DeSantis Spends South Florida's Last Early-Voting Afternoon at a West Palm Beach Rally for Uthmeier

South Florida's early voting ends the way its campaigns wanted it to: with the governor on a stage in West Palm Beach. Governor Ron DeSantis joins Attorney General James Uthmeier this Sunday afternoon, November 1, for the 'Keep Florida Safe, Strong and Free' rally at the Palm Beach PBA Banquet Hall, 2100 North Florida Mango Road, according to the campaign's event listing - doors at 12:45 p.m. and the program from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., paid for by Uthmeier's campaign. The listing bills the rally plainly as a last-day-of-early-voting event: 'Join us on the last day of early voting.'

The timing is the strategy. Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties - the Democratic vote banks Jolly's governor campaign needs to run up - are the part of Florida still voting early today, and all three close their sites tonight at 7 p.m. Most of the rest of the state, Escambia County included, finished early voting on Saturday. A Republican governor spending the final early-voting afternoon in Palm Beach County is a turnout argument aimed at the Republicans and unaffiliated voters of the southeast coast: the ballots cast today are the last ones either party can bank before Tuesday's precinct vote decides the rest.

Uthmeier, the state's attorney general, is himself on Tuesday's ballot, and the DeSantis appearance pairs the administration's law-and-order branding - 'Safe, Strong and Free' - with the down-ballot race in the cycle's final 48 hours. What the rally's speakers say will be reported as it is reported; what the schedule already says is where the state's most prominent Republican chose to be when South Florida's early vote ran out.