Analysis: A non-American’s guide to the 2022 US midterms
The House races in Florida and Virginia feature a lot of high-powered candidates for president, but it’s the two Senate contests that are playing out on the national stage that are the most interesting to watch.
In Florida, candidates for the State Senate are attacking each other over healthcare funding and education, while a statewide constitutional amendment that would require “equal pay for women” and eliminate workplace discrimination based on sex and gender is in play.
Meanwhile, incumbent GOP Sen. Bill Nelson is locked in a battle with Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is running on a promise to get Florida to the top of the “blue wave” that Donald Trump’s campaign has predicted.
But Gillum’s candidacy is based on an appeal to voters who are upset about not being represented or having their issues ignored in Washington, D.C. (His campaign has been criticized by Nelson’s camp as a “negative” campaign), but his candidacy has been criticized by a few of his opponents as being one-sided and not fair.
So, for the sake of comparison, we decided to go online and see how a few of the lesser-known senators on the ballot in both of Florida’s major House races, candidates for governor and candidates for the US Senate who are not being attacked by their opponents in a partisan sense, are doing. We spoke to people who were willing to talk on the record about these races, their reasons behind their decisions to run, and how these candidates are competing in a national election in four short months.
The following conversations, as well as all of our other interviews and analyses, have been edited for length and clarity.
Q & A with Mike Bennett
Can you give us an idea of where you stand with the issues that Democrats are putting forward in the midterms?
Mike: We’re not running as a third party. We’re running on our ideas. We’ve been at this since the mid-1990s, and we just don’t