Power Struggles, Florida’s Temperature Check & Historic Hurricane Melissa – Top 3 Takeaways, October 29th, 2025
Takeaway #1: Power Struggles
From Tallahassee to Washington D.C. and various bad actors overseas there are power struggles... And this is nothing new – just in some instances the actors involved and the specific issues in play. In Tallahassee the power struggle hasn’t been between Republicans and Democrats, with Republicans holding a supermajority, it’s been between Governor DeSantis and House Speaker Perez who continues to pursue an agenda that’s commonly a bit different than what the governor has planned – most recently regarding property taxes. In Washington D.C. we just saw air traffic controllers go unpaid yesterday because Senate Democrats, save three, have rejected not only reopening the federal government – but also specifically bills paying federal employees. This has created not only the typical left-right power struggle between Democrats and Republicans, but now also between typical allies in federal labor unions and Democrats – who've called on Dems to vote with the GOP. Then there’s the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the general power struggles between the U.S. (with our allies) and what are effectively the new axis powers in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea – with Little Rocket Man, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. But it’s a different type of power struggle that’s quickly coming into play as well, and that’s the actual need for more power. In an ICF study released recently the demand for additional power in the U.S. will grow by 25% within just the next five years and explode by 78% over the next twenty-five years. The Age of crypto and AI comes with an enormous demand for new energy which independent of the rare earth minerals President Trump has been working to sure up recently and that will doubtlessly be a meaningful aspect of Thursday’s trade discussions with President Xi Jing Ping of China. But here’s the thing about the surging demand for power. We don’t have it. Most recently power generation has only been growing domestically by 1.7% per year. That’s not even half the rate of generation that’s needed to account for the growth in demand by the end of the decade. As a result, the ICF report suggests that consumer prices could rise by 15% to 40% over the next five years. The need to rapidly develop more power is here, or affordability challenges will grow. The basic Chat GPT or Grok service is free; the power that’s being used to generate those results isn’t. There needs to be a massive push towards significantly increasing the power generation capabilities within our state and across the country if we’re going to meet the need of the AI-age without getting raked by the rates in the process.
Takeaway #2 Florida’s Temperature Check
It’s rare that we get off election year polling in our state, and any of it shouldn’t be taken especially seriously. With that said, they can at least provide a bit of insight as temperature checks. The University of North Florida’s poll released yesterday showed few surprises with 2026’s statewide races. Effectively whomever the Republican candidate for an office is, and whatever that office is, they’re showing a double-digit lead. Given that Florida's Republican Party now has a double-digit percentage lead statewide over Democrats, that’s not a particularly surprising thing. In the poll CNN was the least trusted national outlet for news with 47% saying they “mostly lie” about the news. Also, by a double-digit percentage Floridians approve of President Trump’s handling of immigration policies – which is notable given the Left’s/media’s attempted slandering of the Alligator Alcatraz situation among other detention and deportation things across our state. But what was most interesting to me in the survey was this about the issues and property taxes. The top three issues to Floridians right now were said to be housing costs, property insurance and property taxes. Interestingly, on the matter of property taxes which obviously directly impact the top issue, the cost of housing too, a majority of Floridians said they supported eliminating property taxes but only by 49%-43%. For a proposed amendment to pass, 60% is the threshold. Again, these polls should be taken with a grain of salt but what it shows in that in a poll where every GOP candidate offered up for statewide office was showing a double-digit lead – which seems about right, eliminating property taxes as Governor DeSantis is pushing for has less support. As I’d previously suggested would likely be the case, DeSantis doesn’t just have an uphill battle with the legislature over this issue, he appears to have a bit of an uphill climb with voters too.
Takeaway #3: Devastation
It was late last week I suggested Melissa was shaping up to be the most devastating hurricane we’d seen since Dorian stalled over Marsh Harbor in 2019. On Tuesday, just prior to landfall, we saw Hurricane Melissa ominously tie Dorian for second all-time (and one of five) in overall strength with top sustained winds checking in at 185 mph. 1980’s Hurricane Allen remains the strongest ever recorded with top winds of 190 mph, with now five that have reached the breathtaking speed of 185 mph. The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, Gilbert (which incidentally make landfall in Jamaica as a cat 4) in 1988, Hurricane Wilma – incidentally the last to make landfall in Palm Beach County just over twenty years ago in 2005, Dorian in 2019 and now Melissa. But most of those hurricanes topped out prior to landfall. Melissa tied Dorian as the strongest at landfall with winds at 185 mph – the Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys in 1935 checked in at 182 – the strongest at landfall in the United States. Melissa marked the first cat 5 on record to strike Jamaica, and the deadly storm which had been battering the Island nation from below for days prior to yesterday’s landfall, had claimed seven lives prior to landfall. Jamacia’s population is 2.82 million, or in other words about the size of Mississippi's population. For much of the past week I’ve encouraged prayers for the people of Jamaica they’re still needed as relief will be too as reports of historic devastation roll in. In one of the last reports from a CNN reporter in a coastal town known as Alligator Pond, just prior to landfall as he was trying to evacuate to higher ground he said: Everybody in Alligator Pond is crying out now. I’m sorry that I never took the bus yesterday to go to higher ground. The whole coastline is gone. It will take some time to uncover the extent of what’s happened here, especially as Melissa is far from done as she impacts Cuba, the Bahamas and likely Bermuda too. Keep praying for those people too. Jamaica has launched a website for donations. It’s Support Jamaica – Official Disaster Relief & Recovery Portal.