it.

I would love to see, you know, a measurement of how much bad faith the company does.

And if they over a certain percentage, people go to jail.

I mean, you know, it's white collar crime.

At some point, if you've got insurance companies not paying ten, 15, 20% of their policies.

- And this gets back to the idea of regulation.

So Donald is saying, you know, we're going to be moving to transparency where the insurance companies are going to have to show, you know, what they're charging just so the consumer has a better idea of what they're getting into.

But again, you look at the record that Republicans have of that regulation of holding insurance companies or any industry to those standards, and it just raises questions of the follow through.

- Yeah, there's just so much in this, but I do see it as a good thing that we are talking about the issue of property insurance, because there was zero conversations around this during the last legislative session.

- Yes, yes.

- That's true.

And so now is the time that we do our other big stories of the week where we take advantage of your expertise to kind of talk to voters about something that you're following.

Um, Michael, what would you say is your big story this week?

- Uh, this is a challenging part of the campaign.

Um, because you're trying to figure out what are the bellwethers that indicate who's doing well and who's not doing as well.

So I'm just trying to gather strength that would help the reader and myself understand, at least in the governor's race.

Does Jolly have a shot?

There's a lot of things on the ground that indicate he does.

But, uh, you know, you look at the Republican history in the state and the infrastructure that they have.

They do the blocking and tackling every election.

It seems they just have the fundamentals down.

Um, that, you know, it's hard to figure out what are the odds in Florida.

It's just Florida is Florida.

- Well, now some people are turning to things like Kalshi to, to see, you know, what the predictions will be for the campaigns, which is kind of surprising.

- It is surprising.

You know, that's a I'm not sure I believe in, in Kalshi and Polymarket.

These are like group.

Yes.

You know.

- The law of averages.

- The law of averages.

You're dealing with a population that doesn't have the knowledge of a pollster, a pollster, even a flawed pollster is out on the field trying to get information on that topic.

These are just, you know, feelings.

It seems like.

- Right.

Patrick, your big story of the week.

- My story would be about the kerfuffle with, uh, Ed Sheeran and, uh, and his concerts.

Uh, Raymond James got Raymond James Stadium, and the Tampa Sports Authority got caught up in a little bit when, uh, the promoter decided to blame all the stadiums.

Uh, it turns out that Raymond James has no issues with this.

It respects constitutional free speech rights, one of the few publicly owned stadiums in the country.

I think Indiana, Indianapolis is another one.

And therefore, just like with Kanye West, you can occupy the stage as long as you can afford the stadium and say what you want, so long as it's not detrimental to our community.

And, and the other issue about this is that, you know, it seems to be, once again, a little bit being mishandled by the Jewish community.

They've taken on this issue of, of attacking, uh, this, um, this performer.

And now more performers are joining suit and saying, well, you know, we're going to back out in unity and now you have a conversation over, you know, Ireland having the same issues as, as, uh, as Palestine.

So what would have probably been something that nobody would have noticed somebody saying Free Palestine on a stage as an opening act.

Now it's turned into a national news and has legs and it's going to continue to has legs, and so, you know, it's it's very interesting how, how things are going in this country at.

- A very big story.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks for coming in.

Our thanks to our panelists, Patrick Manteiga and Michael Van Sickler.

Again, we know you have plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us at Florida This Week.