Winners and losers coming out of Blaise Ingoglia's election as Florida GOP chair

Republican activists rejected Gov. Rick Scott’s hand-picked party chairman Saturday and instead elected Blaise Ingoglia to lead the state GOP.

Ingoglia won decisively on a second ballot, defeating Leslie Dougher 132-90. Dougher took over the Republican Party of Florida last May with Scott’s endorsement. The governor again backed her for re-election.

Beyond Ingoglia himself, here are the winners and losers coming out of his election.

Winners

Jeb Bush — Whether Ingoglia was Scott’s choice or not, he was clearly the best choice to be chair. He knows how to organize the grassroots AND raise money. Certain to benefit from a strong state party is any presidential candidate from Florida. Bush and Ingoglia may not be from the same wing of the GOP, but the former governor should be able to count on him to deliver Florida.

Richard Corcoran — The Speaker Designate’s name is nowhere to be found in any of the press accounts of the #RumbleAtTheRosen, but his fingerprints are all over what transpired Saturday in Orlando. The Pasco lawmaker worked furiously behind the scenes to line up votes for his House colleague, who already gravitated in Corcoran’s political orbit.

Joe Gruters — The Sarasota GOP chairman is in the unique position of being an ally of both Ingoglia and Scott, so look for him to play peacemaker as he sets himself up to lead the party in 2017-18.

David Johnson, Pablo Diaz — These two politicos have been tapped by Ingoglia to lead his transition efforts. Smart, smart, smart.

Chris Latvala, Chris Sprowls, etc. — The Tampa Bay delegation may not have won the race for the House Speakership in 2021-22, but it can take some small comfort in knowing that one of its own will be in charge of the party for the next two years.

Poker players — Before Ingoglia was a state lawmaker, he was an accomplished professional poker player who won at least $315,000 in career earnings. Like Richard Nixon, Ignoglia relies on the skills he learned around the table to make him a formidable political operative. With Ingoglia’s win on Saturday, can we expect Phil Ivey to consider a bid for Congress?

Small county RECs — Whether you are Miami-Dade or Union, each county gets three votes — the party chair, the state committeeman, and the state committeewoman — in the Florida GOP caucus. These so-called small counties, often overlooked by pols concerned with major media markets, flexed their muscles by lining behind the Man From Hernando.

Losers

Rick Scott — What this last week has reminded everyone is that no one really likes Scott, save a couple of lobbyists and some old friends from Naples. Scott’s saving grace is that he is neither a) Alex Sink or b) Charlie Crist. That is why Republicans have rallied around him. Scott is the #5 pitcher on a World Series baseball team — a below average player surrounded by All-Stars. As difficult as it is to imagine, some are already saying Scott is a lame duck, despite just being inaugurated to his second term. What will be interesting will be to see how he and his staff exert their influence in reaction to the scandals and setbacks surrounding them.

Mike Grissom — The former Executive Director of the RPOF, who had been helping quarterback Dougher’s re-election bid, was just last week holding court at a Tallahassee watering hole explaining how easily Dougher would win.

Ingoglia — Congratulations Blaise, you’re now the Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida. Unfortunately, you have to deal with a Governor who sounds reluctant to raise money for the party and a Senate campaign arm which promptly moved out of RPOF headquarters upon your win.

Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry — Assuming Scott ends up helping someone other than Bush, like Sellers’ old boss Jindal or Scott’s man crush Perry, he will have to do it without the imprimatur of the Florida GOP.

Juston Johnson – The now former Executive Director of the RPOF thought he was so funny trolling on social media about who might be the next ED of the party. Well, we might not know who that is, but we do know who it’s not — you, Juston. Previous EDs and high-ranking staffers like DJ, Jim Rimes, Andy Palmer, and Frank Terraferma never acted as childish as Johnson and the rest of the out-of-state mercenaries who have infected Florida politics for the last two years — and that is why Johnsom, Rimes, and Co. remain players election cycle after election cycle.

The Louisiana Mafia – Rick Scott Chief of Staff Melissa Sellers and Johnson were so confident of Dougher winning re-election that they were already lining up Johnson’s replacement WITHOUT even consulting Dougher who, of course, had been criticized for being a rubber stamp for Scottworld.

Some in the Florida press corps — Flashback to Adam Smith’s January 10 column, “Florida GOP chairman’s vote likely not a surprise” and you get a feel for how much of the press viewed Saturday’s vote. The Miami Herald‘s Marc Caputo tweeted about how he’d have covered the proceedings if the vote was in doubt and that the only question was whether Dougher would win on the first or second ballot. Oops! Smith, Caputo, and several other Florida political reporters passed on covering the RPOF’s annual meeting, viewing it as a fait accompli. Meanwhile the AP’s Brendan Farrington, the Naples Daily News’ Matt Dixon, the Palm Beach Post’s George Bennett, and Sunshine State News’ Allison Nielsen provided insightful coverage of the #RumbleAtTheRosen.

Adam Smith — In addition to making that prediction, Smith was also the vehicle for weak-sauce oppo dumps against both Ingoglia and Gruters. Add them to the ever-growing number of Smith admirers.

Joel Springer and the rest of Senate Victory staff — This team of veteran operators made a rather amateurish move by moving out of RPOF HQ’s (reportedly with no place to go) after Ingoglia was elected. How petulant! Senate Victory also transferred its last $800,000 out of the party to a separate account in order to keep the new leadership from sweeping it.