Effects of Irma could play stormy role in Florida’s 2018 Senate race

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- by USA Today

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(Also published by the The Indianapolis Star, The Arizona Republic, The (Memphis) Commercial-Appeal, The Bergen (N.J.) Record and 35 other newspapers)
Irma has left Florida but its destructive wake could blow political winds into next year’s Senate election when GOP Gov. Rick Scott is expected to challenge Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.
….. “In the long run, I think Nelson has the better of this argument,” said Keith Fitzgerald, a political science professor at the New College of Florida in Sarasota.

“Whether or not you can say this particular storm was caused by climate change, clearly it’s brought home to people (that) we have to start thinking about these things,” said Fitzgerald, a former Democratic state legislator. “People will forget about the governor appearing calm on television. But over the course of the campaign, being on the wrong side of climate change is probably not good for Scott.”