“The reason Trump will be here is he is nervous because his candidate might lose,” Bernie Sanders said during the UCF rally. “And your job is to make Mr. Trump very, very nervous.” | Getty Images Florida Democrats call on Sanders to turn out college voters ahead of Trump rally

TALLAHASSEE — As the 2018 election cycle morphs into a voter turnout game, Florida Democrats on Wednesday enlisted Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to help excite college students — a key demographic that‘s been notoriously difficult to drive to the polls in past midterms.

The Vermont senator held rallies at the University of South Florida in Tampa and University of Central Florida in Orlando with an impassioned get-out-the-vote message that relied on equal parts red-meat liberal policy issues and rhetoric aimed at President Donald Trump, who was set to hold his own rally Wednesday night in Fort Myers.


“The reason Trump will be here is he is nervous because his candidate might lose,” Sanders said during the UCF rally. “And your job is to make Mr. Trump very, very nervous.”

Democrats are breaking out their party‘s biggest names in the final weeks of the election. They’ve already called in Joe Biden, who held rallies in key cities across the state last week, and Hillary Clinton, who attended several fundraisers. Barack Obama is scheduled to make an appearance Friday in Miami.

The stops Sanders made on Wednesday were intended to boost support for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, who is running neck-and-neck with Republican Ron DeSantis, a close political ally of the president. Sanders, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, made no mention of Sen. Bill Nelson, the three-term Democrat who‘s in a brutal re-election fight against Gov. Rick Scott.

Trump played the role of heel at the rallies, but there was also a large focus on the type of policy issues that can fire up the liberal voters found in large numbers on college campuses. Florida Democrats are intensely focused on wooing young voters this year after a court decision that’s allowed early voting sites on campuses for the first time in the state’s history.

Sanders hit all the big liberal policy notes, calling health care a “human right,” pushing a $15 minimum wage, blasting the GOP tax cut bill and stressing the need to immediately address climate change.

“Unlike the president of the United States, you know climate change is real and we have to transform our energy system,” Sanders said.

Sanders lost Florida 64-33 percent to Clinton in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, but remains popular among younger voters and those on the party’s left flank. When Clinton came to Florida last week, she held just one public event, primarily sticking to closed-door fundraisers in support of Gillum’s campaign.

Not surprisingly, Democrats have far outpaced Republicans in early voting turnout at colleges. At USF, 1,285 Democrats have cast ballots, compared to 299 Republicans and 526 with no major party affiliation. For UCF, 1,708 Democrats cast ballots, compared to 410 Republicans and 614 with no major party affiliation.

Overall, pre-Election Day turnout has been high across the state. More than 3.5 million people have already voted, more than the 3.2 million total votes cast before election day in 2014, the last non-presidential campaign cycle. Republicans held a slight 41.9-40 turnout lead over Democrats.