Florida News That Impacts You – November 3rd, 2022
Bottom Line: Your daily recap of the biggest news from around the state that impacts you in South Florida. Gas prices continued lower through the weekend.
- Gas prices continued to reset higher accounting for the reimplementation of the state’s 25.3 cent per gallon gas tax this week. As a result, the average price statewide is $3.44 per gallon, 22 cents per gallon higher than a month ago. In Southeast Florida prices range from a low of $3.43 per gallon in Broward and Miami-Dade, to an average high of $3.60 per gallon in the Palm Beaches.
- As of the most recent update from the Florida Division of Elections, over 3.3 million Floridians have voted either by mail or through early in-person voting. Democrats continue to maintain a lead with vote by mail ballots, while Republicans have voted in larger numbers with early voting. Republicans have outvoted Democrats by over 176,895 votes thus far. Early voting continues from 7am to 7pm in the TriCounty through Sunday.
- A newly filed Department of Environmental Protection report shows it will be several months before many of Florida’s waterways contaminated by the impact of Hurricane Ian will be stable once again. The impact of wastewater failures due to flooding, in addition to extensive chemical runoff into waterways has created pollution in central and Southwest Florida’s waters posing a threat to wildlife in addition to people who may come in contact with them. Researchers suggest the recovery timeline will depend on natural weather systems and ocean circulation pulling contaminated water into the open ocean dissipating contaminants.
- A new analysis of post-pandemic Floridians shows that since the onset of the pandemic, twice as many Republicans have moved into the state as compared to Democrats. From mid-March of 2020 to date, 46% of all Florida transplants who’ve registered to vote are Republicans, compared to just 23% who are registered Democrats. 29% have registered as NPA.