Florida Rep. Carolina Amesty surrendered herself Thursday after a warrant was issued for her arrest in connection with felony charges, and the latest updates from the campaign trail.

State Rep. Carolina Amesty accused of forgery, surrenders to Orange County jail

State Rep. Carolina Amesty turned herself in for booking at the Orange County jail Thursday afternoon in relation to an outstanding warrant for her arrest.

The Republican Florida House member is charged with four felonies. She is accused of notarizing her own signature, forgery, uttering forgery, and false notary certification.

According to our partners at the Orlando Sentinel, this follows a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation into her and her family’s nonprofit school, Central Christian University.

Spectrum News reached out to Amesty and her staff members for comment, but has not received a response.

Amesty represents Florida House District 45, which includes parts of Orange and Osceola counties, and she’s wrapping up her first term in office. Amesty is running for re-election in November and faces a general election challenge from former Disney executive Leonard Spencer.

The Sentinel reported that she was alleged to have notarized a form that a man didn't remember signing. Those allegations launched an investigation that was announced by Gov. Ron DeSantis' office. Amesty resigned her notary public commission shortly afterward. 

The man in question was identified by the Sentinel as Robert Shaffer. He said that he didn't work at the school, but Amesty's campaign said he worked at the school under a university's business umbrella. 

Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried reacted to the booking by calling on Amesty to resign.

“No amnesty for Amesty,” Fried posted on X. “The Republican Party of Florida keeps showing us who there are. Time for her to resign from office or be removed.”

Trump set to campaign in battleground states Michigan and Wisconsin

Donald Trump was scheduled to campaign Thursday in Michigan and Wisconsin as the former president ramps up battleground state travel heading into the traditional Labor Day turn toward the fall election.

Trump's intense focus on recapturing states he won in 2016 but lost narrowly in 2020 continues with stops in the middle of Michigan and western Wisconsin.

Trump's day started with an afternoon rally in Potterville, Mich., near the state capital of Lansing. Trump won Eaton County, where part of Lansing is located, in both 2016 and 2020, but by a smaller margin the second time. It was his third visit to the state in the past nine days and second this week after a speech to the National Guard Association in Detroit on Monday, where he was endorsed by former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Later, he visited La Crosse, Wis., for a town hall moderated by Gabbard. It was Trump's first visit to Wisconsin since the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which ended three days before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and made way for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Along with Pennsylvania, which Trump will visit on Friday, these three Midwestern states make up a northern industrial bloc Democrats carried for two decades before Trump won them in 2016. Biden recaptured them on his way to the White House in 2020.

Trump and his vice-presidential pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have blitzed the battleground states in recent weeks, with Vance in both states this week as well.

The battleground offensive comes as a reinvigorated Democratic Party rallies around Harris and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Harris and Walz are aiming to leverage the surge in enthusiasm among the party's base since her campaign launch just over a month ago. They hope this excitement — which was on full display at last week's convention in Chicago — will extend to more moderate areas as they embarked on a two-day bus tour in Georgia, including events in the state's rural southern regions.

Trump's events in Michigan and Wisconsin are both in swing congressional districts.

Potterville is in Michigan's 7th District, which features a mix of Republican-dominated counties like Clinton and Shiawassee, and Democratic strongholds such as Ingham, home to the state capitol and Michigan State University. This district is expected to be one of the nation's most competitive this fall following incumbent Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin's decision to run for the state's open U.S. Senate seat.

La Crosse, meanwhile, is a hub within Wisconsin's 3rd Congressional District, where Republican Derrick Van Orden won narrowly in 2022. Democrat Rebecca Cooke won the Aug. 13 primary to face him in November.

Harris, looking to build on Dems' 2020, 2022 momentum, continues Georgia tour ahead of Savannah rally

In 2020, Georgia voted to send Joe Biden to the White House, flipping a state that Donald Trump comfortably carried in 2016 and no Democrat had won since 1992.

A few weeks later, the state's voters sent a pair of Democrats to represent them in the U.S. Senate, ousting two Republican incumbents, giving Georgia its first Black and Jewish senators and marking the first time since 1994 that a state's senate delegation flipped from one party to the other entirely in the same election cycle. (Warnock won a full term in 2022 against Republican candidate Herschel Walker, the only statewide Democrat to win in Georgia during the midterms that year.)

While much credit for the historic victories was attributed to a population boom in the metro Atlanta area, Georgia state Sen. Derek Mallow, a Democrat, said some recognition must be given to the southern part of the Peach State as well.

“Right here in Chatham County, to be exact, we increased in 2020 over 2016, 10,000 votes, to go out for President Biden," Mallow told Spectrum News, noting that Biden only won the state four years ago by less than 12,000 votes. "So it’s a testament to the work that we do, not only in Chatham County but South Georgia, is that we can deliver the state of Georgia for Vice President (Kamala) Harris.”

Harris, now the Democratic nominee, is looking to continue to build on that momentum with her bus tour through South Georgia this week.

“This is the first time since Bill Clinton ran for president that a candidate for president — outside of Jimmy Carter — has campaigned the entire state of Georgia from the north to the south," Mallow said, invoking the 39th president, who previously served as Georgia's governor. "And I think that's a testament that Vice President Harris is saying, 'Look, I want to govern for everyone.'"

“That inclusivity means that your town matters — and we're in the city of Savannah, 190,000 population,” Mallow added. “Compared to the millions of folks that live in Atlanta, we still matter.”

Mallow said that Democrats have continued to build upon the momentum that elected Ossoff and Warnock and that they are “locked in” for Harris in November.

“The ground game the Democrats have is one to be envied. We're going to knock on the doors, we're going to talk to everybody, we'll leave no stone unturned,” he said, adding that he believes Harris’ “affiliation to the Divine Nine, being a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, being, a Black Asian candidate for president of the United States creates an energy around where folks haven't seen representation.”

The Harris campaign has said they have more than 190 Democratic coordinated campaign staff in 24 offices across the state, “from rural counties like Washington and Jenkins counties to the outer Atlanta metro counties that are rapidly shifting, including Forsyth and Fayette.”

They said that recent organizing events have had more than 300 people turn out in Forsyth County, which Trump won in 2020.