TALLAHASSEE – Byron Donalds looks to have an ironclad lock on the Republican gubernatorial primary, leaving the three contenders who trail far behind him in polls to do whatever they can to stay relevant and gain free media exposure.
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So when the state GOP canceled a debate that would have put them on stage with the frontrunner, it sent them over the edge. In recent days, they’ve wielded megaphones and prosthetic legs to register their objections.
With Gov. Ron DeSantis — for years the state party’s clear leader — leaving office because of term limits, the race for his job is wide open for the first time in eight years. And as happened when DeSantis pulled off a surprising win over Adam Putnam, then the state’s agriculture commissioner and the party favorite, President Donald Trump has tipped the scales, endorsing Donalds as he did DeSantis in 2018.
That’s left the governor, who has not endorsed any of the candidates, on the sidelines, and Florida’s GOP showing signs of disarray as the mantle is passed from DeSantis.
“We’re in a transition. There’s always friction when that happens,” said state party chairman Evan Power.
But he shrugged off any real worries, saying Florida’s Republicans are focused on backing a candidate who will win in November and keep the governor’s mansion in GOP hands.
“These are all sideshows,” he said of recent inter-party spats.
Parties generally avoid this kind of squabbling in wide-open governor’s races by letting the candidates compete and seeing who wins the primary, said Gregory Koger, a political science professor at the University of Miami. That’s what happened in GOP primaries with Rick Scott in 2010 and with DeSantis in 2018.
This year’s primary should be wide open, with DeSantis departing, but the party has anointed one candidate, Koger said. So there is still in-fighting but no longer much of a horse race, as everyone but Donalds is “gasping for oxygen,” he said, and “from the point of view of donors and the media, the race is over.”
Most of the current brouhaha is over the decision by Donalds and the party to cancel a gubernatorial debate because Donalds was the only candidate who met the party’s steep criteria to participate in the so-called Sunshine State Showdown set for June 27 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
The entry criteria — discussed with and agreed upon in advance by all the candidates, Power said — included collecting more than $10 million, polling at 10% in a legitimate poll, and having more than 10,000 donors — standards only Donalds has been able to achieve.
“The idea that there were any kind of preconditions or we’ve agreed to anything is garbage. I’ve never agreed to limit free speech and I would not do that as governor,” former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner of Palm Coast said in a video posted on X Wednesday.
But Power said Renner and his team were aware of and agreed to the criteria, which copied those used in the 2024 GOP presidential debate.
Donalds leads the pack in every way that matters, Power said. He has raised more than $81 million in campaign contributions from over 10,000 donors. He consistently polls in the 40% to 50% range, well above the single-digit numbers the others manage to get. And he has the “gold standard endorsement of all endorsements” from Trump, Power said.
Jay Collins, a former state senator from Tampa appointed by DeSantis as lieutenant governor last summer, comes closest to meeting the financial criteria with just over $10 million, according to the most recent campaign records, but trails in the polls at around 5%.
Renner has raised about $6.7 million, and spent about half of it, campaign records through May 31 show. But of the four ranked candidates, he has the lowest ranking in the polls at around 2%. The other seven qualified candidates in the race don’t even register in the polls.
James Fishback, who grew up in South Florida but now lives about an hour east of Tallahassee, comes in second in the polls, albeit a very distant second, at around 8%, although at least one outlier survey has him at 39%. He’s raised barely over $1 million. And he’s spent most of it already, the most recent public campaign records show.
Polymarket, the world’s largest online prediction site, projects Donalds at 94%, with Fishback at 6% and Collins at less than 1% in the August primary.
Their low campaign funds and low poll numbers haven’t deterred the trailing candidates from doing what they can to stay in the game.
During a press conference in the Panhandle on Tuesday, Collins took off his prosthetic leg and slammed it on the podium in response to a question from a reporter. The reporter had asked Collins about Donalds saying “there are no participation trophies in politics” in response to backlash over the canceling of the debate.
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“That participation trophy line is a bit of a slap in the face,” said Collins, a former Green Beret soldier who lost his leg as a result of injuries sustained in combat. “This is my participation trophy.”
Fishback showed up at a Donalds campaign event in Lake City on Saturday with a bunch of supporters, shouting through a bullhorn that Donalds was a coward for not debating him and telling him to go back to New York, a reference to Donalds’ childhood in Brooklyn.
“You’re a slave,” Fishback shouted in Donalds’ face as he walked through the crowd to a waiting SUV. “You’re destroying our state. Why don’t you debate?”
Donalds responded by making “blah-blah” hand gestures.
Meanwhile, DeSantis, who has mostly stayed out of the primary race even as his lieutenant governor runs, took a swipe at the party for canceling the debate, calling it a “farce” on X.
“Having an open process and having people be able to have their say is always better than trying to engineer an outcome,” DeSantis said during a press conference in West Palm Beach on June 12. “What the party should be doing is what’s in the best interest of Republican voters.”
Koger figures DeSantis is sitting this one out because he doesn’t want to renew the tensions created when he ran against Trump for president in 2024.
“DeSantis is still recovering from his contest with Trump … and doesn’t have more influence than Trump within the Republican Party of Florida,” he said.
A Trump endorsement has a huge effect on MAGA voters, but also carries a warning for those who dare to go against the president and his nominee, Koger said.
“That endorsement comes with the backing of a broader political system that comes with consequences,” he said.
The controversy over the canceled debate has fired up some in the GOP base, who have gone online to protest the decision, complaining that the state party is “forcing Donalds down our throat.”
One anonymous poster on X asked, “Who has the real power here? Evan Power making decisions for everyone.” Another said, “I never voted for them or Evan Power,” while yet another said if Donalds is the GOP nominee, they are voting for David Jolly, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Out of fairness, Power said, the candidates will all have a chance to talk to voters individually at the Hard Rock event, even though there will be no debate. That invitation, however, was rescinded for Fishback, who was barred from attending because of “antisemitic and racist attacks on members of our party,” and for disobeying the rules by agreeing to participate in a debate not sanctioned by the party, Power said.
Fishback, for example, has criticized certain cafeteria food as “goyslop,” an antisemitic term that he’s used repeatedly including at an event this spring at the University of Central Florida.
Power, the party chair, said he understands the other candidates’ frustration. Renner was a great House Speaker, he said, and Collins is a war hero who has served the state and DeSantis.
“There was a time when those qualities would place you in the top tier of candidates,” Power said.
But with the primary seen as a foregone conclusion, the party is moving forward to the general election, Power said.
“My job is to make sure we’re prepared for the general election,” he said. “You can see what’s happening in the field. You can’t deny the reality.”
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