Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, appearing in Broward County on Wednesday, used the specter of former President Donald Trump to energize Democrats to vote for his spouse, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Emhoff and several other speakers at a “Get Out The Vote” rally in Hallandale Beach seized on the latest revelations about Trump. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who was Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, said this week that the former president had made positive comments about Adolf Hitler.
“I’m also speaking as a Jewish person,” Emhoff said. “We can’t look away from this. This is as real as it gets. This is right in front of our faces, people. It’s beyond dangerous antisemitism what comes out of his mouth. … We have to take this at face value because this is who Donald Trump is.”
Emhoff said Trump is plainly unfit for the presidency. “We can see him degrade before our very eyes,” he said. “We’ve witnessed his decline in real time.”
He contrasted Trump’s often unusual comments, including talking over the weekend about the size of the late golfer Arnold Palmer’s genitalia.
“Kamala, she’s out there. She’s released her medical records,” Emhoff said. “He hasn’t released his medical records in years, real ones anyway.”
Emhoff said it’s essential for every person supporting Harris and opposing Trump to show up at the polls.
“We cannot have Donald Trump come back for so many reasons. He’s not fit for any job, let alone president of the United States,” Emhoff said. “We really need to listen to what Donald Trump is actually saying. We really need to hear what is coming out of his mouth.”
“The polls are tight. I know that’s infuriating. It shouldn’t be this close,” he added. “Let’s get out there. We don’t want to have any regrets on Nov. 5 that we didn’t do enough. We can turn Florida blue. We should turn Florida blue.”
He said Trump didn’t have the fortitude to campaign as extensively as Harris, and Emhoff mocked him for refusing to debate her for a second time. “We all saw what happened the first time,” he said. “She kicked his ass.”
Emhoff was the only man who spoke. All eight warmup speakers were women.
Emhoff and many of the other speakers called on voters to support Amendment 4, the proposal that would enshrine abortion rights in the Florida Constitution.
Music, played after each speaker, was provided by the Boyd Anderson High School marching band. Emhoff said if he could, he’d have the band travel with him providing musical support across the country for the final stretch of the campaign.
The warmup speakers included U.S. Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson; former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate; state Democratic Chair Nikki Fried, Florida Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book.
Cherfilus-McCormick said Trump is “like a bad boyfriend. You keep breaking up with him. He keeps coming back.”
The rally was at the Austin Hepburn Center at OB Johnson Park & Recreation Center in Hallandale Beach. The mission was to urge people to vote early, and not wait until Election Day.
Later on his agenda: a campaign fundraising reception in Coral Gables. Still, the mood at the Hallandale Beach community center was excited and energetic, and provided Democrats a chance to hope that they might pull off an Election Day surprise.
The latest Florida poll, an Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey of likely voters released Wednesday, wasn’t positive for Democrats.
The poll showed Trump leading Harris 52% to 44% in Florida, with 3% undecided and 1% planning to vote for a third-party candidate.
Other sobering findings for Democrats: The race is virtually tied among women, 49% for Trump to 47% for Harris, which is far different than what polling finds nationwide, with an enormous gender gap with women overwhelmingly favoring Harris over Trump.
The candidates are also tied among Florida Hispanic voters, with 48% for Harris and 47% for Trump.
Emhoff’s visit gave Democrats a dose of optimism.
For the first time in decades, Florida is a secondary battleground for both Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Once one of the most fought-after swing states, whose electoral votes could go either way in the presidential election, Florida has become much more Republican in recent years.
It’s no longer a presidential battleground.
Now, a group of northern industrial states, led by Pennsylvania and including Michigan and Wisconsin, and a quartet of states in the South and Sun Belt — Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and to a lesser extent North Carolina — are the battlegrounds likely to win the presidency.
Florida’s status is immediately apparent to anyone who flips on a local news program on TV.
There are plenty of political ads from U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and his challenger, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and for and against the proposed state constitutional amendments on abortion and recreational marijuana. But the presidential campaigns aren’t blanketing the state with ads.
The candidates haven’t done appearances in the state aimed at local voters. Trump has held events in Florida, but they’re aimed at broader national audiences, not swaying Florida voters. And they’re attractive venues for Trump because he lives at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and owns the Trump National Doral Golf Club.
Neither the Trump campaign nor the Republican Party of Florida responded to requests for comment about the Emhoff event.
State Sen. Lori Berman of Palm Beach County wasn’t part of the speaking program but drove to Hallandale Beach for the rally.
“It’s helpful to get our really strong motivated people to have a final push for the end. You can never have too much inspiration,” she said.
Like other Democrats, she said she was optimistic. “The energy in Florida I think is really good,” she said. “We really see people coming out on the streets, waving signs, making phone calls, people coming into the Democratic office who have never come by before. … It’s almost comparable to the Obama campaign, and I’m hoping that it’s going to continue that way.”
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.