Gov. Ron DeSantis is criticizing the Republican Party of Florida deciding not to have candidates debate at the upcoming Sunshine Showdown, but wonders why it’s up to the party to host debates at all.
“They said they were going to do a debate. They didn’t put out the criteria publicly. I don’t think the RPOF ever voted on any type of criteria. I’ve heard secondhand what the criteria was. I wouldn’t have qualified when I ran in ’18 for what they were trying to do. And so, it’s counterproductive when you try to engineer an outcome, because you need a coalition of voters to do well,” DeSantis said Friday.
The party said it required candidates to be at 10% in the RPOF’s own poll, have raised more than $10 million, and have over 10,000 donors. Only U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds meets that threshold, so the party opted to let candidates speak rather than face off, as Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and former House Speaker Paul Renner have called for.
DeSantis said that “having an open process and having people be able to have their say is always better than to try to engineer an outcome.”
“So what the party should be doing is doing what’s in the best interests of Republican voters. You shouldn’t have another agenda, you shouldn’t be answering to anyone else other than the voters there,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis also said it was “ridiculous” for the party to set the debate structure.
“You know, the party has a very limited role. It’s really a, should be a candidate driven process and not for people to be making decisions who voters have never voted into those positions to begin with. So line up something with TV, line up something, radio, all these different forms. there’s a whole host of ways that you can do,” he said.
He noted qualifying ended at noon today and suggested voters aren’t even tuned into the race yet.
