Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 4.23.23

President Joe Biden made his re-election campaign official this week. And with Trump leading handily in GOP Primary polls — he’s currently topping a majority in the FiveThirtyEight polling average — we can all eagerly anticipate the Biden-Trump rematch the entire nation has been clamoring for.

Much has been and will be written about the 2024 race. But Florida? Well, even Democrats appear ready to slot it in the red column.

A Business Insider report cited both Washington- and Florida-based consultants arguing Democrats will not treat Florida as a battleground state in 2024.

That may make sense in a national race. Biden lost Florida to Trump by 3 points in 2020. He won tight contests — closer than 3 points — in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and even Georgia. And Biden lost North Carolina by just over 1 point, perhaps making it a more attractive target for a 2024 flip.

Add to the fact that DeSantis won by nearly 20 points (!!) in 2022, and Florida doesn’t look likely to turn blue again. It’s not an R+20 state permanently, but you also don’t see parties win statewide elections by 20 points in a swing state.

On top of that, two big-time Florida-based Republicans are eyeing a run — Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. All the more reason why Republicans will be favored here.

So it’s a logical decision for national Democrats to invest fewer resources into Florida next cycle. But that will also hurt down-ballot contests for Congress, the state Legislature and local positions.

It also puts more of an onus on the state-level party to bring their “A” game, something they have been thoroughly unable to do for several cycles. And Biden’s low approval ratings likely will not inspire a surge to the polls for Democrats despite the lack of resources.

One counterpoint: some states have seen pushback on anti-abortion measures. With Florida opting for a six-week ban, along with other major culture war policy pushes, maybe Democrats will get a spark to at least make the argument the state should be in play come 2028.

But for now, the national party seems inclined to focus elsewhere. If Republicans secure a second-straight blowout in Florida in November 2024, that may quickly turn into a permanent decision.

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

Winners

Honorable mention: Lynn Hurtak. Hurtak held on to her District 3 seat on the Tampa City Council during Tuesday’s election, handily defeating former Sen. Janet Cruz.

Hurtak hauled in more than 60% of the vote, winning over the better-funded Cruz, whose daughter is the longtime partner of Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.

We’ve covered the implications of this race before. Hurtak was seen as a thorn in Mayor Castor’s side, and Cruz would have been a natural ally to the Mayor had she won.

Cruz brought in more than $174,000 through her campaign account during the race. Her political committee, Building the Bay, added $84,000 since January, including a $62,000 haul in March alone.

Despite the animosity seen during the race, Cruz was gracious following her runoff loss.

“I just called my opponent to wish her well on the next four years on the Tampa City Council,” Cruz tweeted. “I look forward to seeing Tampa continue to grow and prosper.”

Hurtak, who was appointed to the seat in April 2022 after former Council member John Dingfelder resigned, has now secured a full term in her first election before the voters.

That allows Hurtak to continue serving as one of three Castor critics on the City Council, while Cruz evaluates her next move following her Senate re-election loss last fall.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Blaise Ingoglia. After Blaise Ingoglia ran up against term limits for the House, he ran for and won a Senate seat this past November. His first Legislative Session in the upper chamber shows Ingoglia is likely to be near the center of the Florida political spotlight for some time to come.

This week, the Senate shipped out two major Ingoglia priorities. The biggest is an immigration crackdown bill that’s a priority of Gov. DeSantis. The measure would, among other things, invalidate driver’s licenses that other states issue for undocumented migrants, require employers to use the E-Verify system to ensure a new employee is not undocumented, and increase penalties for employers who don’t vet potential hires properly.

The bill also has several controversial proposals which Democrats and some advocacy groups have hammered, such as provisions requiring hospitals to collect data on a patient’s immigration status and criminalizing the transport of illegal immigrants, which some have worried could imperil groups or individuals from simply helping a friend or family member get around.

Whether those dire warnings bear out remains to be seen. Republicans are able to push through such a comprehensive bill thanks to their supermajority status in both chambers, and Ingoglia being tasked with such a priority bill has raised his stature both in and out of state.

The Senate also approved this week a bill changing residency requirements for School Board candidates. Both of those bills must pass the House by next week, but Ingoglia did his part by moving them through the Senate.

He also took the lead on two other priorities of the Governor: legislation requiring eight jurors to approve a death penalty sentence, rather than a unanimous jury, and a measure attempting to curb Disney’s power amid DeSantis’ continuing battle with the entertainment behemoth.

Name a big GOP priority, and chances are Ingoglia was behind it.

The biggest winner: Joe Gruters. As for that Disney power grab, it moved easily through the Senate Wednesday via a 27-13 vote in the state’s upper chamber.

“But wait,” say you eagle-eyed Florida Politics readers, “the Senate has 28 Republican members. Who had the cojones to stand up against the Governor in his clash against Disney?”

That lone Republican “nay” vote came from Sen. Gruters, who echoed a criticism increasingly bubbling among Republicans these days: that whatever one’s gripes about Disney, the government should not be punishing a corporation for its social views.

“We should be finding ways to support our job creators and turbocharge Florida’s economy,” Gruters said Wednesday. “People’s pocketbooks are more powerful at influencing corporate behavior than the heavy hand of government. I’m sure Floridians will make their voices heard on this issue.”

Now, cards on the table, Gruters of course has a political angle here as well. He is endorsing former President Trump over DeSantis. Trump has started going after DeSantis over his handling of the Disney drama, so it’s natural one of Trump’s allies in the Legislature would try to stick it to DeSantis as well.

Nevertheless, DeSantis has exercised an unprecedented level of control over the Legislature. Politicos talked repeatedly about how this Session would be filled with Republican lawmakers giving DeSantis every major policy win he needs to prep for a 2024 presidential run.

But as DeSantis’ start has begun to fade the last few months, the talk instead has been on whether DeSantis is losing that grip on the Legislature.

So while Gruters certainly had his own political play here, and his vote alone didn’t tank the measure, he deserves credit for resisting the call to be a rubber stamp on a major DeSantis ask.

The Legislature is supposed to be an independent branch of government, even when it’s controlled by the same party as the executive. We’ve credited Senate President Kathleen Passidomo for taking a similar stand in the past, and look forward to the time when government can get back to functioning as it was intended.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: Randy Fine. Fine seems to operate by the philosophy that if he feels he is right on a certain issue, that entitles him to act like an absolute jerk to anyone who takes the other side of the issue. Perhaps that works with the base in the country’s WWE-era of politics, but it wasn’t flying with the Florida Commission on Ethics.

During his ongoing feud with Brevard County School Board member Jennifer Jenkins — who, as a reminder, Fine called a “whore” in private text messages because he’s classy like that — Fine faced accusations he threatened to ax state funding for West Melbourne in retaliation.

Fine denied the charges, and a probe by the Florida Attorney General’s Office — run by fellow Republican Ashley Moody — found the complaint was unsupported.

The Ethics Commission disagreed, finding probable cause Fine violated ethics rules. According to Florida Today’s write-up, the Commission found Fine did threaten the funding, and also interfered in a public records request to obtain records related to the dispute.

“It is clear to me, based on Jim Waldman‘s motion that the kangaroo court that is the Florida Commission on Ethics has a personal (ax) to grind with myself and my politics,” Fine said in response to the findings. Because God forbid a guy who, when asked whether Palestinians have “rights to defend themselves against the Israelis bullying them and forcing them out of their homes” responded with the hashtag #BlowThemUp, might have done something wrong.”

Of note, this issue stemmed from the West Melbourne Police Department holding a fundraiser for the Special Olympics where they invited Jenkins, but not Fine. “Jenkins just put your project and special Olympics funding on the veto list,” Fine wrote to West Melbourne City Councilman John Dittmore.

That’s right, Fine threatened Special Olympics funding because he got triggered that a political opponent got invited to an event and he did not.

Let all of that sink in, then ask yourself whether this person deserved a promotion to the Senate next cycle.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Unions. The Legislature has approved a bill barring certain unions from automatically deducting union dues from its members’ paychecks. Despite Republicans’ claims that unions won’t be hurt by this bill, the move should raise eyebrows for several reasons.

First, let’s just be clear that this quote from Rep. Dean Black, the Jacksonville Republican who sponsored the House bill, is ridiculous on its face.

“This bill is good for workers and it will be good for the unions,” Black said. “Their union isn’t going away.”

It may not be going away, but how is removing automatic fee deduction a good thing for the unions?

Republicans may be on the right side of the philosophical argument here (more on that in a second), in that union members shouldn’t have these fees yanked from their paycheck automatically. But then stick with that point. How is making it harder, even incrementally, for a union to collect dues good for a union? It’s just laughable.

But alright, let’s give the GOP the benefit of the doubt here that automatically deducting dues is wrong. You would think, then, that this bill would be a blanket ban on the practice.

Well, surprise! The ban only applies to unions for teachers, nurses and other public sector jobs which just so happen (totally coincidentally!) to be more prone to support Democrats.

How about unions that traditionally support Republicans, like those for police, firefighters, prison guards and probation officers? Well, wouldn’t you know, it just so happens the GOP-controlled Legislature exempted them from this bill, meaning they can continue right along with the practice.

As Gray Rohrer of Florida Politics reported, the measure would also “require unions to include the names and salaries of the five highest paid officers and employees of the union and allow employees to revoke their membership at any time during the year.” Once again, unions for police, firefighters and prison guards are exempt.

Heck, if this bill is so good for unions, Republicans should have flipped it and only applied it to their favored unions instead! We can see what’s really going on here, and it’s not good news for unions impacted by the bill, regardless of what Republicans say about it.

The biggest loser: DeSantis. It’s not that we intentionally keep placing DeSantis in the loser column, and we’re willing to give him props when warranted, but it has been a bad few months for America’s Governor.

After last week saw several more members of Florida’s congressional delegation endorse Trump over their home-state Governor, this week featured multiple donors doubting DeSantis’ 2024 chances.

Ken Griffin, who had arguably been DeSantis’ biggest big-money backer, is reportedly souring on the Governor a bit amid his culture war crusade and bumpy few months. Per The New York Times, Griffin is continuing to evaluate the GOP Primary contest.

Then, as the week continued, New York grocery magnate John Catsimatidis said he’s not on Team DeSantis, adding his name to the chorus of voices slamming the Governor for his standoffish nature.

“Why would I support somebody to become president of the United States that doesn’t return phone calls?” Catsimatidis grumbled.

It’s not all bad for DeSantis. The war chest he’s already accumulated dwarfs Trump’s. It even tops entire hauls of several 2016 GOP candidates. As we’ve said before, there is time to turn this ship around.

But DeSantis’ team needs to understand he has misplayed the momentum he held late last year badly.

DeSantis faced two options for the upcoming presidential cycle: decline to run and avoid pissing off Trump, or be ready to fight as soon as it was clear he was a serious contender in the race.

The first option would have required him to vow against a run at least by last fall, which DeSantis declined to do. That triggered Trump’s wrath and has now essentially locked DeSantis into the race (unless he decides against a run after all, meaning he allowed Trump to systematically dismantle his narrative for months for no potential gain whatsoever).

So that leads to the second option. It’s true DeSantis has not officially declared, but we all know he is laying the groundwork. Yet for some reason, he’s sat silent amid attacks from Trump, Trump’s team and now, increasingly, donors and otherwise supportive media. Going on offense is something DeSantis has to do eventually. Why has he been so reticent to do so for months?

Adding to his 2024 struggles, Disney decided to haul the Governor and the state into court this week, filing a lawsuit over the state’s ongoing barrage against Disney dating back to last year.

That’s now going to drain money from the state’s coffers, adding yet another instance where playing tough-guy culture warrior to appease the base has led to a lawsuit while the courts figure out whether it was all just for show.

As this increasingly pointless war continues, more Republicans are beginning to question whether DeSantis is going too far. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio added his name to the list this week.

“I think where it gets problematic in the eyes of some people is when you start creating the idea — and I’m not saying we’re there yet as a state — but the idea that somehow like if you run crossways with us politically, whoever is in charge, then you know, you wind up in the crosshairs of the Legislature for political purposes,” Rubio said.

“I do worry that if this happens too many times, businesses that are thinking about coming to Florida are saying, ‘Maybe we don’t want to go there because if we get into a firestorm with them politically, they’re going to come after our business again.’”

DeSantis was supposed to be the Trump-like warrior without the drama. But with Trump still around and sucking all the oxygen out of the room, DeSantis’ rightward shift has simply opened him up for criticism and second-guessing.

The party put up with Trump’s extreme actions because of his seemingly unbreakable grip over the base. As DeSantis slowly loses the grip amid Trump’s attacks, what is shielding him from continuing criticism over views even Republicans are now questioning?