Gillum up 1-point, continues race card politics

With the recent Suffolk poll showing Democrat Andrew Gillum leading Republican Ron DeSantis by 1-point in Florida’s hotly contested gubernatorial sweepstakes, it is no wonder why Gillum continues to play the race card, and DeSantis continuing to harp on an FBI investigation.

His campaign surrogates say that Gillum is not using race to win his race, but Gillum’s own actions paint a different political picture.

During his appearance on “The Daily Show” with Trevor Noah, Gillum pushed the race argument a bit more, saying that DeSantis intentionally used “monkey it up” as a racial slur.

 “Well, of course we never heard it before. He tried to justify it…But I mean ‘monkey around,’ right? ‘Monkey business.’ ‘Monkey it up.’ I mean this guy is Harvard- and Yale-educated. He could come up with a better phrase.”

“He said exactly what he meant to say. He communicated exactly what he wanted to say to his voters, to his constituents, and then, when he got called on it, he tried to run from it.”

DeSantis’ campaigned countered Gillum’s remarks to Noah:

“This is an attempt by the Gillum campaign to continue to distract the media from his involvement in an FBI investigation, countless news reports on him asking for and taking free stuff from lobbyists, using city funds to pay for a trip related to his campaign, accepting contributions from an undercover FBI agent and not reporting it in his disclosures,” DeSantis communications director Stephen Lawson (The Hill)

During the last debate between the two men, Gillum said that DeSantis had “neo-Nazis” helping his campaign out, and that “racists believe he (DeSantis) is racist.”

“Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”

DeSantis and Gillum on opposite ends of immigration reform spectrum.