Robby Mook takes no chances but feels optimistic about winning Florida because of the “coalition. Watch live coverage all weekend here at News Talk Florida.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook wants to put Florida in the win column and right he is guardedly optimistic that his team can pull it off over the weekend and on election day. The plan for Clinton has along to use early voting to build firewalls that could run up numbers that on election day Republican nominee Donald Trump can’t overcome.
Today during an afternoon press call Mook and Director of States and Political Engagement Marlon Marshall were feeling good about Florida, and they took questions from the press including News Talk Florida.
Good read: 5 million early voters in Florida breaks record
Mook touted early voter turnout in Florida, North Carolina and Nevada. He said the campaign is working to “build up a lead that Donald Trump is incapable of overcoming.”
According to Mook that early voting in Florida was up 52 percent over 2012 and up 16 percent over 2012 in North Carolina. For Clinton the key numbers according to Mook the early turnout of Hispanic voters – a key component of the Democratic base– was up 120 percent in Florida and was already higher with five days to go until the election than it was in 2012 overall.
“More people are voting earlier,” Mook said, highlighting that Clinton’s strategy all along has been to turn out a large share of lower-propensity voters in early voting.
Mook said the campaign believes “this will be the highest turnout election we’ve ever had.”
He added that Trump’s lack of ground game in key states was a “real compounding problem.”
“If he hasn’t banked his base by this point, he’s gonna have an even taller task in the final days of the election without a ground game,” Mook said.
The campaign also boasted that early African American turnout in Florida was up 22 percent in the state.
Mook said the campaign in Florida and other swing states, continue to target voters in who were less likely to participate and estimated that at least 40 per cent of registered voters have already cast ballots in those states. He said Trump will have to “outperform Romney on Election Day” to pull ahead in those states. He was referring to 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Mook said Clinton was winning support from the “Hillary Coalition.” He said that includes Latinos, Asian-Americans and college-educated women.
In an effort to lock up the Interstate 4 corridor Saturday Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, campaigns in Melbourne and then joins rocker Jon Bon Jovi in St. Petersburg on Saturday, when Clinton returns to an as-yet-unspecified city in South Florida.
Then closing out the final weekend of the campaign, President Barack Obama, will be back in Florida for a second time this week, this time he will be joined at a get out to vote rally in Kissimmee by singer/songwriter Stevie Wonder.
