By Gray Rohrer, The News Service of Florida
Byron Donalds rallied with a crowd of 200 people at a restaurant in the state capital Tuesday, bashing his Democratic opponent in the governor’s race, David Jolly, and urging supporters to get to the polls with a week until the Nov. 3 election.
Donalds, a U.S. House member from Naples, largely contrasted Florida’s economic and social policies with that of Democratic-led states like California and Illinois, citing them as a warning. Florida should continue to stay the course with the GOP leadership it has had in the governor’s mansion for nearly 30 years, especially under Gov. Ron DeSantis in the last eight years, he argued.
“In Florida we’ve been consistent for a very long time, and now under Governor DeSantis it’s been supercharged,” Donalds said during a 15-minute speech at Bumpa’s Local 349. “And what have we seen as a result? We’ve become the number one state in all of America.”
He also bashed Jolly, a former U.S. House member who served as a Republican before switching to become a Democrat, largely over the rise of President Donald Trump in the GOP.
“(Jolly’s) somebody who, when he was a Republican, kind of sucked at it,” Donalds said.
Before Donalds spoke, other Republican leaders stressed the importance of keeping Florida in GOP hands, especially as some Democratic leaders embrace socialism.
Bryan Avila, a former state senator whom Donalds picked as his running mate to be lieutenant governor, is the son of Cuban refugees who fled the Castro regime. He assailed state Rep. Angie Nixon, D-Jacksonville, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, for skirting a question about whether there was a dictatorship in Cuba in a recent interview. Nixon said she didn’t know because she hadn’t been there, but others have told her it was a dictatorial regime and she believed them.
“(Democrats) don’t believe in freedom; they believe in socialism,” Avila said.
Jolly and Nixon, though, have been hammering Donalds and U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody on the cost of living, as inflation has driven prices for groceries, gas and insurance higher in recent years.
There was little mention of the cost of living during Donalds’ speech, although he did say there were things in Florida that needed to be fixed, including the cost of property insurance, which he pledged to lower if he becomes governor.
There was also no mention of Trump, whose decision to start a war in Iran in February has pushed gas prices higher, affecting the cost of other goods.
Republicans, though, are confident of defeating Democrats in seven days’ time, mainly because they’ve done it so often before, and GOP voters outnumber them by 1.5 million registered voters.
“Every election we keep on hearing about a blue wave, but that does not materialize in the state of Florida. Why? It’s because we get Republicans out to the polls in droves,” Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia told supporters at the rally. “So what they think is a blue wave winds up a little blue trickle and it hits into a big red wall. You guys are that wall.”
In speaking to reporters after the rally, Donalds noted he also supports Amendment 3, the major property tax cut for homestead properties pushed by DeSantis as a way to cut the tax bill for residents.
But he’s not going to vote for Amendment 1, which would require the Legislature to put $750 million into a key budget reserve fund each year. That position puts him in line with DeSantis but at odds with GOP legislative leaders and the Republican Party of Florida, which has urged a yes vote on the measure. Donalds said there are too many pressing priorities for the state to set aside such a large chunk of funds, including wastewater treatment and other large infrastructure projects, or even tax cuts.
“I actually don’t support Amendment 1. I think the state’s rainy day fund is full. I think if we have additional resources that we have that can go into a rainy day fund then we need to be looking at the infrastructure projects that need to be completed,” Donalds told reporters.
But his main message to supporters was simple – get to the polls.
“You want Florida to continue to be great? Go vote,” Donalds said during his speech.
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