The clickbait headline I saw on Wednesday was begging me to click: Breaking! The Villages in Florida is turning blue! I don’t know what was breaking – maybe a hip – but it is “The Villages” turning blue? Maybe the hair color of the old ladies, but not the politics. They do have a small cadre of TDSers.
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“BlueHairs for Harris.” About as catchy as White Dudes for Harris.
On Monday Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the Democrat running for Senate against Rick Scott led a parade of retirees driving their golf carts from The Villages to the county government building where the Blue Hairs for Harris turned in their ballots. Murcarsel-Powell is getting trounced in the latest poll, currently 7 points behind Scott. She ran a TV Ad recently depicting Scott as a snake. Very classy Debbie.
A local online site reported the event:
Following that rally, Mucarsel-Powell took to her Instagram account and posted, “The Villages SHOWED UP!! Thanks for helping us launch our Freedom tour around Florida.”
On Monday, through his X account, Bill Madden, a self-described activist from New York City who goes by @maddenifico, with more than 261,000 followers, shared his thoughts on the turnout.
“Huge breaking news coming out of The Villages, a historically Republican area where the line to drop off ballots right now spans over a mile long and is full of Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz supporters,” Madden said. “I don’t think you realize how big of a deal this is. The Villages is literally a Republican area. It is a retirement community made up of a lot of conservative seniors … If Democrats run up some numbers there, then Florida could easily be in play at the senate level or even on the presidential level.”
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Yeah, sure bro.
The huge, breaking news was that maybe 200 or so blue hairs hopped into their carts and traveled about a mile to the county building where Democrat operatives were waiting to direct the retirees where to drop their ballots. In the video, a woman is heard telling the Village people to “smile for the camera!”
Was that exciting? Frankly, they looked pretty grumpy. There’s a photo of the cart containing Mucarsel-Powell and a driver. The driver’s face screams, “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
After they all dropped their ballots and played some bingo (I made that up) the assembled voters gathered to give speeches… and then played bingo. One woman, dressed in a costume of the Statue of Liberty, declared that she “wasn’t going back!” To Where? The Villages? Pickleball? The Harris-Biden years? Be specific, Lady Lib.
Although Debbie and her soon-to-be out-of-work campaign workers tried to cast this event as a massive move in the blue direction it really wasn’t. The Villages is apparently pretty big. As in, massive by retirement community standards. In the parlance of Trump, it’s HUUUUGE.
With 150,000 retirees spread across three counties, pulling a couple hundred and calling it “Massive” and “Breaking” seems to be a slight exaggeration. Even if 200 BlueHairs for Harris showed up, that’s 0.1333 percent of The Village People. Is The Villages trending Blue? Only in hair dye.
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The local reporting seems a little, well, slanted
In April, a rally to support Harris in The Village of Wildwood drew around 500 golf carts. One golf cart was even spotted with a “Brat” poster on the back, a term made popular by the British pop singer Charli xcx, who wrote on X, “kamala IS brat” — explaining on TikTok what it means.
In April, Harris was just the most unpopular VP in history, and Biden was the candidate. But never mind.
As of Oct. 16, of the mail in ballots already submitted, Democrats have seen higher numbers in two of The Villages three counties. In Lake County, 5,593 Democrats have mailed in ballots —as compared to 5,183 Republicans. And in Marion County, 6,847 Democrats and 6,301 Republicans have already mailed their ballot.
In Sumter County, where there are currently 73,601 registered Republicans, compared to just 24,641 registered Democrats — so far, Republicans there have cast 12,389 mail-in ballots, compared to 8,768 Democrats.
Is Florida, and specifically The Villages, a Republican stronghold? BINGO!