Are the Bucs OK?
Sure, the Dolphins are worse. They’ve started 0-2 with ESPN’s model giving Miami less than a 1% chance at the playoffs. It’s ugly, but it’s the deliberate kind of ugly needed during a rebuild.
The Jaguars also got tripped up last week, blowing a 13-3 lead in a 20-13 loss at Denver. That was their first regular-season defeat since before last year’s eight-game closing run that delivered a 13-win AFC South title under Liam Coen. But one bad half in Mile High against an elite defense doesn’t negate the fact that the franchise looks to be in a good spot.
But the Bucs?
Tampa Bay opened the season in Cincinnati by coughing up the ball over and over and over again, and still only lost by one score.
Then came the home opener against the Browns, a franchise that couldn’t crack 10 points in Week 1. The Bucs led by 10 in the third quarter, but let Deshaun Watson of all people carve them up on the way to a 23-19 Cleveland win. It was the Browns’ first victory under new coach Todd Monken, and it dropped Tampa Bay to 0-2 for the first time since 2014, a season that ended 2-14.
None of this came out of nowhere. The Bucs imploded down the stretch last year, handing a very winnable NFC South to Carolina and missing the playoffs, and they’re now 2-9 over their last 11 games. Yikes.
That leaves Todd Bowles, extended just last year, squarely on the hottest seat in the state. “Nobody is coming to save us,” Bowles said after the Browns loss.
With an unbeaten Vikings team on the schedule Sunday, he’d better hope they find a way to save themselves.
Now, it’s on to our weekly game of winners and losers.
Winners
Honorable mention: María Elvira Salazar, Darren Soto. The Hispanic Lobbyists Association gave U.S. Rep. Soto its Democratic Poder Award and U.S. Rep. Salazar the Republican version at this year’s Avanza Awards, held at North Hall in Washington’s Eastern Market.
The Poder award recognizes members of Congress that the Hispanic Lobbyists Association credits with building diverse staffs and widening the path for Latinos. The nonpartisan association, founded in 2006, mentors and promotes Hispanic professionals working in lobbying and public affairs.
The timing is useful for both candidates. Soto is in a competitive fight with Republican Dan Green in Florida’s 9th Congressional District. Soto’s own internal polling showed the two tied at 41%, and this week the incumbent went on air with a six-figure ad buy touting his record on Social Security and insulin costs.
Salazar faces Democrat Eliott Rodriguez in CD 27, a seat Rodriguez’s pollster now calls a toss-up. She also just released an ad telling President Donald Trump his immigration enforcement has “gone too far.” That has earned her a torrent of criticism from the hard right.
Hispanic voters will decide a large share of both contests, and Salazar’s ad openly argues that many who powered Trump’s 2024 win now feel let down. A bipartisan award for Latino outreach will help both incumbents make their case for re-election among a voting bloc that could decide their respective races.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Florida Democrats. It still remains to be seen whether Democrats can translate promising September polling into actual wins in November, but election handicappers are becoming increasingly open to the idea.
Last week, Inside Elections moved the Governor’s race between Byron Donalds and David Jolly from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.” This week, Sabato’s Crystal Ball followed with the same move. Sabato’s analysts cited tight polling, a sour national mood and possible voter fatigue after decades of GOP control in Tallahassee.
A day later, Decision Desk HQ shifted the race from “Leans Republican” to “Toss Up.” The outlet cut Donalds’ odds to win to 60%, 8 points lower than where they stood when September began.
The shift is registering in Donalds’ camp. He accused David Jolly of trying to “run out the clock” by skipping debates, and Donalds’ campaign reworked its website in a way that pushed Donald Trump’s endorsement further down the page as the President’s approval ratings plummet and Donalds tries to appeal beyond the GOP base.
Florida’s congressional contests also saw a sharp shift. Fox News’ Power Rankings moved 15 races across the country, and seven were in Florida. All of those seven moved toward Democrats.
U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz came out best, with his race in the redrawn Florida’s 25th Congressional District moving from “Toss-up” to “Lean D” despite a district Trump carried with nearly 54%. U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor’s race in Florida’s 14th Congressional District against Mike Beltran moved from “Lean R” to “Toss-up,” as did Pia Dandiya’s open-seat race against Casey Askar in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District.
Four more seats slid from “Likely R” to “Lean R,” giving a boost to Bale Dalton against Ryan Elijah in Florida’s 7th Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Darren Soto against Dan Green in Florida’s 9th Congressional District, Leela Gray against U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, and Eliott Rodriguez against U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar in Florida’s 27th Congressional District.
Sabato separately downgraded Salazar’s seat to “Lean Republican,” pointing to her public break with the administration on immigration and a potentially sharp Cuban American swing.
Gray got another bump Friday, when the Cook Political Report also moved CD 13 from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican.” Her campaign called the momentum “undeniable,” promising to unseat Luna in 39 days.
As we wrote last week, Democrats have been here before while ultimately suffering losses once real votes are counted. And many of these Republicans still hold financial advantages that could tip the scales in their favor.
But at the very least, this momentum in polls and elsewhere is allowing Democrats to make the case to donors and voters not to count them out.
The biggest winner: Marva Johnson. Johnson courted plenty of resistance when she took over as Florida A&M University President. This week, she saw her standing increase on two fronts at once.
The latest U.S. News & World Report rankings were largely disappointing for Florida higher education institutions. But FAMU stood out, jumping 12 spots overall, from 168th to 156th, and 13 spots among public universities, from 92nd to 79th.
That made it one of only two Florida schools to climb meaningfully, alongside the private University of Miami. Other educational pillars like the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida all slipped.
Results like that make it harder to argue that Johnson is the wrong leader for FAMU.
On top of that, FAMU Trustees voted unanimously to award Johnson her full $86,000 performance bonus after signing off on her first-year evaluation and her goals for the coming year. The bonus sits on top of a $650,000 base salary under her five-year contract. Board Chair Deveron Gibbons acknowledged the year had its rough patches but said Johnson “stayed the course.”
The most telling praise came from people who once opposed her. Student Body President Kennedy Williams, who publicly fought Johnson’s hiring, told Johnson she had put student success at the center of everything. Faculty Senate President Jamal Brown thanked her for a negotiated raise that bumped faculty base pay following a one-time 4% bonus last year.
Next year’s targets are ambitious: 10,000 students, $160 million in non-tuition revenue and $18 million in fundraising, up from $17.2 million this past year.
But so far, FAMU is humming under Johnson’s leadership.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Kevin Anderson. The Fort Myers Mayor has resigned from multiple positions after a student accused him of asking sexually explicit questions — but so far has resisted stepping down as Mayor.
The trouble surfaced publicly when the News-Press and Naples Daily News reported that an 18-year-old Florida Gulf Coast University student, Dominic Hendricks, told FGCU’s ethics office that Anderson had grilled him with sexually explicit questions at the city’s July 4 America 250 celebration.
Hendricks, a regular at City Council meetings, said the Mayor steered the conversation from politics to his sex life, then tried to take him to dinner. Anderson acknowledged asking the student about his dating life but denies the most explicit questions attributed to him.
There’s also a November 2024 police call involving a 21-year-old, Kagan Vann, who told officers he’d been drinking with the Mayor and later said Anderson offered him money for sex. Friends reportedly worried his drink had been tampered with. Officers who reviewed the texts between the two described them as consensual and noncriminal, and state investigators later closed the case without charges.
Then, at Monday’s Council meeting, both young men confronted Anderson during the public comment period. Multiple residents also demanded his resignation, protesters rallied outside, and police ended up escorting the Mayor out after he gaveled the meeting to a close.
Anderson called the allegations “completely false and taken out of context” and said he isn’t resigning.
He has, however, left the FGCU Alumni Association’s board, which honored him as its top alumnus in 2024, and the board of Valerie’s House, a grief support nonprofit for children.
None of this has produced criminal charges, and Anderson has denied wrongdoing throughout. But it doesn’t look like the public pressure is going away anytime soon.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Debates. Somewhere in Florida, an undecided voter is apparently sitting by the TV, remote in hand, waiting for two candidates to share a stage before making up their mind.
That voter is going to be waiting a while.
Jolly has turned down every debate with Donalds, which could leave Florida without a gubernatorial debate for the first time in more than half a century. Republican U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody has likewise refused to share a stage with Angie Nixon, arguing a Democratic Socialist doesn’t deserve the platform.
Both sides are, of course, crying foul about the other side’s cowardice. Donalds’ campaign has hammered Jolly for hiding and even called for three General Election debates, which is an interesting position for a candidate who skipped every Primary debate because he was comfortably ahead.
Down the ballot, it’s more of the same. Republican U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis isn’t debating, and U.S. Reps. Luna and Laurel Lee haven’t scheduled any debates either. Sydney Gruters’ campaign says she’s too busy crisscrossing six counties in Florida’s 16th Congressional District to find time for a forum. The only competitive Tampa Bay-area House race with debates on the books is CD 14 featuring Beltran and Castor, and even there Beltran spent the week insisting that two debates aren’t enough because neither will be on TV.
Democratic strategist Steve Schale noted the reason for the changing landscape surrounding debates. An incumbent like Luna doesn’t need voters most likely to tune into debates. She needs to focus on base enthusiasm and turnout. And the upside of a strong night is dwarfed by the risk of a 10-second gaffe going viral.
This isn’t just a Florida phenomenon. A Brookings Institution study found debates in the country’s most competitive Senate races dropped sharply between 2010 and 2022, long before anyone in Florida decided to skip them. And we all remember Trump’s refusal to share the stage with Primary rivals in the 2024 cycle.
Debate advocates argue a sizable chunk of voters remains persuadable. But in a state with a 1.5-million-voter Republican registration edge and turnout-driven campaigns on both sides, candidates have decided the path to victory runs through door knocks, ad buys and social media posts instead.
The biggest loser: Fabián Basabe. When politicians are hit with a scandal, the best way to operate is usually to keep your head down and move forward. Deny where needed, don’t say too much otherwise. In the case of a bad jury verdict, you can lean on the appeal and say you’re waiting on the legal process to fully play out.
Rep. Basabe is decidedly not doing that.
Instead, in an opinion piece submitted to the Miami New Times, the Miami Beach Republican argued that people calling him a rapist should simply take a good look at him.
“Open your eyes and look at me. I don’t need to rape shit,” he wrote.
To recap: A Leon County jury found Basabe liable for sexual harassment, battery and defamation against a former aide and a former intern, ordering him to pay $450,000. A separate rape allegation came from an anonymous witness whose livestreamed testimony the judge later barred jurors from considering.
Basabe is right that no court has found he raped anyone. He could have stopped there.
Instead, he built the essay around a comparison between him and Trump, a move several embattled Republicans have attempted. “Trump was unfairly persecuted,” they argue, “and so was I.”
But the line urging people to “look at” him is what jumped out the most. Pressed by the Miami New Times, he texted that he meant people should look at his whole life, including friends and family who have stood by him, not just his face.
We’ll leave it to the readers to judge whether that was his intent or his excuse when he got called on the phrasing. But does either explanation justify dismissively writing, “I don’t need to rape shit” as a defense, as if plenty of otherwise successful people who have family and friends in their corner haven’t done wrong?
We’ll also remind readers that all of this comes from a lawmaker who pledged on camera before the 2024 election to resign if the allegations were ever proven, then argued in a Miami Herald column last month that a civil verdict didn’t count.
Multiple previous Basabe supporters have revoked their endorsements, and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has put his HD 106 seat on its target list behind challenger Lucía Báez-Geller.
It’s unclear how this latest PR push is going to help Basabe in November.
