and neck races. democrat bill nelson is trying to hang on to his senate seat, while andrew gillum is vying to become the first african-american governor of this state. let s bring in my super panel. joining me now, friends all, i m hanging out with democratic pollster and host of the podcast strange days, christopher metzler and at a disadvantage, david jolly, not hanging out onset with us. former republican congressman from florida who recently left the party. david, i feel badly that you are not here with us. i was just telling my friends here i m hopped up. i want to play, david, for you president obama talking about you because not only did you abandon the republican party,
jason johnson of theroot.com. you know, we promoting the root, that s big. i m generous. let s talk about this real quick. are you guys as pessimistic? are you guys on that? i have always been there. you re so cynical. right. he s a nay sayer on a lot of reasons. he s closing, and it is great he s only down by three, but it is still texas. his only saving grace is this idea you have so many over performing early voting districts, and i think a lot of pollsters don t know what the likely voters will be in 2018. that may end up saving him. that last thing you said is why i m skeptical of the polling. because you can t poll these rural districts. i think those polls are undercounting. he s been laser focussed on african-american votes. over 60% of latino voters
voter. even though black women voted overwhelmingly in the primary, she s done a great job of reaching across the aisle to some of these conservative voters that are unhappy with the rhetoric coming out of the trump campaign. i m calling it for you. i m being optimistic and i m saying she s going to win. i was following the campaign there, and the enthusiasm is incredible. let s go on to claire mccaskill. she is trying to turn against the migrants. she is doing that strategy. i just heard just from friends, you know, in missouri, she might be stregling with the african-american vote a bit. she s done. she s done. and i think every single african-american activist and political organizer i know down there, they haven t forgiven her since ferguson. but people have looked at her behavior over the last several years. and you can t win as a democrat
but you already had cast a vote in the governor s race here. let me let you listen to that. a former republican congressman, david jolly, just cast his vote. he voted for andrew gillum. he said, the reason is simple. it is because i have served with ron desantis. i don t imagine congressman jolly and major gillum agree on a lot. but maybe they, just like all of us, agree there is some things bigger than politics. and that s on the ballot right now. what kind of politics do we want? congressman, that s pretty harsh, that you voted for andrew gillum because you served with ron desantis. please explain. sure. i wish i could see the look on their faces because that was quite a moment. i did vote for andrew gillum and
gubernatorial races and the senate races and what they re producing, it doesn t seem like a complicated choice. i would beg people. abandon the party label. if you claim to be a patriot don t you care that the person that s in charge is chipping away from the core democratic purposes and there are too many people who echo that message and too many are silent. choose what s right for the country. be a true patriot and abandon the party labels. vote what s right. you know, melanie campbell, obviously voting has been your life s work of getting particularly the african-american community to be able to participate. yes. one of the things to the point that tiffany made is the sovereignty of the u.s. vote. we ve seen a lot of interference by russia. they re interfering again. we ve just had an instance where twitter had to delete or deactivate 10,000 accounts because they were impersonating african-americans and discouraging black voting and basically saying things like, just let the b