Hello everyone, my name is Frank Driscoll and welcome to Driscoll's Election Dissection,
your election analysis for Across the Circus.
I hope you all are doing well today wherever you are.
Alright, for today's show we're going to be discussing primary elections that are set
to take place on Tuesday, August 20th.
Three states are holding their primaries that day.
Those states are Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming.
Now there actually isn't a whole lot going on in terms of real battleground action going
on in these three states.
However, there are two GOP primaries in Florida that we're going to be discussing today and
they both have interesting significance.
Now both of them involve incumbent representatives and on paper it doesn't seem like the two
incumbents are in real danger of losing their jobs.
But for starters, of course, you really can never tell.
You know, primary elections go any which way very often.
And plus they kind of show how the political landscape of Florida is now that Donald Trump,
a Florida resident himself, is the de facto leader of the Republican Party today.
So with that, let's head to the Sunshine State, the state of Florida.
So we'll start in Florida's first congressional district.
Now Florida's first district just so happens to be the most Republican district in the
state of Florida.
According to Cook's Partisan Voting Index, Republicans are favored by 19 points.
So whoever wins this primary will very likely win come November.
Now the current representative for Florida's first congressional district is Republican
Representative Matt Gaetz.
Now if you know anything about US politics, you may have heard of Matt Gaetz.
He's one of the more controversial members of the House of Representatives, member of
the Freedom Caucus, and very pro-Donald Trump.
Well if you remember back a few months back, you'll remember that Matt Gaetz was kind of
the mastermind behind kicking Kevin McCarthy out of the speakership, a first of its kind
event in US history.
Well here we are in primary election season and not really unexpected, Kevin McCarthy
wants revenge.
He is endorsing Matt Gaetz's opponent, who is retired Navy officer Aaron Dimmick.
Now McCarthy is actually recruiting a few primary challengers to go against the eight
Republicans in the House who helped finalize the vote against his speakership according
to an article in Politico, and this would be a grand slam if hit.
However, if you look at polls and fundraising, it might not happen the way McCarthy wants
it to.
Well for starters, Matt Gaetz is out fundraising Aaron Dimmick by about a 16 to 1 margin.
And if you look at recent polls, the most recent being a poll from early July from Fabrizio
Lee and associates sponsored by the Gaetz campaign showed Gaetz leading by 47 points.
So it's a good chance Gaetz could very likely win this election.
However, it's important to keep an eye on how many people actually vote for Aaron Dimmick
because that could be a real referendum on Matt Gaetz's stature in the Republican Party.
We'll just have to wait and see.
So from there, we head to Florida's 16th congressional district.
Now this is also a safe Republican seat favored by the Republicans by only seven points compared
to 19 points, a bit smaller, but still a hefty margin for one party to have.
And a current representative for Florida's 16th congressional district is Republican
Representative Vern Buchanan, was first elected in 2006 and has been serving ever since.
Now every long time incumbent seems to get challengers every now and again, but there's
something about this one.
Now for one thing, Vern Buchanan compared to Matt Gaetz is a bit more moderate and in
kind of a stark contrast from the first primary we talked about a far right incumbent dealing
with a challenger to his left, we have a moderate candidate dealing with a challenge from his
right.
Vern Buchanan's challenger in the primary is private school founder Eddie Speer.
And unlike Aaron Dimmick in the first race, Eddie Speer has a good cash fund to go along
with.
However, Vern Buchanan is running on his record, his tenure in Congress and his ability to
persuade voters with compromise.
Eddie Speer running on the far right wants a more conservative house in Florida.
And the most recent poll for this race was back in April from pollster St. Pete Polls
sponsored by FloridaPolitics.com and it showed Buchanan leading Speer by 51 points, a bigger
margin than the Matt Gaetz election.
So as I said at the beginning, both Matt Gaetz and Vern Buchanan seem to be pretty safe in
their elections.
However, you might want to watch how their opponents do, because it will show how far
to the right Florida is or if it's coming to the center, depending on which district
each one is.
And you never know, maybe one of them might poll in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and actually
win because as I always say, the only poll that matters is the one on election day.
And as always, if you are willing to learn more about elections in your area, be sure
to check out politicsone.com as well as ballotpedia.com.
And if you're willing to look at recent polls, be sure to check out 538.com.
So those are two interesting primaries to watch on Tuesday, August the 20th.
And as always, I say if you are a registered voter in the state of Florida or in the states
of Alaska or Wyoming, I don't care who you vote for, but I do care that you vote.
So please do.
Thank you for listening to Driscoll's election dissection.
If you would like to learn more about the show, go online to algidproductions.com slash
across the circus and be sure to listen to us on any podcasting forum you like.
Thank you all for listening and I will see you all very soon.
This episode was brought to you by Algid Productions LLC. Thank you for listening!