A mailer from Tony’s PAC features a picture of him with Harris, paired with a quote from former President Barack Obama.

It’s notable for the speed. The mailer from the Broward First PAC arrived in Democratic voters’ mailboxes in Broward County on Friday, just 20 days after Harris entered the presidential race when President Joe Biden ended his campaign for a second term.

Harris has generated enormous excitement among Democratic voters — exactly the supporters he needs in the four-way primary for sheriff. (A Florida Atlantic University poll released Wednesday found that 94% of likely Democratic voters in the state said they’d vote Harris for president).

The winner of the Democratic primary for sheriff — Tony, Steve Geller, David Howard or Al Pollock — faces only nominal opposition from an independent candidate in November, and is virtually certain to win the general election.

The photo of the sheriff in uniform standing next to the vice president was taken in March, on the day Harris toured the site of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas mass shooting to discuss gun-violence prevention efforts. The photo was posted months ago on Tony’s Instagram page.

The Broward First mailer is one of many about the sheriff’s race landing in Democratic voters’ mailboxes from candidates and their associated political committees.

The mailing featuring Harris is careful. It doesn’t state that there’s an endorsement of Tony from Harris or Obama.

Its theme is “change,” given that Harris would be the nation’s first woman president and the first with parents who were from Jamaica and India. It reminds voters that Tony changed the agency as “the first African American to serve as Broward County’s sheriff.”

In case all that’s too subtle, the Obama quote states, “We are the change we seek.”

There’s an ironic element to Tony’s Broward First committee paying for a mailer featuring Harris.

Some of the financial muscle behind Broward First comes from Republicans close to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is not exactly a fan of the Democratic presidential nominee. Example of a DeSantis comment: “Her tenure as VP has been disastrous.”

Tony is sheriff because of DeSantis, and the Stoneman Douglas massacre.

DeSantis appointed Tony in 2019 after he suspended previous Sheriff Scott Israel. The governor charged Israel with incompetence and neglect of duty in connection with the 2018 school massacre, in which 17 people were killed and 17 injured, and the 2017 mass shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, in which five people were killed and six injured.

In 2020, when Tony ran and won a full term as sheriff, his political action committee Broward First got fundraising help from big-name Republican DeSantis allies. As he geared up for the 2024 election, the Republican heavyweights close to the governor again helped raise money for Broward First.

Since Broward First geared up its fundraising for this year’s campaign in the spring of last year, it has raised $820,000. About two-thirds came during the second six months of 2023.

Voters have received some negative information about Tony as well. Democrats received an anti-Tony, pro-Geller mailer from a committee called “Honesty and Integrity for Broward Citizens.”

“Gregory Tony is a proven liar who is not fit to serve,” it declares above a picture of the incumbent.

The flip side declares that “Our current Sheriff has lied and broken the rules time and time again.”

The beneficiary of the mailer, Geller, is shown in a picture from his time in the Plantation Police Department and praised as a candidate of “Integrity. Leadership. Experience.”

And it attempts to remind voters of Tony’s links to DeSantis including a news headline when DeSantis called Tony a favorite Democrat. It came from December 2023, when DeSantis was seeking the Republican presidential nomination. Asked to name his favorite Democrat in Florida during a CNN town hall, he said Tony was one of the “good ones.”

The committee has taken in $172,000, according to reports filed with the Florida Division of Elections. All but $7,000 came via four contributions on July 6 and July 10, from Mark Groban, a family friend, of Rockville, Md.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

PIERSON, Fla. (AP) — Linda Beigel Schulman smiled as she watched 25 young campers from Fort Lauderdale and Miami spend an afternoon frolicking in a rural Florida spring. The scene brought back memories of her murdered son, Scott Beigel, who loved attending summer camp.

That’s why Beigel Schulman raises money in his name so they and children elsewhere can attend sleep-away camp. It’s something she and her husband, Michael Schulman, have done annually since the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left her son, two other staff members and 14 students dead.

The Scott J. Beigel Memorial Fund sent 264 children ages 9 to 16 to seven sleepaway camps this summer in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, most of them underprivileged or touched by gun violence.

“We want to take them out of their environment, send them to camp and let them just be kids,” Beigel Schulman said. “Let them leave their woes and their troubles and everything behind. Let them meet new friends. Let them learn how to trust.”

Scott Beigel became a geography teacher, in part, so he could keep attending camp and give children the same opportunities he had. He started at 7 as a camper, became a counselor in his teens, and, eventually, an administrator. He loved the sense of community such camps provided and how they helped younger generations appreciate the great outdoors.

He would have kept returning but he was fatally shot at age 35 on Feb. 14, 2018, after heroically herding 31 students to safety inside his classroom.

“Scott loved camp — that was Scott’s happy place,” his mother said. “I remember him saying, ‘I don’t quite know what I want to do, Mom.’ And I was like, ‘Scott, the writing’s on the wall. If you want to keep going back to camp, you have to go into teaching, because it’s the only profession that’s going to let you have summers off.’”

The program started with 54 children in 2018 and has grown steadily since. More than $360,000 was raised this year — all paying for the campers’ enrollment and transportation. Once in the program, children can return each summer if they maintain good grades and stay out of trouble. At 17 and 18, the fund pays for them to be counselor trainees.

Beigel Schulman is not alone in honoring a loved one lost at Stoneman Douglas. Most other victims’ families have also started foundations that award scholarships, promote school or gun safety, or fight disease.

It was almost 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius) and muggy on a recent morning at one of the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches, this one cut into the woods an hour’s drive north of Orlando. Pushing through the heat, administrators and counselors got their 38 campers outside for archery, biking and working through an obstacle course as a team.

The Beigel fund financed 25 of the campers. The counselors are a mix of volunteer deputies and college students. It’s the one camp with a law enforcement theme the foundation sponsors.

“We are showing them who is behind the uniform in this atmosphere where you can feel like you belong and you’re out of your own comfort zone,” said Elisha Hoggard, the ranches’ programs vice president. “It’s giving the kids an opportunity to have a genuine positive interaction with a law enforcement officer.”

Hoggard said most children attending the ranches’ camps are recommended by an officer as needing a boost. Maybe the students are running with the wrong crowd or are new at school and not making friends. Or, perhaps, their parents are divorcing or they had a traumatic experience.

Broward County Deputy Al Hibbert, one of the counselors, said it’s important that city kids like those from South Florida get a chance to interact with nature.

“They don’t see this kind of life and to know that they can enjoy being away from their community,” Hibbert said.

The campers are required to make their beds, clean their cottages, share their food and treat each other with respect. Cursing is not allowed.

Esteban Martinez, 13, conceded he is often shy, so coming to camp for the first time gave him a chance to make new friends.

“Being here is fun, it really changed me. It’s good you get to be around other people,” Esteban said.

A.J. Kozak, 15, said camp gives him a chance to interact with the police in a way he doesn’t back home.

“It makes me think cops aren’t that bad. Because in the real world, cops are aggressive,” he said. “They are just humans at the end of the day.”

A highlight of the Florida camp is the high ropes — while cinched tight into a safety harness, willing campers walk across a 40-foot (12-meter) pole stretched horizontally that inclines from 15 feet (4.5 meters) to 25 feet (7.6 meters) above the ground. The courageous next climb to a thin cable stretching another 10 feet (3 meters) up, grabbing ropes strung from above to keep their balance as they walk across.

“This is a biggie — I am deathly afraid of heights,” screamed Isa Marti, 14, as she edged onto the pole. She felt some pressure after her friend, Hazel Stampler, crossed. A few years ago, an assailant drew a gun on Isa’s family during an argument at a park. No shots were fired, but she and her brother took cover.

As Isa inched forward, she repeatedly wanted to quit and be lowered to the ground. Still, she didn’t stop, encouraged by other campers. After letting out a mild obscenity, which drew a counselor’s admonishment, she made it across — and climbed to the cable above, one of few who did.

“I kinda love this,” she yelled as she worked her way across the wire, drawing other girls’ cheers.

After being lowered, Isa beamed as Hazel greeted her. They talked about how scared they were but pushed through.

The ropes exercise “helps you overcome your fears, which will help you grow,” Hazel said.

The next morning, the campers bused to nearby De Leon Springs State Park, donning life jackets before jumping into the water. Some socialized with kids from other camps or came with their families.

Beigel Schulman looked at the tableau of playing, splashing children and couldn’t help but wish her son could see it.

“Isn’t this great? All of these kids together — it doesn’t matter what ethnicity, what religion, what this, what that. They are all one. If they could only bring this back home, it would be amazing,” she said.

A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal overturned a 2023 decision by Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper that said Moody had the power to enter settlements that effectively included trumping separate claims by local government agencies.

Wednesday’s ruling was a victory for the Sarasota County Public Hospital District, Lee Memorial Health System, the North Broward Hospital District, the South Broward Hospital District, Halifax Hospital Medical Center, the Miami-Dade County School Board and the Putnam County School Board. They have sought to pursue lawsuits to recover costs related to treating patients and educating children affected by the opioid epidemic.

All of the local agencies had sued drug distributors, manufacturers or pharmacies because of the epidemic.

“The attorney general does not have the legal authority to unilaterally dismiss, for example, actual and individual damages incurred by the two school boards for increased harms and expenditures for compliance with federal law for special educational needs for disabled students — disabled allegedly by the actions of the opioid (industry) defendants that caused the students or their parents to become addicted to prescription opioids,” the appeals court ruling said. “And this is but one example. The special hospital districts also assert individual and actual damages separate from the general public for harms allegedly inflicted by the opioid defendants that caused these hospitals to have to provide specialized medical care for opioid-addicted and harmed patients. It is not within the attorney general’s power to make such decisions.”

Moody’s office entered into seven settlements with a variety of companies — with each of the settlements including a “release” of claims filed by local governments. Some settlements resulted from multi-state litigation — what is known as a global settlement — while others came as a result of a lawsuit that the attorney general’s office filed in Pasco County.

Moody in 2022 filed a lawsuit in Leon County circuit court against the hospital districts and school boards to try to prevent their claims against the industry. The lawsuit said Moody’s settlements would provide money for opioid treatment, prevention and recovery services and that money would go to communities throughout the state. But the hospital districts and school board argued that Moody did not have the authority to release their claims.

Cooper’s decision last year said the Legislature “specifically granted the attorney general authority to enforce consumer protection laws” and that Moody had the power to enter settlements that prevented separate claims.

“Allowing defendants (the hospital districts and school districts) to continue pursuing their subordinate opioid claims threatens Florida’s sovereign interest in vindicating its citizens’ rights — all of its citizens’ rights — when confronted with societal harms such as the opioid crisis,” Cooper wrote. “These are collective harms. They do not flow in an insular fashion to individual (political) subdivisions — the harms cross city and county lines. Indeed the opioid settlements consider the pervasive harms caused by the opioid crisis and apply a mixture of statewide and local solutions. … Defendants’ continued pursuit of their opioid claims in contravention of the opioid settlements jeopardizes the flow of tens of millions of dollars that will aid in the abatement of the opioid epidemic throughout the state of Florida.”

But the appeals-court ruling, written by Judge Brad Thomas and joined by Judges Ross Bilbrey and Thomas Winokur, said the Legislature has “assigned the rights of legal representation of claims to appellants (the hospital districts and school boards) themselves, not the attorney general.”

“In essence, the attorney general asserts the unilateral substantive authority to dispose of appellants’ claims on behalf of the people of Florida, notwithstanding the enactment of law assigning that authority to appellants,” the 19-page ruling said. “But the attorney general is the ‘chief state legal officer’ of the state, not the client. As the state’s chief legal officer, the attorney general has limited common-law authority … to litigate claims common to the state at large — and, of course, claims authorized by general law, and limited by that law — but not to control claims of appellants who assert unique and individual actual damages.”

The ruling also said Moody “argues unpersuasively that as the state’s chief legal officer, she may bar appellants from representing themselves, while simultaneously denying any interest in representing appellants. The attorney general argues that it is her prerogative to eliminate the value of appellant’s individual claims for harms caused by the opioid defendants, as a ‘bargaining chip’ to obtain this global financial settlement. Thus, the attorney general asserts that she may disavow these school boards’ and hospital districts’ actual damages for her own negotiating prerogatives.”

“No doubt the global settlement achieves many laudable goals,” the ruling added. “But it cannot deprive appellants of their legal rights to be made whole for their unique losses.”

The changes were prompted by a series of antitrust lawsuits filed against the National Association of Realtors that claim it enforced practices that made it more expensive to sell a home. The industry group is also facing a $418 million settlement.

For decades, sellers have used money from the home sale to pay a commission fee that gets split between their agent and the buyer’s agent. Typically the fee is around 5-6%, though the National Association of Realtors says that number has always been negotiable.

This long-running practice could be wiped out by two new rules from the National Association of Realtors that set stricter standards for how commission is determined.

Some speculate this could lead to lower earnings for agents, sparking an exodus from the industry.

“This is really a revolutionary change,” said MaryDell Penney, a market manager for Redfin who oversees agents in Tampa and Orlando. “It’s going to require everyone to have a mindset shift.”

What will change?

Starting Aug. 17, listing agents will no longer be allowed to advertise commission when posting a home to the Multiple Listing Services, a collection of centralized databases that members of the National Association of Realtors use to find available properties.

Previously, agents were required to list compensation on the Multiple Listing Services. Plaintiffs who sued the National Association of Realtors argued that this practice drove up commission rates.

Buyers will also have to sign a written agreement with their agents outlining how much the agent will get paid. The contracts could normalize the practice of buyers paying their own agents.

What does it mean for buyers and sellers?

For some people, nothing will change. Sellers can still offer to cover the full commission fee like they always have.

But some will choose to have each party pay their own agent instead, said Lei Wedge, a professor of finance at the University of South Florida’s Muma College of Business. Now, everything is up for negotiation.
“It’s not going to be as consistent as it was before,” she said. “Now you’re dealing with everyone’s individual preferences.”

Sellers could see more cash in their pocket at closing if they opt not to cover the buyer agent’s fee.

Buyers may be burdened with a new expense. Wedge suspects that many will take more time to shop around for an agent who offers a lower commission rate or flat fee. Some may forego using an agent altogether.

Buyers will also have to reach a written agreement with their agents. Adam Grenville, a Re/Max agent and president of Greater Tampa Realtor, warned this could be especially tricky, since there’s no universal blueprint for how these contracts should look yet.

“You need to make sure you understand what you’re signing,” he said. “Ask a lot of questions.”

What does it mean for the future of the industry?

The United States has some of the highest real estate commissions in the world. Wedge said these rules could bring us closer in line with other countries if more buyers and sellers start negotiating their agents down from the traditional 6% fee.

Since the settlement was announced in March, average buyer’s agent commissions have already seen a slight decline, according to research from Redfin.

Facing a potential threat to their earnings, some agents may choose to leave the industry. One report from investment firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods predicted that changes to the commission structure could eventually cause as many as 1 million agents to abandon the profession.

While there’s always going to be turnover after a major change in the market, Penney said there are steps agents can take to adapt.

At her brokerage, buyer’s agents are already being trained to ask for agent compensation as part of the deal when making an offer on a property.

“I think there are a lot of agents that came into the industry in crazy COVID years when it was fairly easy,” she said. “Now it’s going to be tougher. They’re going have to have super sharp negotiation skills.”

©2024 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The attorneys Tuesday evening filed a motion for a stay and a broader brief that also argued Cole should be spared execution because of abuse he suffered as a teen at the state’s notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 29 signed a death warrant for Cole, who was convicted in the 1994 murder of a Florida State University student in the Ocala National Forest.

The motion and the brief said the Supreme Court should require a Marion County circuit judge to hold an evidentiary hearing on the Parkinson’s disease issue. The brief said Cole, who has had Parkinson’s symptoms since 2017, “experiences shaking in both of his arms from his neck to his fingertips and in his legs.”

“Cole’s Parkinson’s symptoms will make it impossible for Florida to safely and humanely carry out his execution because his involuntary body movements will affect the placement of the intravenous lines necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection,” the brief said.

Cole’s lawyers also wrote that he “faces a substantial risk of illness by injury and needless suffering.”

“When placing an intravenous line, each failed attempt creates a one-and-done for that vein,” the brief said. “Each attempt is singularly painful, and the pain will only escalate with each successive attempt to place an intravenous line. Should FDOC (the Florida Department of Corrections) fail to find a peripheral vein in Cole’s arms or legs, the lethal injection protocol directs the placement of a central intravenous line. The skill needed to do this is beyond an average person capable of placing intravenous lines in the arms or legs. The central vein location includes the groin, the neck, and below the collarbone.”

But Marion County Circuit Judge Robert Hodges last week rejected the Parkinson’s disease argument as part of a broader ruling that allowed the planned execution to move forward. Hodges wrote, in part, that the claim was “untimely” because Cole has long known about the Parkinson’s symptoms but did not raise the issue until after the death warrant was signed.

Hodges also wrote that he found the Parkinson’s disease argument “without merit” and that Cole “failed to allege that medical personnel have previously had problems finding a vein in his arm or that he has previously suffered pain during the placement of an intravenous line. Instead, he merely speculates that he will suffer because of his involuntary body movements.”

“The placement of an intravenous line in a patient with body movements is neither unique nor rare in the medical field,” Hodges added.

Cole, 57, was sent to Death Row in the February 1994 murder of Florida State University student John Edwards, who went to the Ocala National Forest to camp with his sister, a student at Eckerd College, court records show.

Cole and another man, William Paul, joined the brother and sister at their campsite. After they decided to walk to a pond, Cole knocked Edwards’ sister to the ground and ultimately handcuffed her, the records said. Paul took the sister up a trail, and Edwards died from a slashed throat and blows to the head that fractured his skull, according to the court records. Edwards’ sister was sexually assaulted and was tied to two trees the next morning before freeing herself. (In most cases, The News Service of Florida does not identify sexual-assault victims by name.)

Along with raising the Parkinson’s disease issue, Cole’s attorneys argue that his death sentence should be vacated because of abuse at the state’s now-closed Dozier reform school. Cole was at the Marianna school in 1984 and suffered abuse such as rape and beatings, according to Tuesday’s brief and arguments filed in the circuit court.

Cole’s attorneys said the jury that recommended a death sentence did not know about the abuse he suffered at Dozier. Also, the attorneys have pointed to a law that passed this year to compensate some victims of abuse at Dozier, though the law would not apply to Cole.

“Cole’s jury was not told about the compelling mitigation that Cole was a student at Dozier, where he experienced rape and other horrific methods of abuse,” Tuesday’s brief said. “If Cole’s jury had known about the severe abuse … at Dozier, and Florida’s willingness to acknowledge the severe problems at Dozier to the extent that designated victims are entitled to reparations, there is a reasonable probability the newly discovered evidence would yield a less severe sentence. There is a reasonable probability a jury presented with the newly discovered information would recommend a sentence of life for Cole.”

But Hodges last week ruled that “evidence regarding defendant’s (Cole’s) treatment while he

attended the Dozier School is not newly discovered evidence.” The judge said Cole’s lawyers unsuccessfully raised the issue of his treatment at Dozier in previous appeals.

“The court finds that although (the) defendant is using a different argument, he is attempting to relitigate the same issue he raised in two prior motions,” Hodges wrote.

Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office faces a Friday deadline for filing briefs at the Supreme Court.

The Florida Atlantic University poll shows Trump leading Harris 50% to 47% among likely voters in the state. Just 2% said they were undecided and 1% said they’d vote for another candidate.

The 3-point Trump advantage is half the lead he had in June, the last time FAU polled in the state. Trump had a 6-point advantage among likely voters, 49% to 43%, when President Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate two months ago.

The results of the Florida survey released Wednesday, which are similar to what’s been showing up in other national and state specific polls, demonstrate how much the trajectory of the presidential race has been upended since July 21, when Biden ended his campaign for reelection.

“This is consistent with the pattern that we’ve been seeing since Vice President Harris came into the race, that she’s consolidated a lot of the traditional Democratic groups and they’ve turned this into a very competitive race,” Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political scientist, said in a phone interview.

Wagner is also co-director of FAU’s PolCom Lab, a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science, which conducted the poll.

Another FAU political scientist, Dukhong Kim said in a statement that the results show that “Harris restores the traditional base of the Democratic Party, which includes women, minorities, younger voters, and Democratic Party identifiers.”  Trump, he said, maintains his own established base.”

The return of the Democratic base makes the contest  more competitive, Wagner said, even though the state has been trending more Republican.

When a larger sample of “all voters” as opposed to “likely voters” is considered, there’s also a 3-point difference. Among all Florida voters, the poll found Trump 49% and Harris 46%, with 2% preferring another candidate and 3% undecided.

Kennedy

The overall parameters of the Florida contest change slightly when factoring in the third-party candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,  the anti-vaccine activist and son of the assassinated U.S. senator.

When he’s in the mix, Trump has 47% of likely voters, Harris has 45% and Kennedy has 5%.

“It’s a tighter race with RFK Jr.,” Wagner said. “RFK Jr. at least for now seems to be hurting former President Trump.”

The FAU results are in line with a Suffolk University/USA TODAY/WSVN-Ch. 7 poll of likely Florida voters released Tuesday. Trump had 47%, Harris had 42% and Kennedy had 5%. The Suffolk survey was conducted via phone from Aug. 7 to Aug. 11.

In FAU’s previous Florida poll in June, a three-way race found Trump had 45% of likely voters to 40% for Biden and 8% for Kennedy.

Gender, age

There’s a sizable gender gap among likely voters, with women much more likely to prefer Harris and men much more likely to prefer Trump.

Women: Harris had support of 53% of women, 10 percentage points higher than Trump’s support among women.

Men: Trump had the support of 56% of men, 16 percentage points higher than Harris’ support among men.

Younger: Among voters under age 50, Harris led Trump 50% to 44%.

Older: Among voters 50 and older, Trump led Harris 53% to 44%.

Partisan divide

More than nine in 10 Democrats and Republicans supported their party’s nominee, with 94% of Democrats for Harris and 93% of Republicans for Trump.

Independents were closely divided, but slightly favored Harris, 48% to 43%.

Another illustration of the depth of the partisan divide was shown in voters’ responses to the selection of Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as the Democratic nominee for vice president.

Among all voters, the choice had approval of 44% and disapproval of 33%, with the rest neither approving nor disapproving.

But the breakdowns by party showed deep division. Among Democrats, 70% strongly approved of the choice and 1% strongly disapproved. Among Republicans 43% strongly disapproved and 8% strongly approved.

Independents were more evenly split, with 21% strongly approving and 16% strongly disapproving.

Wagner said the Walz results “illustrate how much of what we see and perceive today is just through a partisan lens. So many people have formed an opinion on someone who was largely unknown about a week ago.”

Senate race

The poll found a close race between U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and his likely challenger, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.

(Mucarsel-Powell, who has the support of virtually the entire Democratic Party establishment, is almost certain to emerge as the winner of the Aug. 20 party primary.)

In a matchup between the two, Scott has 47% of likely voters to 43% for Mucarsel-Powell. Another 6% said they were undecided and 3% said they supported another candidate.

The June FAU poll had Scott at 45% to Mucarsel-Powell’s 43%.

The latest Senate numbers showed predictable patterns: Mucarsel-Powell had more support among younger voters and Scott had more support among older voters. The Democrat had more support among women and Scott had more support among men.

Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly (88% for each party) supported their party’s candidate. Among independents there was a tie at 41%.

“Scott is winning, but it’s within range that a surge of Democratic voters could make that a nail biter,” Wagner said.

Ultimately, Wagner said, the results in the presidential and Senate races will depend on which side turns out its voters.

“Because of the way that the state has trended, if both bases come out, then Republicans are likely going to be good, and I think that’s what you see in our numbers. It’s tighter, but it is still a Republican-leaning state. That would be good for Senator Scott and former President Trump.”

Florida poll finds abortion, marijuana amendments falling short of passage

Florida in play?

Political analysts have seen Trump as the overwhelming favorite to win Florida’s 30 electoral votes, more than 10% of the 270 needed to win the presidency. In 2020, Trump won Florida by 3.3 percentage points.

The poll, which is a snapshot taken early in the Harris candidacy, doesn’t mean Florida is in play.

“It’s possible if the race continues the trajectory it’s on. However, it’s still a bit early to make the determination, and we’ll have to see how the race progresses. If in the next few weeks there are more surveys that show Florida is tight, then it’s possible,” Wagner said.

Still, he said, the poll results are “a warning sign for the Trump campaign.”

Harris, now the Democratic nominee, has enjoyed a bonanza of publicity, and drawn enormous crowds at rallies in critical battleground states. Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, hasn’t yet implemented a strategy to counter the changed political environment.

Trump has spent lots of time at his Mar-a-Lago club and home in Palm Beach and hasn’t been doing many big, in-person rallies recently in battleground states. He held a rally in overwhelmingly Republican Montana on Friday, and is scheduled to speak about the economy Wednesday in North Carolina and headline a rally in battleground Pennsylvania on Saturday.

“It’s been a positive couple of weeks for the Democratic ticket. That could be a high water mark or this could be a trend. It’s hard to know in the moment,” Wagner said. “What really happened here is Harris has consolidated and brought a wavering Democratic coalition back, which gets you to where we’ve been for a while, which is an evenly divided country.”

Democrats had 558,272 more registered voters than the Republicans immediately after the 2012 election, when then-President Barack Obama won the state on his way to winning a second term and then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla, won reelection.

The official state tally of registered voters shows that as of July 22, there were 994,847 more registered Republicans than Democrats in Florida. (Examining totals from each of the state’s county supervisor of elections, the Fresh Take Florida news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications estimated that the Republican advantage hit 1 million on Sunday.)

Even if Harris doesn’t win the state, a better than expected performance, propelled by voter enthusiasm for the new Democratic ticket, could help her party by getting more voters to the polls who might then vote for more Democratic candidates for lower level offices.

Fine print

The poll of 1,055 Florida registered voters was conducted Aug. 10 and 11 by Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University’s PolCom Lab.

The survey used an online panel and automated phone calls to reach other voters. It has a margin of error equivalent to plus or minus 3 percentage points.

However, the margin of error for smaller groups, such as Republicans or Democrats, or men and women, would be higher because the sample sizes are smaller.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

A Florida Atlantic University poll released Wednesday found both falling short of the 60% required for passage. A Suffolk University poll also found the abortion amendment short of hitting the threshold, and the marijuana question with slightly more than it needs.

Abortion: FAU found 56% of voters surveyed support and 21% oppose Amendment 4, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. The Suffolk/USA TODAY/WSVN-Ch. 7 poll reported 58% support and 35% opposed.

Marijuana: FAU found 56% support and 29% oppose Amendment 3, which would legalize recreational marijuana for people age 21 and older. Suffolk reported 63% in favor and 33% opposed.

There are still more than enough voters who said they didn’t know — 23% on the abortion question and 15% on the marijuana question in the Florida Atlantic University poll — that passage is possible. Voters will be bombarded with extensive pro and con campaigns on both questions through the fall.

Conflicting polls

So how is it that two Florida polls released on the same day appear contradictory?

(A third Florida poll, released 16 days ago, had different results as well. A University of North Florida poll found greater support (69% to 23%) for the abortion rights amendment and for the marijuana referendum (64% to 31%).

It involves the nature of polling.

People who produce high-quality public opinion polls always point out that their surveys are snapshots of what people say at the time they’re asked. The timing of when polls are being taken — they describe it as being “in the field” — can make a difference.

Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University’s PolCom Lab: 1,055 Florida registered voters, was conducted Aug. 10 and 11.

Suffolk University/USA TODAY/WSVN-Ch. 7: 500 likely Florida general election voters, was conducted between Aug. 7 and Aug. 11.

University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab: 774 registered voters, from July 24 to July 27.

In a statement about FAU’s results, political scientist Luzmarina Garcia noted the difference since its last poll on the amendments in the spring. “These results reflect a growing awareness of the constitutional amendments. In April, FAU polled on both initiatives and at that time these measures had 49% approval, which shows a gain of 7 (percentage points) over the last four months.”

The methods pollsters use can make a difference in the nature of the sample.

Pollsters use a range of techniques, some involving live callers to phone lines, others online surveys, others automated calls to phone lines and others use an online component. Sometimes they use a combination of methods to try to reach people, especially younger voters, who may be less inclined to answer their phones.

FAU’s survey used an online panel and automated phone calls to reach other voters.

Suffolk’s survey used live telephone interviews.

UNF’s survey used an online panel, in which voters were contacted by text message and asked to complete the survey, and from live callers.

Pollsters also make adjustments to weight the samples. If, for example, the survey doesn’t have enough people of a certain demographic group to reflect the total population, they’ll make a statistical adjustment so the total sample more accurately represents the entire population.

And polling isn’t precise. The margin of error indicates the range in which pollsters expect the results to be accurate most of the time.

Candidate A has 54% and Candidate B has 46% and the margin of error is plus or minus 5 percentage points, A and B could be tied at 50% each. Or, it could be 58-42.

The FAU poll has a margin of error equivalent to plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Suffolk said its margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

UNF reported a margin of error was plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The margin of error refers to the full poll. However, the margin of error for smaller groups, such as Republicans or Democrats, or men and women, would be higher because the sample sizes are smaller.

Abortion

The Florida Atlantic University poll found the abortion rights amendment is supported by a majority of every group surveyed — except Republicans.

Republicans were evenly divided, with 35% supporting and 35% opposing the amendment.

Democrats, with 80% in support and 8% opposed, favor the amendment more than any other group.

Independents are in favor, 59% to 15%.

Democrats were far more likely to have made up their minds. Just 12% of Democrats said they didn’t know how they would vote, compared to 27% of independents and 30% of Republicans.

Women were more likely than men to support the abortion rights amendment.

Women support it 59% to 19%, a 40-percentage point advantage.

Men support it 54% to 24%, a 30-point advantage.

And voters under age 50 were more likely to support the proposed amendment (62%) than voters 50 and older (52%.)

With Harris in race, poll shows closer contest in Florida. Trump now leads by 3 points.

Marijuana

The FAU survey shows a big age divide on the referendum that would allow recreational use of marijuana under state law by adults.

Voters younger than age 50 favor it, 69% to 20% — a difference of 49 percentage points, FAU reported.

Voters 50 and older support it more narrowly, 47% to 36%, a difference of 11 points.

There’s no difference based on gender, with 56% of men and 56% of women supporting legalization.

There is, however, a significant partisan divide.

Democrats favor the marijuana amendment 74% to 15%.

Independents favor it 63% to 22%.

Republican support is much lower at 37%, with 46% opposed.

“If they’re going to hit that 60%, the supporters of the amendment are probably going to have to reach a few more Republicans or have a particularly Democratic-leaning electorate, which sees a challenge in a presidential election year,” said Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political scientist.

Wagner is also co-director of FAU’s PolCom Lab, a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science, which conducted the poll.

Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.

Attorneys for the state, in a document filed Monday at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision requires a more-detailed analysis by a district judge about whether the law should be blocked. The state pushed back against tech-industry groups that contend briefs should be filed, at least initially, at the Atlanta-based appeals court.

The arguments are the latest steps in a high-profile lawsuit that started in 2021, after DeSantis and Republican lawmakers placed restrictions on large social-media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. That included preventing platforms from banning political candidates from their sites and requiring companies to publish — and apply consistently — standards about issues such as banning users or blocking their content.

The law seeks to regulate social-media platforms that have annual gross revenue of over $100 million or more than 100 million monthly active users. Companies could face steep penalties for violating the restrictions.

The law passed after Facebook and Twitter, now known as X, blocked former President Donald Trump from their platforms after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The tech-industry groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association challenged the constitutionality of the law. U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle in 2021 issued a preliminary injunction to block the law (SB 7072) on First Amendment grounds, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of Hinkle’s decision.

But on July 1, the Supreme Court vacated the appeals-court ruling and sent the lawsuit back for further consideration. The Supreme Court did not resolve the constitutional issues but said the 11th Circuit and another appeals court in a similar Texas case did not properly consider the “facial nature” of challenges to the laws, a critical element in deciding whether they met constitutional muster.

“To make that judgment, a court must determine a law’s full set of applications, evaluate which are constitutional and which are not, and compare the one to the other. Neither court performed that necessary inquiry,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the main opinion.

Now, Florida and the industry groups are tangling about how the case should move forward.

Attorneys for the industry groups, in an Aug. 2 motion at the 11th Circuit, argued that briefs should be filed “so that the parties can address the import of the Supreme Court’s decision, whether this (appeals) court can resolve the facial challenge on this record or whether a remand to the district court is necessary, and if so, whether the preliminary injunction should remain in effect pending any necessary further proceedings.”

“Indeed, the Supreme Court’s decision expressly contemplates additional proceedings in this (appeals) court to determine in the first instance whether SB 7072 prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech relative to its plainly legitimate sweep,” attorneys for the groups wrote.

But in a response filed Monday, lawyers in Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office and with the firm Cooper & Kirk PLLC contended that the case should go back to district court. It said the state has “been enjoined from enforcing SB 7072 in its entirety for three years despite no showing in the district court that NetChoice is likely to succeed on its facial challenge, as that standard is properly applied.”

The response said the record in the case is “not adequate to assess the merits of NetChoice’s request for an injunction.”

The state’s lawyers wrote, for example, that a court needs to determine which platforms would be subject to the restrictions, based on the revenue and user thresholds included in the law. Also, they said determinations about potential First Amendment violations would require findings about “different levels of editorial choice” involved in each platform’s various functions.

All of them had human remains inside.

Sunshine State Sonar, a team of volunteer divers known for solving missing persons cases across Florida, visited Broward County over the last few weeks to search for the remains of a missing mother and child, inadvertently locating two other cars owned by people missing from the area for years.

On Saturday, the team says they successfully found what they were looking for: the remains of Doris Wurst and her 3-year-old daughter, Caren, reported missing from Plantation in November 1974. But in the process, they uncovered cars linked to the missing persons cases of Bernie Novick, an 83-year-old World War II veteran, and Eduardo Graterol, 31, who never came home from a party at a friend’s house.

Volunteer dive teams like Sunshine State Sonar are not new to the area, though the sheer number of finds in a matter of weeks has made local headlines. Together, divers located hundreds of cars and at least six missing people in Florida over the course of 2023 alone.

“There’s like a thousand cars in water in Miami-Dade and Broward,” Mike Sullivan, one of the founders of Sunshine State Sonar, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

The blue Honda Civic

The first find came in late July: Sunshine State Sonar was looking for Wurst and her daughter, and assisting in a search for a missing Fort Lauderdale woman with Alzheimer’s disease, when they found a submerged vehicle in a retention pond along southbound Interstate 75 at the Miramar Parkway exit in Miramar on July 30.

The Florida Highway Patrol hasn’t confirmed it, but the company said the car was a blue 2011 Honda Civic that, when last seen, was being driven by Eduardo Paul Graterol, who was reported missing by the Pembroke Pines Police Department in 2018.

He had been missing since Oct. 21, 2018 from his home in Pembroke Pines. He was last seen at a party in Fort Lauderdale.

The body in the submerged vehicle has not been positively identified, the Florida Highway Patrol said in a news release. DNA results are pending, as is the cause of the crash that caused the car to end up underwater.

The 1999 Buick LeSabre

The second find came last weekend.

Bernie Novick was 83 years old when he left his wife of 55 years in their Plantation condo and never returned. On Monday, the same Plantation Police detective who had searched for him back in 2004 called Novick’s family, his son said: Novick’s silver 1999 Buick LeSabre had been found in a lake not too far away from where he lived.

“It was a very emotional situation,” Novick’s youngest son, Joey, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday.

Bernie Novick grew up in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, his son said, before World War II broke out. He was drafted at age 20 and served in the artillery unit, stationed in North Africa, Italy and France. Later, he liked to joke to his family that he had the highest rank in the military and personally helped Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill win the war. As a kid, Joey Novick believed him.

Yet it was not war but the pain Bernie Novick felt towards the end of his life that became unmanageable, his son said. He had begun suffering from spinal degeneration and had to use a walker. Joey Novick recalled visiting Florida from his home in New Jersey to help his mother take care of his father, bringing him food and taking him to see doctors. In July 2004, shortly after Joey Novick returned to New Jersey, he got a call from his mother: his father had disappeared.

He flew back. For three weeks, they looked for any sign of Novick. Divers with the Plantation Fire Department searched nearby bodies of water. A few TV stations ran his picture, but nothing turned up. For the next 20 years, Joey Novick surmised that his father had died by suicide.

“At the time I thought what had happened was he decided that the pain was too much and decided to take his own life, possibly,” he said. “And I sort of moved on.”

Plantation Police wrote in a release that the man had “numerous health issues” and his wife said he suffered from depression.

Five years after Bernie Novick disappeared, the family was able to declare him legally dead. They gathered in Florida and sat Shiva for him, telling stories over a big meal at a local diner, the kind of thing Novick loved to do when he was alive.

“The only thing missing at that dinner was my dad,” Joey Novick recalled.

The ceremony brought his family as much closure as they could get. Joey Novick’s mother, who went on living alone in the Plantation condo, died in 2012, eight years after her husband disappeared.

Then, this past Saturday, divers with Sunshine State Sonar went to Plantation. But they weren’t looking for Novick. They were looking for Wurst and her 3-year-old daughter when they happened to locate another car in a nearby lake at 10151 SW First St. about an hour before.

“We knew it wasn’t gonna be Doris and Karen, so we left it behind,” said Sullivan, the co-founder of the diving team. “We had every intention of diving it, just not at that moment.”

They thought it might just be a stolen car. It was not. On Sunday, detectives with the Plantation Police Department met with Broward Sheriff’s Office divers, who pulled Novick’s 1999 Buick from the lake.

Even though family members were notified about the find, Detective Robert Rettig, a spokesperson for the police department, declined to provide a name because police still have to officially identify the remains using DNA or dental records.

“Within all likelihood this is going to be him,” Rettig said. “It’s his car and the remains are consistent. However, we aren’t going to verify that because we need to do our due diligence.”

In addition to missing people, Sunshine State Sonar divers have located a cement mixer in a lake in Deerfield Beach and a U-Haul truck in Lauderdale Lakes; with no people to identify, the stories behind them are even more of a mystery. Sullivan wonders if they’re kids sending them into the water for fun or associated with more serious crimes. His team has since left the area. But in about a month, they’ll be back to help dredge up more cars.

Just Tuesday afternoon, about 2:30 p.m., another car was found in a canal near 8400 W. Oakland Park Blvd. in Sunrise, police say. There was a body inside.

Sullivan said his team was not behind the discovery.

“At this time, the identity of the deceased, the vehicle description, and the cause of death are being investigated,” said Victor Fortune, a spokesperson for Sunrise Police. “More information will be provided as it becomes available.”

UPSIDE Foods, Inc., contends, in part, that the law violates a constitutional prohibition on favoring in-state businesses over out-of-state competitors.

“We’re not looking to replace conventional meat, which will always have a place on our tables,” Uma Valeti, a cardiologist who founded UPSIDE in 2015, said during a conference call Tuesday with reporters. “We want to give consumers a choice, a choice so they can eat cultivated meat or conventional meat, any choice they can make in the future to keep up with the demand for meat that will double by 2050.”

The lawsuit, filed in the federal Northern District of Florida, names as defendants state Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Attorney General Ashley Moody and four state attorneys. Simpson, a key supporter of the law, called the lawsuit “ridiculous” and said “lab-grown meat is not proven to be safe enough for consumers.”

“Food security is a matter of national security, and our farmers are the first line of defense,” Simpson said in a statement. “As Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, I will fight every day to protect a safe, affordable, and abundant food supply. States are the laboratory of democracy, and Florida has the right to not be a corporate guinea pig. Leave the Frankenmeat experiment to California.”

The Legislature this year approved the ban as part of a broader Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services bill (SB 1084), which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on May 1. The lawsuit said Florida became the first state to ban the manufacture, distribution and sale of cultivated meat.

“In doing so, Florida did not cite concerns that cultivated meat is less healthy or safe than conventional meat,” said the lawsuit, filed by attorneys from the Institute for Justice legal organization. “Instead, Governor DeSantis announced that Florida was ‘fighting back’ against the ‘authoritarian goals’ of the ‘global elite,’ who he alleged would force consumers to eat cultivated meat. The governor also announced that the law was part of his administration’s ‘focus on investing in our local farmers and ranchers’ and an effort to ‘save our beef.’”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture last year approved UPSIDE to manufacture and sell its products. Since then, the company has distributed cultivated chicken products, an alternative to plant-based meat alternatives, at restaurants and tasting events across the nation, including in Florida.

“Laws like this in Florida will absolutely make sure that this innovation will go outside the United States and make it very challenging for us to have food safety and food security in the future,” Valeti said.

Paul Sherman, an Institute for Justice senior attorney, said a motion for a preliminary injunction is pending. If approved, a preliminary injunction could allow UPSIDE to sell products in Florida while the lawsuit moves forward.

“The states simply do not have the power to wall themselves off from products that have been approved by the USDA and the FDA,” Sherman said, referring to the federal agencies. “And if consumers don’t like the idea of cultivated meat, there’s a simple solution. They don’t have to eat it. But they can’t make that decision for other consumers.”

The other defendants in the lawsuit are Jack Campbell, the state attorney in the 2nd Judicial Circuit, which includes Leon and surrounding counties; Bruce Bartlett, the state attorney in the 6th Judicial Circuit, which is made up of Pinellas and Pasco counties; Andrew Bain, the state attorney in the 9th Judicial Circuit, which is made of up Orange and Osceola counties; and Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the state attorney in the 11th Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County. They are defendants because they would be expected to enforce the law.

The law, in part, makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture cultivated meat. The manufacturing process includes taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to make food.

The lawsuit contends Florida’s ban violates the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution by pre-empting federal laws regulating meat and poultry products and violates what is known as the “dormant” Commerce Clause by insulating Florida agriculture from out-of-state competition.

For example, the lawsuit pointed to March comments by House bill sponsor Rep. Danny Alvarez, a Hillsborough County Republican who said, “If you believe that we are doing this because we know that Florida’s agriculture can hold us down and provides plenty of safe, quality beef and agricultural products — you are absolutely correct.”

Alabama followed Florida in approving a similar law, which doesn’t go into effect until Oct. 1. Similar bans have been proposed in states including Kentucky, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Texas.

UPSIDE, which would like to distribute its poultry products at Miami Beach’s Art Basel event in December and the 2025 South Beach Food and Wine Festival, contends Florida’s ban has affected the company’s revenue, promotional opportunities and reputation.

DeSantis traveled to rural Hardee County in May to sign the measure with members of the cattle industry on hand. While behind a podium that featured a sign saying, “Save Our Beef,” DeSantis said the law would protect against “an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem.”

DeSantis also called the products “fake meat” and said Florida was pushing “back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals.”

The law doesn’t prohibit cultivated-meat research because of concerns that such a ban could affect Florida’s space industry, which is looking at cultivated meats for long-term space journeys.