And joining us from miami is marc caputo who covers political for politico. Com. Give us the landscape in the state right now. There is a few you have to consider. One is the broader victim. Coronavirus and protests. Both are gripping the state. Especially coronavirus. Now this is President Trumps home adopted state as newly adopted state but that doesnt seem to make much of a different in the polls. He currently, when you look at the surveys is losing badly. I think the average showed almost eight points. It is an astonishing margin and bigger than Hillary Clinton was at this point. Having covered a number of close races in florida going back to the 2000 predial election that decided the presidency by 537 votes after 37 days of recounting i always get suspicious or weary of polls showing a big blowout out aft top of the ticket race. So if biden wins florida, i dont see him winning by eight points. That is just me. As you look back at 2016 it was a very close rate between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Just about a percentage point between the two of them. Why was it so kpesive back then and what are the lessons as we move into the election. It is all about turnout and it is. If you look back and finally slice the data in 2016, which pretty fascinating, is when the absentee ballots or mailin ballots were counted on election day morning and the preelection day early inperson votes were counted with them, Hillary Clinton was ahead by by 250,000 votes. But she wound up losing by about 115,000. That means there was about a 350,000 or so surge in margin in Republican Voters that enabled trump to win. There was just this huge turnout of his voters. Especially in counties where we were surprised at the level of turnout. Southwest florida where naples is located. Nine out of ten people showed up and votes and many of them voted republican. So that is an important thing to keep in mind. Also it is florida. 2016, President Trumps 1. 19 percentage point victory over clinton was bigger than obamas onepoint victory in 2012. In 2018 in the midterms, we had senate race, the governors race and the race for state wide chief Financial Officer all go to recount. There was a margin of a half percent or less. Weve had a history of close races. Why . Were sort of a transient state and a state in flux. And every since 2000, as i referenced earlier, most Political Parties have seen this as crucial especially in a president ial race. When you look at the electoral college, the democrats are going to win california, the biggest with the biggest votes and theyre going to win new york which is now the fourth largest state behind florida. And the republicans are going to win texas. So if the republican doesnt win florida, hes essentially already so far behind that it is impossible to catch up. It is still possible. We saw in 2016 that because of the rust belt state straight flush that trump had been able to play by winning wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio, and michigan. He didnt need to win florida. This year they are more doubtful as florida is a mustwin state for the republicans, not so much for the democrats. In terms of Political Capital in organization, what does Governor Ron Desantis bring to the Trump Campaign . That is a good question. He still got favorable numbers that are higher than his unfavorable numbers. So that is an important thing. Now hes taken a bit of a shot in his favor ability rating with the way hes handled coronavirus or i should say the National News media has portrayed the coronavirus. I do have in an issue with some of the coverage but that is for another day. As head of the state, Governor Desantis is in charge of the secretary of state who oversees election machinery and the like. And if the election looks like it did in 2012, where you had huge lines of people waiting to cast early votes, the governor at the time Charlie Crist made sure to give people more time to do that. Later on when pardon me in 2008 that was the case. In 2012 when Governor Scott saw the huge lines he didnt open the polls longer for early voting so the governor has leeway to expand the ability to cast ballots in an emergency situation. The election supervisors in florida have petitioned for more authority and ability to conduct more absentee ballotond mailin voting accounting and processes to get ready for the fact that a lot of people are probably staying at home and voting that way. And so far desantis hasnt moved on that. That is a tangible and practical way in which hes effecting the conducting of the election or the orchestration of the election machinery prior to the election. And when you talk about the i4 corridor between orlando and tampa, that is really the swing area of the swing state. But what other parts of the state right now are you looking at that could potentially either turn to donald trump or to joe biden . Im not necessarily looking at flipping counties. Pinellas county in the i4 corridor voted for the democrat in 2018 and i think it might have flipped trump but it is very close. It is a mailin voting county. It is rather white. But it has a more moderate sensibility. It is one of the counties to watch. I referenced Collier County in southwest florida, the count to the north of it in southwest florida, those counties could have big turnout with some of the Rural Counties in north florida and deliver trump once again a margin of victory. I look at florida voting patterns not by region by but race. We, like the rest of the nation, have more polarized voters based on race. 62 of the registered voters here are white and not hispanic and about 13 are black and there is a mishmash of others in the voter rolls. If there is a low latino turnout, which there might be. That is going to be bad news for joe biden. But he needs to get a good 60 vote out of them and a high turnout. We are expecting that there is going to be a revel relatively high white turnout. But if you look at the polling nationally, with older white voters, donald trump is starting to hemorrhage their support. If that happens in florida, and this is an if, i need to stress, it is going to be lights out for the president. Now im saying this in june. And anything that could happen as weve seen, the election is many moons, many miles and many centuries it seems in the future and a lot will occur in between now and then. And of course florida is the president s new home state. So will that make a difference in any way, do you think . It makes a difference to this degree. Is that president knows he needs to win florida and hes acting like it. Just like a lot of very large corporations of the federal government they in campaigns break down the nation regions. And campaigns for instance have a Southeast Region composed of southeast states. Trump has the same thing but unlike any other campaign or president ial campaign hes made florida its own region. That is there is georgia and mississippi and alabama and theyre together in one region and then florida is its own region. That is an idea of how important the state is to him and how much attention hell pay to the state. When he announced his reelection bid, did he it here, hes visited frequently and hell be back. So lets talk about the democratic ticket and there is a lot of speculation that valley demings from the orlando area is on the short list. If she is selected and again a long way to go before the selection is made later this summer, what impact would that have on the state potentially . My guess is assuming it is messaged properly and that might be a big assumption, an africanamerican woman at the top of the ticket or the running mate for joe biden would probably do a bit to boost black voter turnout. We have good data that shows us that roughly nine in ten africanamericans who show up to the polls will vote democrat bhu the question is how many will turn up and that is where elections again are won and lost as i said the smartest and dumbest thing said in politics that it is all about turnout. If biden is able to continue to hold this kind of white moderate support, especially among older supporters and able to boost black voter turnout which hillary was unable to do versus barack obama, it looks like a you flip a coin in florida to figure out what is going to win and it lands on its edge. And another speculation on the convention, is there a chance that florida will host the Republican Convention this august . I think there is a very good chance. The way this transpired, we wrote about in in politico, mike walz from northeast Florida Region had called President Trump when he explained that North Carolina was kind of jerking him around, at least in the president s own estimation. And walz was like come down to florida and check out jacksonville. This is an ideal situation for the president in this regard. It is a republican heavy county, a republicanrun county and also on the border of georgia. The down side for jacksonville is this, i dont think there is a covered arena that would be adequate for having the big kind of rally he wants. Remember that President Trump is a rally politician. He needs those big crowds. He hasnt had that. And i think if you look at polling that is one of the reasons hes not doing so well currently. So if jacksonville doesnt get it, it will probably be based on facility and Hotel Availability than political will, win or desire. If t if the county or the city of jacksonville have a covered stadium i would be more sang win on their chances but i dont know how much of a good shot it is. As you said and every political expert said it is all about turnout, turnout, turnout, so in light of the pandemic how does that impact the get out and vote activities for both parties moving into the fall . That is a great question. I think one of the things that is going to hurt democrats, they havent been able to register voters the way they want. You saw with obama he was able to grow the voter rolls ahead of the actual day that people cast ballots. He was able to count on a new and replenished surge of fresh voters. The democrats tend to excel at registering new voters because the base is less frequent voters relative to republicans. Theyve been unable to register the new people to sign up and turnup and show out. So that is a potential problem. How much of a problem im not sure because back to what i mentioned earlier, biden is do rather well in the state and there is a possibility he might not need it. But you expect to see a lot of campaigns between now and november. I do. And im just based this on gut and past experience. Past five of the top ticket races have been decided by a point or less. If someone wins by two points here it is an utter blowout. So i could tell people if they see polls showing that the democrat is winning by eight points in june, dont expect that in november. I could eat my words but im fully ready for a fairly close race that could take longer to declare that in the past because we are looking at the probability of more vote by mail ballots being cast which could take more time to do. No doubt. Well check in with you often between now and november as this Campaign Continues to unfold. Marc caputo joining us from miami, his work available at politico. Com. Thank you for being with us here on cspan. Thank you. Tonight on American History tv starting at 8 00 eastern, on july 23, 1967, detroit erupted in five days of rioting and violence sparked by a police raid on an illegal bar and fueled by long simmering racial tensions. Wxyz tv and abc affiliate was there to record the events as they unfolded. This wxyz Tv Documentary is courtesy of the archives of michigan. Watch American History tv tonight and over the weekend on cspan3. Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg announced his nato 2030 initiative and how they are addressing the coronavirus pandemic and the threat to remove u. S. Troops from germany and accused russia and china of spreading disinformation about the coronavirus. This was held during the atlantic council. It is about 40 minutes. It is wonderful to have this opportunity to discuss nato reflection process with secretary general stoltenberg at a time when the alliance is facing challenge, from russia and china to Cyber Attacks and Climate Change and the pandemic. What are the changes we need to