The midterm elections are this week, and Democrats hope to take back the U.S. House and at least hold onto their portion of the U.S. Senate if not grow it. Ahead of a widely hoped for “blue wave,” President Donald Trump took to Twitter to deliver a last minute round of frenzied endorsements on Monday morning. He singled out a few Republican candidates who have been struggling somewhat in the polls recently.
His endorsement of Republican Ron DeSantis, who’s running to be the next governor of Florida, stuck out. Yet again, as he and DeSantis have done before, the president dragged out lies and essentially racist innuendo to lob at Democrat Andrew Gillum, who’s leading DeSantis in polls and is black.
The president ranted:
‘If Andrew Gillum did the same job with Florida that he has done in Tallahassee as Mayor, the State will be a crime ridden, overtaxed mess. Ron DeSantis will be a great Governor. VOTE!!!!!!’
No matter how many times the right says it, it won’t suddenly become true that Tallahassee is the most crime ridden city in the state of Florida. When looking at crimes per 100,000 residents, Tallahassee isn’t even in the top 25 cities in Florida, while other high profile ones like Orlando and Miami are.
Still, Trump and DeSantis hope to capitalize on their base’s racist association of black people and crime for a victory that based on polling and FiveThirtyEight’s projections, just isn’t going to happen.
Also Monday, Trump delivered an endorsement of Michigan Republican candidate John James and Missouri Republican candidate Josh Hawley. James has only managed a 49 in 50 chance at victory according to FiveThirtyEight while Hawley is running in a race FiveThirtyEight rates as a toss-up and is slightly down in polls.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
