Florida will once again play a huge role in a presidential election in 2020, with President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden neck-and-neck in the polls.
A victory for Trump would mean he held a key state where he defeated Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton by 1.2 percentage points in 2016. A victory by Biden would indicate a strong night for the Democratic nominee, who is currently outpolling Trump in key Midwestern states that the president won last time.
According to the most recent reports available from August, Trump and national Republicans have raised more than $1.5 billion and spent $1.3 billion, while Biden and Democrats have raised about $867 million and spent $571 million. But Biden and Democrats outraised Trump and the GOP by a large margin in August, $290 million to $130 million.
According to Politico, both sides have spent a combined $243 million on ads in Florida, including $30 million of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s pledged $100 million he plans to spend in the state backing Biden.
Trump barnstormed the state in 2016, holding rallies in Orlando, Kissimmee, Lakeland, Ocala and Sanford, as well as a reelection kickoff in Orlando last year. But that strategy has been hindered this year by the coronavirus outbreak.
Rallies were on hold until September, and Trump had to cancel a planned Sanford trip on Oct. 2, the day after his positive test for coronavirus. Trump got back on the campaign trail Monday night with a rescheduled rally held at Orlando Sanford International Airport.
Biden has held smaller, non-public because of the pandemic, including visiting Kissimmee in September.
Who they are
Joe Biden, 77, is the former vice president under President Obama from 2009 to 2017 and former U.S. senator from Delaware from 1973 to 2009.
Donald Trump, 74, is the incumbent president and founder of the Trump Organization, a real estate and property management company that owns hotels and golf courses around the world.
The issues: COVID-19
The president has defended his response to the coronavirus outbreak despite the 210,000 deaths so far this year in the U.S., pointing to his ban on Chinese nationals entering the U.S. in February, which he contends saved as many as 2 million lives, and the travel ban he imposed on Europe in March.
Trump also has downplayed the virus, even when becoming infected himself, saying that he wants to provide the experimental treatments he received to everyone for free while not providing details of how he would do that.
He also says a vaccine will be available soon because of the several companies that already have them in Phase 3 trials, although he has acknowledged it would not be available before the election.
Biden calls for “a decisive public health response that ensures the wide availability of free testing; the elimination of all cost barriers to preventive care and treatment for COVID-19; the development of a vaccine; and the full deployment and operation of necessary supplies, personnel, and facilities.”
That would include emergency paid leave for people affected by the outbreak and free testing for anyone who needs it.
Biden also wants scientists and public health leaders should be out front communicating to the public with regular updates and briefings on how many tests have been done by federal state and local governments and private laboratories.
Health care
The Trump administration joined a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 10.
Trump has pledged that he would keep the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but an executive order he signed this year would have no effect on law if the act is struck down, according to experts at the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Center for Public Health Law and Policy.
Trump has backed expanded access to high-risk pools and wants to lower drug costs by allowing states to import drugs from Canada. He has signed executive orders to that end and vowed to release a comprehensive plan for health care if he wins reelection.
Biden said he would protect the Affordable Care Act, saying 100 million people could lose coverage because of pre-existing conditions if it’s struck down.
He said he would build on it by providing a public health insurance option such as Medicare that could eventually cover 97% of Americans. His plan would also require drug companies to negotiate with Medicare as hospitals and providers do.
Middle-class families would also get a tax credit to help them pay for coverage, while almost 5 million low-income people who live in states where Medicaid was not expanded, such as Florida, would have premium-free access to the public option.
Biden’s campaign says his plan to protect Medicaid would ensure long-term care as six out of 10 nursing home residents rely on Medicaid. He would also create a $5,000 tax credit for informal long-term caregivers, including family members.
Social Security
Biden is pledging to shore up Social Security by having high-wage earners pay the same taxes on earnings as the middle class. Currently, people don’t have to pay into Social Security on wages above $137,700.
Also, Social Security beneficiaries receiving benefits for 20 years or more would see a higher monthly check, and retirees who spent 30 years working would get a benefit of at least 125% of the poverty level. Widows and widowers would also be protected from steep cuts in benefits.
The Promises Kept section of Trump’s campaign website does not appear to mention Social Security, but it cited Trump’s orders and memos to “improve seniors’ health care and improve the fiscal sustainability of Medicare.”
Trump, who has temporarily deferred payroll taxes, wants to eliminate those taxes entirely in a second term. That could drain Social Security’s coffers as early as 2023, according to Social Security Chief Actuary Stephen Goss, without any new plan to fund the program.
Puerto Rico
Biden released his plan for Puerto Rico shortly before an event in Kissimmee in September. It would create a federal working group “which will report directly to the President to make sure Puerto Rico has the resources and technical assistance it needs not only to recover but also to prosper.”
It also calls for “providing relief from unsustainable debt” by reworking the unpopular Financial Oversight and Management Board that controls much of the island’s economy, as well as infrastructure initiatives in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which devastated much of the island in 2017.
And it would forgive disaster relief loans, strengthen the island’s damaged power system and improve health care.
Biden said while he personally believed statehood would be the best way for Puerto Ricans to achieve political equality, he said he would respect what the people there decide.
Trump has said he is an “absolute no” on statehood for Puerto Rico.
His campaign has touted the support of Puerto Rico’s governor, Wanda Vázquez Garced, who said she was grateful for the $13 billion granted by FEMA in September, even though much of the $40 billion approved by Congress in 2018 has not yet been allocated.
Trump has said he’s “the best thing to ever happen to Puerto Rico.”
Immigration
The Trump campaign praised his efforts at building a border wall and ending what they called “chain migration,” or family members of legal immigrants being allowed to join them in the U.S.
He also rescinded the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program, which prevented the deportation of undocumented immigrants whose children are lawful permanent residents.
A second term for Trump would likely include a push for more work on the border wall and action against what Trump calls “sanctuary cities” that don’t cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The administration has recently enacted policies that will allow ICE to detain and deport undocumented immigrants without a hearing.
Biden’s campaign says that he will send to Congress an immigration reform bill on his first day in office that would create “a roadmap to citizenship for the nearly 11 million [undocumented immigrants] who have been living in and strengthening our country for years.”
He would also reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected those brought to the country illegally as children from being deported, and ensure they are eligible for federal student aid. The president called for a legislative solution for people who had been protected by DACA, which he ended in 2017.
At the border, Biden would stop the separation of children from their parents, reunite families, and end the prolonged detention of migrants. He added he would end the Trump administration’s policies that have stripped protected status from emigrants from most Caribbean and Central American countries and have yet to be applied to those fleeing Venezuela.
Biden said he also would end the state of emergency that transferred military funds to the Mexican border wall and rescind the travel ban for people from several largely Muslim countries enacted during the first week of the Trump administration.
Environment
Biden proposes ensuring that the U.S. has “a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
He also wants to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change which Trump pulled out of early in his term.
Trump wants to expand offshore oil and gas drilling, although he signed an executive order to maintain a ban on it off Florida’s coastline.
Trump also rescinded President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and has proposed the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which the Trump campaign said would “reduce greenhouse gases, empower states, promote energy independence, and facilitate economic growth and job creation.”
Economy, taxes
Trump praised the 2017 tax cuts he helped push through, stating they provided tax relief for 82% of middle-class families, doubled the Child Tax Credit and the standard deduction, cut taxes for small businesses by 20%, and lowered the corporate tax rate.
Biden would rescind much of the Trump tax cuts for people making more than $400,000 a year to pay for some of the programs he’s proposing.
He also calls for expanding the Child Tax Credit to $3,000 per child for ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under 6.
Biden would also provide more state and local aid, extend COVID-19 crisis unemployment insurance and create a “comeback package” for small businesses.
Supreme Court
Trump wants to hold a vote on his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, before the election. She would then be in place to help decide any case arising from the election and the challenge to the Affordable Care Act.
Biden says the winner of the election should appoint a replacement for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, saying Republicans wouldn’t hold hearings on Obama appointee Merrick Garland in 2016 because it was an election year. He has not said if he would consider adding more justices, known as packing the court.
slemongello@orlandosentinel.com
