TAMPA, Fla. (CN) — Five days before the presidential election, the campaigns of President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden converged in Tampa, a metropolitan area long seen as a bellwether for presidential politics.
The candidates’ rallies, held just hours apart, could not have been more different.
Trump and his supporters, largely maskless, railed against the “socialist” Democratic nominee in a football stadium parking lot, close enough to an early voting polling place that the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections put out a statement warning potential voters of traffic concerns.
Across town at the state fairgrounds, Biden held a socially distanced drive-in rally in which the vice president, wearing a mask, blamed the president for “spreading more than just the coronavirus.”
“He’s spreading division and discord,” the former vice president said to a chorus of honks.
The candidates’ repeated visits to Florida illustrate the importance of the country’s largest swing state. Most experts agree Trump must win the state’s 29 electoral votes for reelection.
Polls in the run-up to the election show Trump and Biden in a dead heat with very few undecided voters. That’s led to repeated trips by both campaigns to this eternally purple state that elected Trump with less than 1% of the vote in 2016.
Biden and surrogates like Barack Obama have largely focused on South Florida, a Democratic stronghold home to the majority of the state’s Hispanic community, and cities along the decisive I-4 corridor like Tampa.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence held rallies in the state’s largest age-restricted community, The Villages, and the usually reliably red Panhandle region with a large concentration of military families.
“I think the Biden campaign views all the time the Trump campaign is having to spend in Florida as a bonus, because they have other paths to 270 [electoral votes] and Trump does not,” said political analyst Matthew Corrigan, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Jacksonville University. “So keeping the state really, really close and competitive has forced a lot of time and energy among Republicans to keep the state.”
“This close, this late is probably a win for Biden, even if he doesn't win the state, because he's making Trump use his resources here,” he added.
But ginning up each parties’ base may not tip the balance. Roughly 26% of registered voters have no party affiliation, according to the Florida Department of Elections.
“Democrats are going to bring everybody out, or most people out, and Republicans are going to bring most people out,” Corrigan said. “What are the NPAs doing? If the NPAs break heavily for either candidate, that's the ballgame.”
No party affiliation (NPA) voters chose Trump four years ago because of his “outsider” status, Corrigan said, and Hillary Clinton’s negative image. But those same voters may have buyer’s remorse.
“Now, they've seen some of the policies and the way [the president] handled the pandemic and I think there's concerns,” he said.
Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, or lack thereof, could also eat into his previous support among Florida’s most active voting bloc: seniors.
The senior vote
Located just north of Orlando, The Villages is a sprawling age-restricted community of 120,000. “Florida’s Friendliest Hometown” is a frequent stop for candidates running for state or federal office and boasts one of the largest concentrations of Republican voters in the state.
The community went for Trump by 70% in 2016.
At a recent rally, thousands of enthusiastic attendees drove their golf carts to The Villages Polo Club to hear the president speak.
“I love everything he has done,” said one of the rally goers, 72-year-old Sherry Canger. “I can’t think of anything I don’t like.”
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