12-year-old collecting donations for the needy during the holidaysFort Myers man facing homelessness before the holidays
NAPLES 12-year-old collecting donations for the needy during the holidays A 12-year-old Naples boy isn’t worried about what he’s getting for Christmas. Instead, he’s working on his 6th annual “Holiday Sock Drive.”
Fort Myers man facing homelessness before the holidays A 75-year-old man is on the brink of homelessness despite working over 80 hours a week.
NAPLES Adoptee uses non-profit to provide suitcases for foster children This holiday season, a Naples woman is on a mission to bring foster children something many take for granted: a suitcase filled with dignity.
MARCO ISLAND City of Marco Island discusses lead awareness during city council meeting The city of Marco Island sent out 4900 letters to residents warning them that their pipes could contain plastic or lead.
NAPLES The future of electric planes in Southwest Florida Features of living near an airport include persistent headache-inducing engine rumbles and foul-smelling jet fuel, but electric planes could play a part in the solution.
PORT CHARLOTTE Neighbors awaiting answers on Port Charlotte Beach Park repairs Neighbors said a contractor hired by the Florida Division of Emergency Management mishandled the boats at Port Charlotte Beach Park.
FGCU introduces new technology for cognitive health screenings Ten minutes. That’s all it takes for doctors to assess how well you remember, how quickly you learn things, and how your brain is working overall.
WINK Investigates: Disgraced contractor faces new lawsuits and allegations Paul Beattie, a disgraced home builder is back doing business but legal challenges continue as another one of his businesses gets sued. Former employees of Beattie speak out, only to WINK.
SWFL reacts to UNC hiring Bill Belichick Southwest Florida reacts to North Carolina hiring Bill Belichick as its new head football coach and how that could impact the decisions of local recruits.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Some Floridians want more alone time during the holidays The holidays are all about spending time with family and friends, but nearly half of Americans say they really want more alone time during the holiday.
LABELLE Hendry County rolls out cameras for school speed zones The Hendry County Sheriff’s Office has rolled out a new way of enforcing school zone speed limits by using cameras that will target drivers traveling over a certain speed in a school zone.
Aggressive driving concerns on the rise in Southwest Florida The arrest of a man who, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said, killed a motorcyclist after crashing into him on purpose is raising concerns over aggressive driving in Southwest Florida.
SANIBEL Sanibel School students prepare for community Christmas performance The school that has had to claw and fight its way back more than once to reopen is getting the chance to celebrate.
FORT MYERS Rock For Equality: SWFL music scene to hold benefit concert for Palestine A two-venue, eight-band benefit concert is coming to Southwest Florida.
NAPLES Naples man sentenced in deadly bar shooting A man has been sentenced for a deadly shooting that took place at a Naples bar in March 2021.
NAPLES 12-year-old collecting donations for the needy during the holidays A 12-year-old Naples boy isn’t worried about what he’s getting for Christmas. Instead, he’s working on his 6th annual “Holiday Sock Drive.”
Fort Myers man facing homelessness before the holidays A 75-year-old man is on the brink of homelessness despite working over 80 hours a week.
NAPLES Adoptee uses non-profit to provide suitcases for foster children This holiday season, a Naples woman is on a mission to bring foster children something many take for granted: a suitcase filled with dignity.
MARCO ISLAND City of Marco Island discusses lead awareness during city council meeting The city of Marco Island sent out 4900 letters to residents warning them that their pipes could contain plastic or lead.
NAPLES The future of electric planes in Southwest Florida Features of living near an airport include persistent headache-inducing engine rumbles and foul-smelling jet fuel, but electric planes could play a part in the solution.
PORT CHARLOTTE Neighbors awaiting answers on Port Charlotte Beach Park repairs Neighbors said a contractor hired by the Florida Division of Emergency Management mishandled the boats at Port Charlotte Beach Park.
FGCU introduces new technology for cognitive health screenings Ten minutes. That’s all it takes for doctors to assess how well you remember, how quickly you learn things, and how your brain is working overall.
WINK Investigates: Disgraced contractor faces new lawsuits and allegations Paul Beattie, a disgraced home builder is back doing business but legal challenges continue as another one of his businesses gets sued. Former employees of Beattie speak out, only to WINK.
SWFL reacts to UNC hiring Bill Belichick Southwest Florida reacts to North Carolina hiring Bill Belichick as its new head football coach and how that could impact the decisions of local recruits.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA Some Floridians want more alone time during the holidays The holidays are all about spending time with family and friends, but nearly half of Americans say they really want more alone time during the holiday.
LABELLE Hendry County rolls out cameras for school speed zones The Hendry County Sheriff’s Office has rolled out a new way of enforcing school zone speed limits by using cameras that will target drivers traveling over a certain speed in a school zone.
Aggressive driving concerns on the rise in Southwest Florida The arrest of a man who, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said, killed a motorcyclist after crashing into him on purpose is raising concerns over aggressive driving in Southwest Florida.
SANIBEL Sanibel School students prepare for community Christmas performance The school that has had to claw and fight its way back more than once to reopen is getting the chance to celebrate.
FORT MYERS Rock For Equality: SWFL music scene to hold benefit concert for Palestine A two-venue, eight-band benefit concert is coming to Southwest Florida.
NAPLES Naples man sentenced in deadly bar shooting A man has been sentenced for a deadly shooting that took place at a Naples bar in March 2021.
FILE – Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey, walk in the July 4th parade, July 4, 2023, in Merrimack, N.H. As the six month sprint to the Iowa caucuses begins, the sprawling field of Republican presidential candidates is facing growing pressure to prove they can become serious challengers to former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Reba Saldanha, File) For a large portion of 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been on the road in Iowa, stopping in coffee shops, sports bars and barns — looking to convince voters that he should be the Republican party’s standard bearer, and not former President Donald Trump. At the crux of DeSantis’ bid in Iowa, the first state to vote in the Republican presidential nominating contest, is a tour of all 99 counties, known as the “full Grassley,” named after Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa who pioneered the all-county tour, and has been doing it for over 40 years. Past Iowa caucus winners — former Sen. Rick Santorum in 2012 and Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016 — made a similar effort during their presidential bids. DeSantis is set to complete his own Iowa tour on Dec. 2 with an event at the “Thunderdome” wedding venue in Newton, according to details first shared with CBS News. Yet the unprecedented nature of Trump’s campaign and popularity with the GOP electorate may make Iowa’s political tradition of rewarding intense attention from contenders a moot point this cycle. Trump has been the consistent frontrunner in the race for the 2024 GOP nomination against a now dwindling field of challengers, most of whom have largely avoided taking him on directly. The race is playing out as Trump also faces criminal charges in multiple cases, in part due to his failed effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election. DeSantis has been the only active candidate to commit to holding at least one event in every county so far, and he’s made 130 stops in Iowa overall. A majority of those events, 92, were hosted by the super PAC backing him, Never Back Down, who frequently had the governor on their bus as he trekked from county to county. On the ground in Iowa vs. Trump “hurdle” But DeSantis is not the only one to focus intensely on Iowa in the closing weeks before the Jan. 15 caucus. Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy announced earlier this month that he rented an apartment in the state and says he will hold over 200 events until the caucus. Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has done over 60 events in the state — and is now polling closely with DeSantis in Iowa and leads him in New Hampshire By comparison, Trump has held just 17 events in the state since March. Historically, Iowa voters care deeply about interacting with the candidates. Collecting that kind of grassroots support is key to building the organizing needed to turn out the kind of ground game that can deliver a win on caucus night. Steve Scheffler, the Iowa Republican Party’s National Committeeman, has worked on four presidential campaigns in Iowa before the caucuses. Compared to past cycles, he said that most candidates this cycle didn’t “lay down stakes” early enough. “Winning the caucus is pretty labor intensive work,” Scheffler explained. “You’re looking at a band of people that you have to identify are gonna go to the caucus, then you have to work with them and try to get ’em on board, and then you’ve gotta get them in your database, and then you’ve gotta have a mechanism to turn them out. Those things don’t just happen overnight.” He added that Trump’s presence is “the hurdle” for his challengers, “since many Iowa caucus-goers know what he did. They know he kept his promises.” The DeSantis campaign has called its 99-county tour “an organizational effort,” and said it allows them more flexibility to target areas with bigger media markets, along with certain rural counties where DeSantis’ support is stronger. At his stops, Never Back Down volunteers are often spotted asking attendees to sign “commitment to caucus” cards. The group says 30,000 of these cards, which are not legally binding but signal support for a candidate, have been collected. DeSantis’ campaign said the state will be the “primary focus” in the closing weeks before the caucus, but believed that completing the “full Grassley” gives them more flexibility to campaign in New Hampshire, where DeSantis has fallen behind Haley and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in recent polls. “The Iowa caucus is littered with campaigns that lost because they thought they could win through the air alone, relying solely on paid television advertising,” DeSantis communications director Andrew Romeo said. “The reality is you need a strong mixture of paid media, candidate presence, and ground game to win an Iowa Caucus, and no one is executing in all three areas better than us as we hit the closing stretch.” “Cruz was only at 10% at this point of the race in 2016,” Romeo said. “That’s a good reminder of how Iowa traditionally breaks late, which is exactly when you will begin to see the dividends of the historic ground organization we have built in the state.” Power of Iowa endorsements Romeo added that several notable DeSantis endorsers — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and 41 state legislators — have a network they can tap into to turn people out to caucus. Iowa represents fraught territory for Trump given that he lost the caucus in 2016. But he has a large advantage in caucus polling to date, despite only making 13 visits to the state since he launched his third White House bid. Both before and after Reynolds’ endorsement of DeSantis, Trump has criticized her this year. And in a somewhat surprising move, he also recently called out Iowa’s two U.S. senators, who haven’t taken a public side in the race. Regarding Grassley and Sen. Joni Ernst, Trump claimed at a rally in Fort Dodge earlier this month that “I got ’em elected, remember that.” Ernst won re-election in 2020, and Grassley in 2022, in what is now a reliably red state. Trump even praised Grassley roughly a year ago while the senator was running for re-election, calling him a legend at an Iowa rally before the 2022 midterms. The 90-year-old Grassley has spent decades in Iowa politics, and according to his congressional website, is the longest serving senator in the state’s history. He was in office long before Trump had any kind of political influence on the GOP. Ernst was elected in 2014, before Trump won the White House. “Here in Iowa, the voters want to see you” “Here in Iowa, the voters want to see you,” said John Pentecost, an undecided voter considering DeSantis and Trump. Pentecost attended a DeSantis event earlier this month in Plainfield, DeSantis’ 98th county. “That’s been the trick to winning Iowa. Grassley started it, and I think all the other candidates are kind of following that same winning strategy.” Asked what will help him decide, Pentecost said he’ll “probably just keep coming to events.”