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Opinion Inside Andrew Gillum’s campaign to become Florida’s first black governor

Columnist|
August 28, 2018 at 6:01 a.m. EDT
Andrew Gillum, mayor of Tallahassee, Fla., and candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, speaks with The Post’s Jonathan Capehart during an interview for the “Cape Up” podcast on June 4 at the WNYC radio studios in New York City. (Jonathan Capehart/The Washington Post)

Update, 9 a.m. Aug. 29: On Tuesday, Andrew Gillum won Florida’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Below is my interview with him from earlier this year.

“Cape Up” is Jonathan’s weekly podcast talking to key figures behind the news and our culture. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Andrew Gillum is the mayor of Tallahassee, Fla. On Tuesday he hopes to become the Sunshine State’s Democratic Party nominee for governor. He’s in a crowded field of five candidates, including front-runner Gwen Graham. But if you listen to him, you’ll understand why a poll released on Sunday shows Gillum climbing. This latest episode of “Cape Up” is a rerun of the interview I did in the spring with the candidate who could become Florida’s first African American governor.

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“I don’t need a pollster to tell me what to believe in this race. I don’t need a set of message board points to tell me that people are hurting in my state. I know it because I’ve lived it,” Gillum said when we talked in June. He later added, “There’s a whole section of people in my state who feel unreflected, unheard, unrepresented, and the things that they care about unrepresented.”

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And if the progressive candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) comes up short in the Florida primary, what will he do? “If I’m not the Democratic nominee, I’m gonna get out there and work for whoever the Democratic nominee is,” Gillum said, “because I believe they will be better than the alternative.”

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