Please join us for a Candidate Meet and Greet with
Chief Financial Officer Candidate Adam Hattersley on
Friday, November 4, 2022 at 11:00a.m. at the CWA Union Hall at 2050 40th Ave, Suite 1, Vero Beach 32960

Please RSVP to [email protected] or call the office at (772)226-5267

 

BALLOT RECOMMENDATIONS

US Senate - Val Demings
US Congress – Joanne Terry
Governor – Charlie Crist
Attorney General – Aramis Ayala
Chief Financial Officer – Adam Hattersley
Commissioner of Agriculture – Noami Ester Blemur
State Representative District 34 – Karen Greb
School Board - Cynthia Gibbs

Supreme Court recommendations: Vote to retain:

"No one can do everything,
but everyone can do something."



 

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES


We need everyone to vote - only 36.7% of Democrats have voted as of this morning! Please tell your Dem neighbors to vote! Text all your IRC friends and tell them to vote Blue and to vote for Cindy Gibbs. Then tell them to text all their friends as well! We need turnout!

 

PLEASE HELP GET OUT THE VOTE!
 
Weekly GOTV Rallies


This Saturday, November 5 is the last Saturday before Election Day. We encourage you to go wave signs at an Early Voting location near you.
You can take your yard sign, or pull one up at the site and wave it.


Contacting Voters


Volunteers have contacted tens of thousands of Indian River County voters via text and postcards, and we continue to send text messages to thousands more potential voters in the remaining days before Election Day.

THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS!
 

CALENDAR
  Saturday and Sunday November 5 and 6, 2022

9:00a.m. - 4:00 p.m. - Canvassing "Lit Drops" in Wabasso and Gifford. Contact the Democrats of Indian River County Office for more information.


Tuesday, November 8, 2022


ELECTION DAY 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Make sure you know WHERE you vote in your precinct. voteindianriver.org

 
9:00 a.m. – Indian River County Commission, County Administration Offices – Council Chambers, 1801 27th Street, Building A, Vero Beach 32960-3388
 
For agenda and meeting information go to
https://ircgov.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx



Wednesday, November 9, 2022


 

YARD SIGNS

Please do not throw yard signs in the trash. 
You can return them to our office and we will return them to the candidates or contribute them to the IRC RECYCLES project that recycles yard signs into fuel cells.

CANDIDATE DONATION SITES 


charliecrist.com


valdemings.com


JoanneTerry.com 


www.KarenGreb.com

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/cynthia-gibbs-for-school-board-1




Please donate to the Democrats of Indian River

We will appreciate any contributions you can make to help fund our GET-OUT-THE-VOTE efforts as we come down to the final stretch. You can donate at DemocratsOfIndianRiver.org or you can mail or stop by our office at 2345 14th Ave. 

Many thanks to all of you who have donated in this current election cycle. It is very much appreciated!


 VOTE BLUE in 2022!
 

 

STATE

 

Turnout is Low Among Black and Latino Voters

 

Standing outside a community center in Florida’s only majority Black county, May Andrews said that many of her friends and family members feel targeted by the policies of Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

DeSantis’ push for a redistricting plan almost certain to eliminate a Black-held congressional seat, along with making it harder to get mail-in ballots, has rattled many in her home of Gadsden County, Andrews said. Then there was the arrest in August of 20 felons — almost all of them Black — for wrongfully voting, after they were assured by elections officials that they could. “I thought, ‘That can’t be true,’” Andrews said. “I feel so sorry for those people who were feeling great about themselves, getting their lives back together. And then, they find themselves in custody again.” 

But even with these concerns, the retired probation supervisor said she’s not hearing that much talk about the upcoming election. 

“It’s not a big topic,” said Andrews, shortly after listening to DeSantis’ opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist, speak to about 150 voters gathered inside the community center. “It just seems the economy, finding a good place to live, and dealing with the high price of food, schools and everything else is more what’s on people’s minds right now,” she added. 

Black people amount to 13% of Florida’s 14.5 million registered voters and form a key part of the Democratic electorate, voting overwhelmingly for the party’s candidates. But it’s becoming clear that Black voter turnout in Florida may not reach the high-level Crist and other Democratic candidates need to avert what is looking likely to prove an historic Republican sweep of statewide offices in the state, leaving Florida Democrats with less influence than at any point in the state’s modern history. 

“Black voters are just like all voters right now,” said Bertisha Combs, South Florida regional director for Florida Rising, a get-out-the-vote organization pushing to increase turnout. “A lot of people are tired of all the back and forth.” 

Combs, though, said she was staying optimistic. 

“People are aware of what’s at stake,” she said. “They know they have to turn up at the polls. They’ll show up. But we know Republicans are going to be turning out too.” 

Uphill battle:Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio hold big leads over Democratic opponents.

Democratic slate cast to appeal

The Democratic lineup of candidates in Florida was seen as appealing to minority voters. Val Demings, a former Orange County sheriff, is a three-term Black member of Congress challenging U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and a former prosecutor, Aramis Ayala, also Black, is looking to unseat Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody. 

Even Crist, a former Republican governor who has served three terms as a congressional Democrat, drew relatively strong support from Black voters in past campaigns. 

But heading into the closing days of the campaign, all of the Democrats seeking statewide office are far behind their Republican opponents, polls show.  

Republicans are positioned to control the governor’s office, all three Cabinet posts, and both seats in the U.S. Senate for the first time in Florida history. 

An unexpected surge in Black support may be the only political Hail Mary left for the Democratic Party’s slate of candidates. 

A recent University of North Florida poll showed Crist is the favorite of 78% of Black voters, compared to 13% for DeSantis. Still, CNN exit polling from the 2018 election showed that DeSantis’ opponent that year, former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is Black, drew 86% of the Black vote, a mark Crist looks unlikely to reach. 

In addition, Gillum in 2018 helped drive a sizable turnout, with 61% of Black voters casting ballots that year — close to matching the 63% statewide turnout, overall. In Gadsden, he beat DeSantis, 68%-31%, with 68% turnout of its nearly 30,000 registered voters.

DeSantis won four years ago by 32,463 votes — or less than 1 percentage point. With the Republican governor eager for a resounding re-election win in advance of an expected presidential run in two years, DeSantis is looking to dramatically increase his victory margin on Election Day. 

Race 'neutral' or neutralized?:DeSantis wants 'race neutral' North Florida district — a move that dilutes Black vote, helps Republicans

Democratic activists acknowledge that the party nationally has done little to help in Florida. 

Voter mobilization, staff and the bulk of Democratic TV spending has gone to battleground contests elsewhere — not Florida — leaving state Democrats and allied labor unions underfinanced and in charge of most get-out-the-vote efforts. 

Demings gets 80% support among Black voters in the UNF poll. But earlier surveys showed that both Demings and Ayala, making their first statewide runs in Florida, still are not well-known to many voters. 

Crist making his seventh run as a statewide candidate, can’t expect to match the support Gillum had among Black voters, supporters said. 

“If the Crist campaign is banking on Gillum numbers for Black voters, that’s not a good strategy,” said Roxey Nelson, executive vice-president with the Service Employees International Union Local 1199, which is helping to mobilize voters. 

Some say a more realistic number for Crist to expect among Black voters can be traced to his earlier run for governor as a Democrat.  

In 2014, like this year, a presidential midterm election, Crist narrowly lost to then-Gov. Rick Scott. 

Black turnout that year was 45.6%, below the overall statewide voter turnout of 51%, according to analysis by Matthew Isbell, a Tallahassee data consultant. 

“Turnout may be lower than usual, but Black voters get it,” said Judith Browne Dianis, executive director of the Advancement Project, a national organization focusing on racial justice issues that is working to get younger minority voters to cast ballots this year. 

“They know that things that are on the line are things they care about,” she added. 

ProPublica:How Gov. DeSantis blew up Black-held congressional districts in Florida's redistricting fight

DeSantis alarms Black Floridians

Dianis said that DeSantis’ advancing of cultural issues including bans on the discussion of critical race theory in schools and workplaces has alarmed many Black Floridians, worried it’s an effort to downplay or erase Black history. And the arrests of 20 felons for casting ballots despite being barred from voting because they were convicted of sex crimes or murder continues to resonate among Black voters. Most of those arrested had been told they could vote by state officials and were issued voter cards. DeSantis announced the arrests in Broward County, the county with the largest Black population in Florida. At least 15 of those arrested are Black. 

While the governor touted the action by his newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security, the first man charged with casting an ineligible vote recently had his case dismissed by a Miami judge who ruled the prosecutor lacked appropriate jurisdiction. 

The election crimes office was created earlier this year, part of a second installment of voting law changes spearheaded by DeSantis.  

In 2021, DeSantis signed into law a measure adding new requirements on mail-in ballots, drop boxes and registration efforts, which a federal judge ruled discriminated against Black voters, a conclusion later rejected by an appeals court that reinstated much of the law. It's still being appealed. 

DeSantis’ takeover of redistricting this year also resulted in the Republican-led Legislature agreeing to new electoral boundaries that positions the GOP to win 20 of the state’s 28 congressional districts, a four-seat increase that could help his party gain control of the U.S. House in November. 

As part of the plan, a North Florida congressional district, held since 2016 by Black Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, a Gadsden County native, was dramatically changed. Lawson is running against U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn, a Panama City Republican, in a district that includes Gadsden County, but now leans decidedly Republican. DeSantis’ redistricting plan scattered 370,000 North Florida Black voters once in Lawson’s district across four districts all expected to elect Republicans. 

“These voter suppression tactics are by design,” said Moné Holder, director of advocacy and programs for Florida Rising. In Gadsden County, a rural, formerly tobacco-growing region where 56% of residents are Black, a feeling of inevitability seems to shadow this election season. 

“We’re under siege right now,” said Ronny Butler, 61, who retired as a utility worker in nearby Tallahassee. “But, you know, we’ve felt that way a long time. Ron DeSantis, he’s a bully. But I’m skeptical of all politicians this year.” 
 

John Kennedy,
USA TODAY Network’s Florida Capital Bureau.

 

 

 

 
Office Hours
 
 Monday through Friday 10am to 3pm
  
 2345 14^th Ave. Suite 7
 Vero Beach 32960



 (772) 226-5267 

[email protected]