TAMPA, Fla — On Election Day, the importance of winning the Sunshine State is not lost on Trump adviser and White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who finds "all roads run through Florida and of course the I-4 corridor."
10 Tampa Bay anchor Rob Finnerty joined the Tampa native for a Zoom interview this morning to get an idea of the Trump campaign's view of the state and their chances of coming out on top.
And unsurprisingly, McEnany believes the president will take not only the battleground state but the entire election over Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
"We believe he’ll be victorious. Our numbers look good," McEnany said, agreeing that a possible Trump victory tonight would be one of the greatest upsets in American presidential politics.
McEnany cites a "palpable feeling" across the county and the turnout they are seeing at campaign events being "remarkable" as just some of the reasons she believes the support for Trump is strong enough to get him another four years in office.
“The numbers in Florida, in particular, are just stunning. The fact that we’ve won 13 consecutive days of early voting, Republicans don’t normally do that and, in particular, Miami-Dade County, where we’ve outpaced Democrats," McEnany said. "That doesn’t happen in Miami-Dade County. And I believe the story of this election will be Latino turn out for President Trump.”
But even though enthusiasm does mean more than one vote per person for Trump, McEnany is not nervous about the amount of Americans who turned out to vote early or by mail.
“We believe in Election Day voting that gives the American people a chance to fully watch the debates, hear the closing arguments, and vote on Election Day," she said.
And the campaign is keeping a very close eye on Florida and the Tampa Bay area.
“We believe we’ll win. We believe we’ll know very early. Of course, they’ll have to take some time to count it, but we are predicting victory in the great state of Florida," said McEnany, calling the margin this year thinner than that of the 2016 election.
McEnany also said the president's team is keeping a close eye on Pinellas County, an area that has chosen the correct president since 1980, except for 2000. According to her account of a county staffer, McEnany says the president is seeing a 2.5- to 1-point advantage in Pinellas.
As for why McEnany believes Trump is the right choice? She says he's up to the task. The press secretary claims Biden is confused about topics and is not aggressive enough with campaigning.
“The American people can watch and they can see for themselves and ask themselves ‘Is Joe Biden up to the task?’ And I think the answer is no," she said.
The Tampa native also commented on a point of contention circling social media and political conversations. Will Trump call a premature victory?
“We can’t predict what would happen, but the president will not declare premature victory. He’ll declare a victory when in fact he believes the voice of the American people has been accurately and truly encapsulated," McEnany said.
And while winning as many states as possible to secure enough Electoral College votes to declare victory, so is winning a battleground state like Florida to the Trump campaign.
"Florida is indispensable to us," she said. " All roads run through Florida and of course the I-4 corridor."
McEnany has been volunteering as a senior adviser for President Trump's reelection campaign in addition to her formal taxpayer-funded role as White House press secretary. The adviser position has raised some eyebrows among ethics watchdogs cited in recent media reports.
“This looks like the latest example of Trump administration officials bending and breaking ethics laws and norms,” Paul Seamus Ryan, vice president of litigation for the nonprofit group Common Cause told The Daily Beast. “This is unfortunately par for the course for this administration.”
A White House spokesperson told the publication she had not been representing the government during recent Fox News appearances and was instead appearing in her "personal capacity as a private citizen."
She was also appearing in that capacity in her interview with 10 Tampa Bay.
You can watch the full interview below:
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