Representative Demings, Democratic party leaders share how they plan to fight for Rubio’s Senate seat

US Representative Val Demings made her rounds for day two of her ‘affordability tour’ in Southwest Florida. On Thursday, she met with people from the democratic party.

Lee county democrats held a luncheon event called ‘Flip Florida Blue.’ Democratic Congresswoman Demings took to the podium and told the crowd confidently that she could flip Republican Senator Marco Rubio’s seat with their help.

“With your support, with your time, with your talent, and with your treasure. Come November 8 of this year, I will be elected the next United States Senator to represent the great state of Florida,” said Demings.

It might sound good to Democrats, but flipping Florida blue, flipping Lee County blue is a tough ask. According to the most recent data available from the Division of Elections,
43% of voters in Lee County are Republican. Only 26% are Democrats.

WINK News asked the chair of the Lee County Democratic Party, Kari Lerner, how they plan to defy those odds. “Well, we have a strategy that I’m not going to share. I think that basically, we are reaching out to our democratic voters. There are a lot of people here who are registered with no party affiliation,” said Lerner.

According to that same data, 29% of voters in Lee County have no party affiliation, meaning Demings needs to swing a large majority of those voters her way to win.

“We can win this race. Is it easy? No. It’s not easy,” said Demings.

Senator Rubio will not campaign in Fort Myers this week, but his team didn’t miss the opportunity to punch back. They commented on Demings’ record in congress saying she “votes with the Socialist Squad 94% of the time.”