On the road again: Six stop ‘turnout tour’ Monday for Ron DeSantis
Ron DeSantis says there is ‘no change’ in his relationship with Donald Trump.

Trump DeSantis

As the GOP primary contest in the Governor’s race comes to an end, U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis plans a “turnout tour” of the state, with an eye toward hitting six markets Monday.

Events kick off Monday in Jacksonville, with a 9:00 a.m. stop at “The Local” on the Southside.

From there, an 11:00 visit to “Tiffany’s Restaurant” in Palm Harbor, followed by a 2 p.m. in Fort Myers (Three Fishermen Seafood Restaurant.”

The road show moves on to Miami (4 p.m. at “Cafe Versailles”), then a 6 p.m. stop in West Palm Beach at “E.R. Bradley’s Saloon.”

The final stop of the day finds DeSantis in his home district: an 8 p.m. engagement at Daytona Beach’s Motorsports Hall of Fame.

DeSantis, when compared to primary opponent Adam Putnam, has not exactly been a road warrior (even as DeSantis’ camp contends they too have had a robust travel itinerary).

Putnam makes multiple stops a day, hammering his “Florida First” message home to crowds across the state.

“President Trump ran on a plan and he’s working on implementing that plan. No surprises. My opponent’s not running on a plan, he’s running on an endorsement. And Florida deserves better than that,” Putnam said in West Palm Beach — and in many other markets around the state.

The Putnam campaign has emphasized grassroots, with 400,000 doors knocked around Florida, and a lot of local endorsements piled up before Pres. Donald Trump “put his thumb on the scale” and endorsed DeSantis emphatically at a rally weeks back.

Trump described that endorsement colorfully this week in a rally in West Virginia.

“I don’t want to brag about it, but man do I have a good record of endorsements,” Trump told attendees. “In Florida, we have a great candidate, his name is Ron DeSantis, and he called me, and asked whether or not I could endorse him.”

“I said ‘let me check it out,’” Trump said he told DeSantis. “ … This was a few months ago. He was at three, and I gave him a nice shot, and a nice little tweet — bing bing — and he went from three to like twenty something.”

Shortly after the tweet, some polls showed DeSantis skyrocketing in favorability. A St. Pete Polls survey in July gave DeSantis a 20 point edge, a Mason-Dixon survey later that month gave DeSantis a 12 point lead.

Some new polling, however, suggests a bit of that lead has declined. A survey from Florida Atlantic University released on Tuesday gave DeSantis a single point lead, meaning the primary race is in a dead heat.

Material from Danny McAuliffe and A.G. Gancarski was used in this post. 

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski



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