Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 4.5.26

After a rough Session where barely anything of note was accomplished, lawmakers made plans to return to Tallahassee in mid-April to move past whatever differences they had and hammer out their only constitutional obligation: finish the budget.

Well whaddya know, it’s mid-April. Let’s check on how that’s going.

“While I believe we are making great progress, it will not be necessary for you to return to Tallahassee prior to the special session called by Governor DeSantis,” Senate President Ben Albritton wrote this week, referencing a different April 20 Special Session Gov. Ron DeSantis called to deal with redistricting.

That means more sitting around and waiting until Republican leaders get over their personal squabbles and are ready to get to work.

Yes, they have time. The current fiscal year runs through June 30, meaning there’s still more than two months to sit down and write up a budget for the next fiscal year.

But until then, this standoff remains a glaring example of the dysfunction in the Capitol as Florida families continue struggling with affordability issues. If lawmakers can’t complete their literal one constitutionally required job, what hope do we have for the innovative sort of ideas it will take to make this state livable again for all income brackets?

We may not get much reassurance on that until a new Legislature gavels in next year with a new Governor who’s ready to actually solve long-standing issues instead of manufacturing them for political attention.

Now, it’s onto our weekly game of winners and losers.

Winners

Honorable mention: Artemis II crew. They landed Friday night in the Pacific off California, but make no mistake: this was still a Florida triumph.

Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen just pulled off the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years, closing out a roughly 10-day mission that began the only way a mission like this can begin in modern America — with a launch from the Kennedy Space Center.

Orion and the SLS rocket were processed, stacked, rolled out and launched by teams centered on Florida’s Space Coast, with Kennedy-based Exploration Ground Systems handling the machinery that got this mission off the ground.

Artemis II became the first crewed Artemis mission, the first human trip around the Moon since the Apollo era, and the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, topping out at about 252,756 miles — roughly 4,100 miles beyond Apollo 13’s old record.

Orion swung within about 4,067 miles of the lunar surface. The crew spent roughly seven hours making detailed lunar observations, and they watched a solar eclipse from space while gathering imagery and data that will shape future missions.

There were personal milestones as well. Glover became the first Black astronaut on a lunar mission. Koch became the first woman. Hansen, a Canadian, became the first non-American sent on a moon-bound flight.

For Florida, Artemis II was the reminder that Florida is where America’s next era of human spaceflight gets built, fueled and sent on its way. The crew gave the country a successful mission. They also gave the Space Coast another giant neon sign flashing the obvious: When the road leads back to the Moon, it still starts here. 

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: DeSantis. In the span of a few days, DeSantis turned up at the Rays’ long-awaited return to Tropicana Field and then got photographed at Augusta National ahead of the first round of the Masters, shaking hands with Jack Nicklaus.

He can’t run for Governor again, but Florida’s Top Sports Fan can at least enjoy the perks for the next few months.

The Rays were back at the Trop for the first time in 561 days after Hurricane Milton wrecked the place, and DeSantis was there with team brass and local leaders for the occasion. DeSantis’ baseball past is well-documented. And Tampa Bay capped it with a 6-4 win over the Cubs in their home opener.

A few days later, there he was again in Georgia, spotted at the Masters during opening ceremonies at the most prestigious golf tournament in the world. And DeSantis has praised the major as “the best sporting event” he has ever attended.

And, frankly, DeSantis should enjoy it while he can.

Because with plans for redistricting and property tax relief remaining uncertain, opportunities for DeSantis to push a policy agenda running out, and an election closing in that will signal a move on from the DeSantis era in Florida politics, this may be the last fun week of him being Governor.

The biggest winner: State of Florida. No, this is not the part where anybody spikes the football and declares hurricane season canceled. But Florida will absolutely take any good news we can find.

A preseason outlook from Colorado State University says the 2026 Atlantic season should be somewhat below normal, with 13 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes. That’s compared with the 1991-2020 averages of 14.4 named storms, 7.2 hurricanes and 3.2 major hurricanes.

CSU also puts the chance of at least one major hurricane landfall at 15% for the East Coast and 20% for the Gulf Coast, both below historical averages.

Florida dodged a major storm last year after a brutal stretch of hurricane damage over the previous few years. Another quiet season this year would be welcome news.

The reason forecasters are sounding a little less apocalyptic this year is the likely development of El Niño, which tends to increase Atlantic wind shear and make it harder for storms to organize and intensify. Analysts say El Niño is likely to emerge in May-July and persist through at least the end of 2026. CSU says that setup is the dominant reason it expects reduced activity, though it also notes the Atlantic is giving off mixed signals, with warmer-than-normal water in the western tropical Atlantic still capable of helping storms develop.

And that last part is why Florida’s “win” here comes with a giant asterisk. A quieter season on paper is not the same thing as a safe season in reality. AccuWeather is still forecasting 11 to 16 named storms, four to seven hurricanes, and two to four major hurricanes, while warning that three to five direct U.S. impacts are still possible. It also flagged the risk of rapid intensification, which is exactly the kind of phrase Floridians have learned to hate.

Even CSU, while offering the sunnier outlook, goes out of its way to remind coastal residents that it only takes one hurricane making landfall to make it an active season for them.

Nobody should get cocky. Nobody should stop prepping. But this forecast at least gives the state a little room to breathe.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Hope Florida. The federal criminal probe into Hope Florida may be over, but now the state-created charity is staring at a different kind of problem: the IRS. And that may be even worse.

According to Times/Herald reporting, the Hope Florida Foundation’s upcoming tax filing is expected to account for the now-infamous $10 million it received from a state Medicaid settlement.

That money was supposed to go to the state to account for Medicaid overbilling. Instead, most of it appears to have taken a scenic route through two dark-money nonprofits and into a political operation built to kill the 2024 recreational marijuana amendment, which just so happened to be one of DeSantis’ top political priorities.

The nonprofit tax experts cited by the Times/Herald say the foundation’s spending could jeopardize its tax-exempt status because charities can only do limited lobbying and are barred from political spending. If Hope Florida loses that status, donations become taxable and donors lose the deduction. Back taxes could follow. Operating gets much harder, if not impossible.

It’s unclear whether a Trump-run IRS will press the issue. But if it does, the DeSantises’ headaches from this whole misguided saga may not be over.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Jay Collins. Instead of fixing the problems behind his fledgling bid for Governor, Collins this week tried explaining it away twice by doing what all great leaders do: putting all of the blame elsewhere.

First came the fundraising excuse. After Byron Donalds posted a monster $22.2 million first-quarter haul, Collins answered not with a show of strength, but with a whine about the “lobby corps,” insisting “they want to choose” the next Governor.

Then came the polling excuse. With Collins still stuck in the low single digits, he blamed “suppression polling” and even argued Donalds is not really leading.

And the numbers are ugly enough that the excuse-making just makes them uglier. Emerson found Donalds at 46% and Collins at 4%. Spencer Kimball of Emerson did not describe Donalds as edging ahead or building momentum. He called him the “clear favorite.”

Collins can sneer at public polls all he wants, but voters keep seeing the same basic picture: Donalds way out front, everybody else fighting over scraps, and Collins somehow managing to look especially small despite being the sitting Lieutenant Governor.

Collins was not supposed to be some fringe candidate throwing elbows from the cheap seats. DeSantis appointed him as Lieutenant Governor last August, and when Collins jumped into the race in January, he at least had the outline of a serious contender: military résumé, statewide title, proximity to the Governor, some donor history and a plausible argument that he represented continuity.

But instead of consolidating that position, he has watched Donalds — armed with Donald Trump’s endorsement and a giant fundraising machine — continue to treat the field like a formality as much as he did before Collins got off the sidelines and into the fray.

Worse, Collins still cannot even get a public blessing from DeSantis. The Governor again brushed aside endorsing him this week — in Collins’ own backyard, no less.

Candidates who look confident do not spend their week litigating why reality should not count. They do not blame donors for giving to the front-runner. They do not blame polls for noticing. They change the race.

Collins is not changing the race.

The biggest loser: James Fishback. The latest Fishback news is different from past controversies in the sense that there’s no outrage farming at play. But in another sense, it’s the same story: Fishback is painfully desperate for attention.

Newly public court documents show a guy frantically trying to manufacture relevance out of burner accounts, fake personas and bought applause. According to reporting from our own Jesse Scheckner, Fishback directed his campaign Treasurer, Alex Munguia — who was then serving as Chief Strategy Officer of Fishback’s Azoria Capital firm — to use a fictitious “Richard Lopez” Gmail account to pitch reporters as if some outside Tesla investor was organically clamoring for more Fishback coverage, and send tips from anonymous accounts to juice follow-up attention.

One message tells Munguia to email tips “from the Lopez account.” Another directs him to use an “ANON” account. Others show Fishback directing the purchase of social media engagement.

What makes it look so pathetic is how needy and hands-on it all appears. This doesn’t mean any and all online support is fake, and he’s got some young people showing up at events. But how many of them were encouraged to hear him speak in person because they thought all of Fishback’s support was genuine? And is there more we don’t know about?

All that aside, poll after poll continues to show Fishback as an afterthought among the broader GOP electorate — making it unsurprising he’s resorting to these types of shenanigans.