Mitch Perry Report 6.25.15 — Jeff Miller now in for GOP Senate bid?

Mitch-Perry

It’s been widely assumed that Jacksonville area Congressman Ron DeSantis won’t be the only Republican running for the Senate seat being vacated by Marco Rubio next year, but he’s the only official candidate as of Thursday morning, some 14 months before Republicans will make that choice.

Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera made an announcement Saturday that he will make an official announcement on July 15; it looks like you can count him in.

And now Roll Call reports that Panhandle area Congressman Jeff Miller will officially get into the race next week. I suppose that should have been obvious last Friday night, when he appeared at the Hillsborough County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner.

Will this placate David Jolly, who said the reason why he was considering getting into the race was because he wasn’t satisfied that the party was offering the best they have available after CFO Jeff Atwater dropped out of the contest and DeSantis, a Tea Party favorite, got in.

The Pinellas congressman is expected to make his decision known within the next couple of weeks …

In other news …

There’s a raging war between elements of the Tea Party movement and the solar power constitutional amendment that may or may not appear on the ballot in Florida in 2016.

• • •

Are Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio out of step inside the GOP with their support of sugar subsidies?

• • •

Joe Gruters is the chairman of the Sarasota County Republican Party and vice chair of the Republican Party of Florida. Now he hopes to become a member of the Legislature.

• • •

A Quinnipiac poll of Florida adults has the majority of them (55 percent) saying that Caitlyn Jenner’s transition will not change society’s feelings about transgendered people.

• • •

Janet Dougherty is your new executive director of the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Commission — but you won’t be seeing her on anybody’s campaign trail anytime soon.

Mitch Perry

Mitch Perry has been a reporter with Extensive Enterprises since November of 2014. Previously, he served five years as political editor of the alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing. Mitch also was assistant news director with WMNF 88.5 FM in Tampa from 2000-2009, and currently hosts MidPoint, a weekly talk show, on WMNF on Thursday afternoons. He began his reporting career at KPFA radio in Berkeley and is a San Francisco native who has lived in Tampa since 2000. Mitch can be reached at [email protected].



#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, William March, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Jesse Scheckner, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704