HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - Labor Day weekend got off to a busy start for three Democratic candidates who hit the campaign trail in South Florida as they attempt to flip the Sunshine State in the upcoming midterm elections.
Gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist spoke with voters and posed for pictures at several events held Saturday in Broward County.
The 66-year-old, a former Republican Florida governor turned Democratic U.S. representative, hopes to return to Tallahassee as the state’s next Democratic governor.
Crist pointed to his opponent, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who he said made it harder for people to vote by adding more regulations to mail-in ballots and redrawing the congressional map so that two predominantly Black districts were diminished.
“Gov. DeSantis is anti-democracy. We have to be on the side of good and the side of right and make sure that all our people have the opportunity to vote, that we don’t have a voting police that he’s put together,” he said.
Crist started the morning meeting with Venezuelan leaders alongside his recently announced pick for lieutenant governor, United Teachers of Date President Karla Hernández.
Hernández, a former teacher, had harsh words for the governor about his actions regarding Florida’s school districts.
“We have Ron DeSantis, who’s out there banning books, censoring teachers, is taking people out of their elected office,” she said. “If it sounds like a dictator, if it walks like a dictator, it’s a dictator, and so, our communities — the Venezuelans, the Cubans, the Nicaraguans — they have fled their countries to come here searching for freedom. They know that their freedoms are on the ballot this November.”
Saturday night, Crist and Hernández spoke to the Federation of Labor Unions, also known as the AFL-CIO, at an event held in Hollywood.
“We have a governor now who doesn’t care about doing the right thing. He cares about doing the political thing,” said Crist, “and that’s all, and you deserve so much better.”
“We’re going to show people how the working class, the middle class working people have a House of Labor make it happen for everyone in Florida,” said Hernández.
Deming, a former Orlando Police chief, also tried to build momentum to unseat incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio.
“We know that we’ve got to drive the cause of goods and service systems. Things are too high. We’re paying too much at the grocery store,” she said at an event held in Miami Gardens.
DeSantis doesn’t have any events scheduled this weekend in South Florida.
There are 66 days left until the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
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