Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t taking the blame for two high-profile Democratic wins in legislative Special Elections last week.
In House District 87, Democrat Emily Gregory defeated Jon Maples, a candidate President Donald Trump backed. And in Senate District 14, Democrat Brian Nathan upset Republican Rep. Josie Tomkow.
DeSantis, speaking in Tampa, focused his remarks primarily on the SD 14 race, which filled the opening left by Jay Collins when he was appointed to be Lieutenant Governor. DeSantis strongly suggested that Tomkow’s loss came down to how she and other legislative Republicans lost the plot when they started bucking the Governor’s agenda.
“I was not involved at all in that race. The reality is, when I get behind a candidate, I’m telling voters that this is somebody that shares my values and that shares our goals for the state of Florida. If you have a candidate that does not do that, I am not going to be supporting them, and that’s what happened in that race,” DeSantis said.
“People can do what they want. But when you run on one way, and then you do things and take really bad votes, that’s just something that I’m not going to sign up for. And so I was very clear from the beginning, I was not going to be involved in that.”
He wasn’t finished impugning the GOP effort though, saying that it turned off even people in the party.
“Four years ago, I won that district overwhelmingly. The former Senator won it pretty strongly, too. Not an easy district for us per se, but that’s just the reality. But what you saw in that is you got a 10-point Republican turnout advantage in that district and still lost the race,” DeSantis said.
“So to me, that tells you not only you’re not doing well with independents, Republicans are voting the other way, registered Republicans. And whether that’s out of protest, whether … maybe they’re not as concerned, I don’t know what goes on there. But I know if you have a 10-point advantage in your party registration, you should be able to win that election.”
