An organization of young conservatives from Florida’s most famous city is getting behind U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds’ bid for Governor.

Miami Young Republicans, self-described as comprising the city’s “next-gen business and political leaders,” is endorsing Donalds to succeed Ron DeSantis as the state’s next top elected executive.

The group cited Donalds’ support of school choice and parental empowerment, his anti-abortion views and his environmental stewardship as key to clinching its support.

“Since starting his political career as a Young Republican, Congressman Donalds has exemplified a strong work ethic and conservative values that reflect the best in our club,” Miami Young Republicans President Tony Figueroa said in a statement.

“During his time in Congress, he has stood firm representing his district and the good that Florida stands for, serving as a true patriot in our nation’s capital. We look forward to working alongside his campaign and delivering victory in his gubernatorial race.”

Miami Young Republicans comprises more than 30 members in elected office, over 300 “emerging leaders, political staffers and young professionals,” and some 50,000 members of a “highly engaged online community,” according to the organization’s website.

Donalds’ relationship with the group solidified when it welcomed Donalds to keynote an event the group hosted Aug. 3, 2023. Other GOP notables that attended and spoke at the event included consultant Roger Stone and former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera, whom President Donald Trump tapped in December to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Panama.

The group’s endorsement of Donalds comes ahead of the potential gubernatorial campaign launches of several other GOP notables, including First Lady Casey DeSantis, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz and former Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward.

It also comes more than a week before Donalds’ hometown kickoff rally in Bonita Springs.

Others backing Donalds include Trump; Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino; state Sens. Randy Fine and Joe Gruters; state Reps. Yvette Benarroch, Berny Jacques and Toby Overdorf; Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer; former state Rep. Spencer Roach; former Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler; Donald Trump Jr.; Fox News’ Lara Trump; Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk; conservative commentator Benny Johnson; Club for Growth PAC; the Black Conservative Federation; and Club 47 USA.

Donalds’ campaign has been working to cement his position as the Republican Primary front-runner before any real competition enters the race against him. To that end, the campaign released internal polling last week showing how, when informed of the President’s endorsement of him, likely Primary voters prefer Donalds over Casey DeSantis in a theoretical head-to-head clash by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio.

Democrats rumored or confirmed to be mulling a run include Senate Democratic Leader Jason Pizzo, Miami Gardens state Sen. Shevrin Jones, Jacksonville state Rep. Angie Nixon, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham.

The 2026 Primary Election is on Aug. 18. The General Election is on Nov. 3.

Post Views: 0

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) will try to flip seats held by Democratic U.S. Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Darren Soto in 2026.

The political arm for the House Republican caucus announced 26 Democratic incumbents it hopes to unseat this election cycle. Both Moskowitz and Soto have been in the crosshairs for the NRCC before, but Republicans hope continued voter registration trends will make the two more vulnerable to defeat next cycle.

This will mark the first election that Moskowitz, a Parkland Democrat, sits on the NRCC target list as an incumbent. But House Republicans invested heavily in Florida’s 23rd Congressional District in the 2022 election cycle.

That year, U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat, retired. Moskowitz, a former state Representative and Broward County Commissioner, won the open seat with 53% of the vote over Republican Joe Budd, but that was the smallest margin of victory of any U.S. House race in Florida that year.

Moskowitz won re-election in 2024 with just over 52% of the vote over Republican Joe Kaufman, who was backed by a number of Florida Republicans despite the fact that the NRCC did not target Moskowitz.

Republican George Moraitis, a Fort Lauderdale Republican and former state Representative, has already announced he will run for Moskowitz’s seat this election cycle. Republicans Raven Harrison and Darlene Swaffar have also filed.

Soto, meanwhile, has been targeted by the NRCC the last two election cycles.

The Kissimmee Democrat won 55% of the vote in Florida’s 9th Congressional District in November over Republican Thomas Chalifoux. That was a slight improvement over 2022, when he won 54% of the vote against Republican Scotty Moore, winning by the slimmest margin of any incumbent in Florida’s congressional delegation that year.

Dr. Stuart Farber, an Orlando Republican, has filed to challenge Soto in 2026.

But Republicans have worked to increase strength statewide and feel particularly confident about inroads made with Hispanic voters in Central Florida and Jewish voters in South Florida. Statewide, Republicans have increased a voter registration advantage to about 1.2 million voters.

Post Views: 0

President Donald Trump’s administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday temporarily blocking the deportations, but lawyers told him there were already two planes with immigrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, in a statement Sunday, responded to speculation about whether the administration was flouting court orders: “The administration did not ‘refuse to comply’ with a court order. The order, which had no lawful basis, was issued after terrorist TdA aliens had already been removed from U.S. territory.”

The acronym refers to the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump targeted in his unusual proclamation that was released Saturday

In a court filing Sunday, the Department of Justice, which has appealed Boasberg’s decision, said it would not use the Trump proclamation he blocked for further deportations if his decision is not overturned.

Trump sidestepped a question over whether his administration violated a court order while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening.

“I don’t know. You have to speak to the lawyers about that,” he said, although he defended the deportations. “I can tell you this. These were bad people.”

Asked about invoking presidential powers used in times of war, Trump said, “This is a time of war,” describing the influx of criminal migrants as “an invasion.”

Trump’s allies were gleeful over the results.

“Oopsie…Too late,” Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who agreed to house about 300 immigrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country’s prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house immigrants, posted on the site: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

Steve Vladeck, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that Boasberg’s verbal directive to turn around the planes was not technically part of his final order but that the Trump administration clearly violated the “spirit” of it.

“This just incentivizes future courts to be hyper specific in their orders and not give the government any wiggle room,” Vladeck said.

The immigrants were deported after Trump’s declaration of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which has been used only three times in U.S. history.

The law, invoked during the War of 1812 and World Wars I and II, requires a President to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

Venezuela’s government in a statement Sunday rejected the use of Trump’s declaration of the law, characterizing it as evocative of “the darkest episodes in human history, from slavery to the horror of the Nazi concentration camps.”

Tren de Aragua originated in an infamously lawless prison in the central state of Aragua and accompanied an exodus of millions of Venezuelans, the overwhelming majority of whom were seeking better living conditions after their nation’s economy came undone during the past decade. Trump seized on the gang during his campaign to paint misleading pictures of communities that he contended were “taken over” by what were actually a handful of lawbreakers.

The Trump administration has not identified the immigrants deported, provided any evidence they are in fact members of Tren de Aragua or that they committed any crimes in the United States. It also sent two top members of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang to El Salvador who had been arrested in the United States.

Video released by El Salvador’s government Sunday showed men exiting airplanes onto an airport tarmac lined by officers in riot gear. The men, who had their hands and ankles shackled, struggled to walk as officers pushed their heads down to have them bend down at the waist.

The video also showed the men being transported to prison in a large convoy of buses guarded by police and military vehicles and at least one helicopter. The men were shown kneeling on the ground as their heads were shaved before they changed into the prison’s all-white uniform — knee-length shorts, T-shirt, socks and rubber clogs — and placed in cells.

The immigrants were taken to the notorious CECOT facility, the centerpiece of Bukele’s push to pacify his once violence-wracked country through tough police measures and limits on basic rights

The Trump administration said the President actually signed the proclamation contending Tren de Aragua was invading the United States on Friday night but didn’t announce it until Saturday afternoon. Immigration lawyers said that, late Friday, they noticed Venezuelans who otherwise couldn’t be deported under immigration law being moved to Texas for deportation flights. They began to file lawsuits to halt the transfers.

“Basically any Venezuelan citizen in the US may be removed on pretext of belonging to Tren de Aragua, with no chance at defense,” Adam Isacson of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights group, warned on X.

The litigation that led to the hold on deportations was filed on behalf of five Venezuelans held in Texas who lawyers said were concerned they’d be falsely accused of being members of the gang. Once the act is invoked, they warned, Trump could simply declare anyone a Tren de Aragua member and remove them from the country.

Boasberg barred those Venezuelans’ deportations Saturday morning when the suit was filed, but only broadened it to all people in federal custody who could be targeted by the act after his afternoon hearing. He noted that the law has never before been used outside of a congressionally declared war and that plaintiffs may successfully argue Trump exceeded his legal authority in invoking it.

The bar on deportations stands for up to 14 days and the immigrants will remain in federal custody during that time. Boasberg has scheduled a hearing Friday to hear additional arguments in the case.

He said he had to act because the immigrants whose deportations may actually violate the U.S. Constitution deserved a chance to have their pleas heard in court.

“Once they’re out of the country,” Boasberg said, “there’s little I could do.”

___

Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

Post Views: 0