Big night for Crist and Jolly
By; Jim Williams – Columnist News Talk Florida
ST. PETERSBURG – It is debate night in St. Petersburg and front and center will be two very seasoned candidates as former Gov. Charlie Crist and U.S. Rep. David Jolly will square off at the sold-out beautifully renovated Palladium Theater in downtown. The debate will be streamed live at 7 p.m. on WATCH HERE WTSP TV NEWS 10 and not only will Bay Area voters be watching but this is a key race for Congress nationally.
For Crist it is his latest race since changing his party affiliation to Democrat and he challenging his old foe Congressman Jolly in a redrawn district that includes his hometown of St. Petersburg, following a redistricting process. The move was widely seen as eroding advantages of incumbents and possibly allowing Democrats to gain a few seats.
The new and improved Crist is now the opening act throughout Florida for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. At this point with just fifty days away from the election it looks like Crist is the big favorite to unseat Jolly in the race.
Jolly, the incumbent, originally wasn’t going to seek re-election in the redrawn district, opting instead to run for the U.S. Senate. His bid ended once Sen. Marco Rubio, initially running for president, decided in June to seek re-election to the Senate.
The debate is likely to be quite interesting and it will be moderated by the Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam C. Smith and 10News reporter Mark Rivera. Both men promise that they will keep things moving.
Look for the names of both Hillary Clinton and Donald trump to come up early and often. Look for Clinton to get plenty of props from Crist and it depends at this time just how much Jolly will defend Trump in this new pro Democratic party foothold.
