MIAMI_ With Florida Democrats voting by mail at a record pace, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden dove into deep blue Broward County on Tuesday in the hope of expanding his pre-Election Day lead over President Donald Trump.
Biden began his afternoon with a speech in Pembroke Pines designed to undercut Trump among senior voters by ripping his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. From there, he planned to hold a get-out-the-vote rally in Miramar as part of a national effort by his campaign and the Democratic National Committee to encourage voters to make a plan to vote.
"Donald Trump's chaotic and divisive leadership has cost us far too much: 216,000 dead from COVID-19 and rising," Biden told an intentionally small crowd of seniors and Democratic activists at the Southwest Focal Point Community Center in Pembroke Pines.
Biden, his mask still on, spoke to fewer than two dozen supporters who sat in socially distanced chairs reserved for local senior political activists and leaders. Among them was Carl Shechter, 93, the former Pembroke Pines city commissioner and namesake of the community center, located in a senior housing complex.
"Hey Carl. How are you man?" Biden asked, squinting into the light as Shechter waved at the former vice president.
When Biden concluded, Shechter swiftly rose to his feet and applauded loudly. The former city commissioner told the Miami Herald he was as impressed with Biden's pledge to save "Obamacare."
"I think the Affordable Care Act is extremely important," Schechter said.
Biden's return to South Florida _ his second visit to the region in eight days _ comes just a few days before the start of early voting in person on Oct. 19 and amid a rush by Democrats to quickly return mail ballots. Statewide returns are coming in at an unprecedented rate, with nearly 1.8 million voters having cast mail ballots as of Tuesday morning. Democrats have so far have cast nearly 400,000 more mail ballots than Republicans.
And as Democrats push to bank ballots ahead of Election Day _ a key part of their Florida strategy _ few regions are more important than deep blue South Florida. So far, in Broward County, the most left-leaning county in the state, more than 100,000 Democrats have voted by mail.
"That is just record-breaking," said Eric Johnson, a Broward-based Democratic political strategist.
Biden's Tuesday campaign events were nods to the importance of two key voting blocs: seniors and Black voters.
Public polling suggests that Trump's support among seniors has slipped in Florida as his administration has dismissed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately sickens the elderly. Where exit polls suggest he won votes 65 and older by 17 points four years ago, surveys now find Trump splitting the demographic with Biden, and in some cases trailing his Democratic rival.
"Much has been made of the youth vote in Florida _ and thank God for that," said U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "But it is residents 65 and older who still swing elections in the Sunshine State."
Biden said he thought Trump _ who has intentionally downplayed the severity of the virus _ would have been "chastened" by catching COVID-19. But instead, he said Trump has increased his "disinformation" about the virus as he has returned to campaigning, starting with a Monday rally at a Central Florida airport attended by thousands of people.
"People have been left to wonder an awful lot: 'Who's looking out for me?' That's been the entire story, in my view, of Donald Trump's presidency," Biden said through a mask in Pembroke Pines, where campaign aides wiped down the podium between speakers. "He's never been focused on what matters. He's never been focused on you ... While you're losing precious time with your loved ones, he's been stuck in a sand trap at one of his precious golf clubs."
Earlier Tuesday, Trump's campaign criticized Biden as "unfit for office," saying a series of gaffes by the former vice president have called into question whether he is showing signs of cognitive slippage. During a conference call hosted by the Trump campaign, former White House physician Ronny Jackson questioned Biden's mental acumen, but stressed that he no longer practices medicine, and said he wasn't engaging in ageism.
"We're picking somebody who has to be able to think straight, multitask and articulate and be at the top of their game mentally, and he's really not," Jackson said of Biden, though stressing that he never treated Biden at the White House and no longer practices medicine. "I'm not criticizing him because of his age. I'm obviously not."
Biden is 77. Trump is 74.
Biden's planned visit to Miramar later in the afternoon had him headed into a heavily Democratic region of South Florida with deep ties to the Caribbean. Nearly half the residents of the city of 140,000 are Black, according to the U.S. Census, and many have Jamaican roots.
The city is also home to one of the most active early voting centers in the county. In 2008, when Black voters helped lift President Barack Obama to victory in Florida, voters spent hours in line at Miramar's municipal complex during in-person early voting to cast ballots for America's first Black president.
That level of voter turnout has not continued with Obama off the ballot. But the Black community in Southwest Broward is becoming more of a force in elections as gentrification pushes more Black families away from urban cores and into the suburbs, said Florida Sen. Oscar Braynon, whose district includes parts of Miramar and Pembroke Pines.
"In Miramar, the voter turnout has been somewhat inconsistent. But it's getting better," said Braynon. "It's turning into one of those very large voting blocs that can translate into a statewide race, a national race."
Braynon said Biden's decision to pick Jamaican American U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate has excited South Florida's Caribbean Black voters. Harris visited Miami-Dade County last month, and Biden stopped last week in Little Haiti. But Braynon said Tuesday's visit is still a no-brainer for a campaign that needs to turn out voters with mail voting underway and Election Day looming in three weeks.
"I always have the most Democratic district in the state, so I don't see why Democrats running across the state wouldn't come here," he said in an interview. "Whether you come or not, you're going to get 90% of the vote. Why not come and make it 95% or 96%?"
Biden's latest visit to Florida is sandwiched between trips by Trump, who is expected to return to the state Thursday with a stop in Miami and then another in Ocala on Friday. Polls show a tight race between Trump and Biden in Florida, and Trump is expected to pull closer to Biden as in-person voting begins.
