donald trump at a campaign rally in naples, florida. | joe raedle/getty images by marc caputo 10/21/16 08:24 pm edt no square inch of the sunshine state is safe next week. trailing in must-win florida, donald trump is planning a seven-city tour of his second home state next week as he urges his rabid fan base to cast early ballots and counteract hillary clinton<u+2019>s massive tv ad blitz. story continued below but clinton<u+2019>s campaign is mounting a team offensive as she, her running mate, her husband, president obama and singer jennifer lopez blanket the state through next saturday, oct. 29. not all of the trump venues are nailed down, but a campaign official said trump wants to hit up seven of the state<u+2019>s 10 media markets by holding rallies and events in or around naples on sunday; west palm beach, st. augustine and sanford on monday; and tampa, miami and tallahassee on tuesday. trump wanted a rally in the melbourne-area as well, but a suitable venue wasn<u+2019>t found. <u+201c>the man is a machine,<u+201d> said the campaign official, who didn<u+2019>t want to be identified because the schedule was being disclosed without approval. <u+201c>florida is mr. trump<u+2019>s second home and it<u+2019>s important that he do well here.<u+201d> it<u+2019>s a must that trump win florida<u+2019>s 29 electoral college votes if he is to have a shot at winning the white house. and right now, 10 of the last public and private polls reviewed by politico florida show him trailing clinton by as little as 1 point a month ago to almost 5 points last week. clinton is killing trump on paid media <u+2014> so much so that the republican presidential candidate complained about the negative ads democrats have trained on him. <u+201c>i turned on the other day <u+2014> i was in florida, and i was in pennsylvania <u+2014> i turned on the television. it was ad after ad after ad,<u+201d> trump said. <u+201c>most of those ads were phony ads. most of the things in those ads were false. they were false. i never said it. they know i didn<u+2019>t say it.<u+201d> also concerning florida republicans: democrats are doing better than ever in casting absentee ballots by mail <u+2014> a field once dominated by the gop. of nearly 1 million ballots already mailed in to election supervisors, republicans account for 41.8 percent and democrats 40.1 percent. that 1.1 percentage-point lead by republicans is significantly down from the 5.5 point lead they held at this point 18 days from the election in 2012. with the start of in-person early voting <u+2014> which democrats typically excel at <u+2014> the gop margin is likely to diminish. but, republicans hope, trump can get his throngs to in-person early vote when it begins in 34 counties on monday. that way, his campaign and the gop can spend more time and money focusing on voters who haven<u+2019>t yet cast a ballot. but clinton<u+2019>s campaign has been registering more voters, and touting absentee and early voting much more than trump. on friday, clinton plugged early voting on a tampa hip-hop radio station, 95.7 the beat friday afternoon. at the same time, husband bill clinton was embarking on a four-city tour from orlando on friday to the panama city area, jacksonville and pensacola on saturday. clinton running mate and virginia sen. tim kaine holds early vote rallies in gainesville at the university of florida and orlando on sunday. on monday, he's at florida international university's main campus in miami-dade county, and at the meyer amphitheater in west palm beach. clinton's campaign reported saturday that hillary clinton will hold a tuesday rally on the north campus of broward college in coconut creek. she's also attending a fundraiser in miami that same day and, perhaps, making another stop in another media-market city along the interstate-4 corridor on wednesday. president obama holds a clinton rally friday in the orlando-area on her behalf and lopez holds a concert-rally for clinton in downtown miami on saturday <u+2014> the first weekend day of early in-person voting. updated saturday at 6 p.m. to note updated details on campaign events by democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton and her running mate tim kaine. marc caputo's must-read briefing on what's hot, crazy or shady about politics in the sunshine state.
trump plans 7-city fla. tour as clinton busts out bubba, barack and jlo next week
marc caputo