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Unemployment Woes a Mounting Strain on Trump in Florida

Associated Press

   TALLAHASSEE, FLA. - When the tourists stopped coming in March, so did
   Lorin Lynch's paychecks from a Tampa Bay hotel. She burned through her
   savings while awaiting financial relief from Florida's unemployment
   office. It took nearly three months before the 26-year-old single
   mother finally got a check.

   Even as Florida reopens for business, Lynch is still fuming over an
   unemployment system that was among the country's slowest to respond to
   the economic calamity triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The
   state's own statistics show that about 40% of the 2.2 million claims it
   received remain unpaid.

   Even with unemployment checks now arriving, Lynch said, "I'm honestly
   terrified about how I'm going to feed my son each day and what's going
   to happen next."

   That frustration is a problem for Florida Republicans as they try to
   secure their state again for President Donald Trump. Trump's path to
   winning reelection is exceedingly narrow without Florida's 29 electoral
   votes. The broken unemployment insurance system raises the prospect
   that thousands of out-of-work Floridians will bring their anger to the
   voting booth in a state where races are decided by the slimmest of
   margins.

   "I've been a Trump supporter, but I'm kind of questioning everything,"
   said Lynch, who voted for him in 2016 when she lived in Minneapolis.
   She was initially impressed by his business acumen, she said, but is
   now questioning his leadership in crisis.

   Much of her anger is directed at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump
   ally. DeSantis has acknowledged that the unemployment system known as
   CONNECT was like a "jalopy in the Daytona 500" being "left in the
   dust."

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