WEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Just hours after a gubernatorial debate with Republican nominee Ron DeSantis, Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum and Congressional candidate Bill Nelson made a stop at Florida International University to hold a campaign rally.
Gillum and Nelson urged students to get out and vote during the event.
Multiple students gathered outside of the campus’s student union to listen to Gillum speak.
“I see you, I hear you and I want to be your governor too,” said Gillum at a previous event.
Meanwhile, DeSantis headed to Jacksonville alongside Vice President Mike Pence, where his campaign also held an event.
“Giving the people of Florida a very clear choice,” said DeSantis in Jacksonville. “I’m the only one running who has served our country in uniform in the military.”
This comes after Gillum and DeSantis went head to head in a debate in Davie Wednesday night.
The debate heated up almost immediately with a focus on Gillum receiving Broadway tickets from an undercover FBI agent he believed to be a developer.
“But I take responsibility for not having asked more questions,” said Gillum during the debate. “We got a lot of issues. In fact, we got 99 issues and ‘Hamilton’ ain’t one of them.”
“He was asked a question by me. ‘Did you pay for it?’ He was indignant,” said DeSantis in response. “He says, ‘I’m a grown man. I pay for my stuff.’ He lied the other day.”
As DeSantis and Gillum campaign in different parts of the state Thursday, their messages are just as far apart on issues like raising the minimum wage.
“When working people get a raise, they spend it,” said Gillum.
“We’re in a situation now where unemployment rate is like 3.7 percent. We’re on a roll now,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think we’ve reached our potential.”
The fight for Florida at times during the debate was just that: a fight.
Gillum challenged DeSantis on remarks he made early in his campaign, which some viewed as racist.
“My grandmother used to say a hit dog will holler,” said Gillum. “Now I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”
DeSantis vehemently denied the claim.
“When I was down range in Iraq, we worked together as a team regardless of race,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and take this nonsense from a guy like Andrew Gillum, who always plays the victim, who is going out and aligning himself with groups who attack our men and women in law enforcement.”
“You’re disqualified, in my opinion, from the office of governor,” Gillum said in response.
As DeSantis hopes endorsements from the president and vice president will get him to Tallahassee, Gillum also continues to go for it all in this fight to the finish for Florida.
The candidates have no further plans to debate again before election day.
The election is set to take place on Nov. 6
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