Winner and Loser of the Week in Florida politics — Week of 8.11.24

Tuesday is officially Primary Day, giving us answers about who voters prefer in several high-profile intraparty contests.

While the U.S. Senate race near the top of the ticket will bring plenty of intrigue in November, the respective party primaries seem to be lacking drama, with Democratic Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Republican Rick Scott likely to emerge from their respective races.

But there remains plenty to watch elsewhere. Two contests, in Senate District 7 and House District 94, feature a proxy war of sorts between former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

SD 7 is a heated contest where trial lawyers have it out for state Rep. Tom Leek — now seeking a promotion to the Senate — and are backing former St. Johns Sheriff David Shoar. DeSantis is supporting Leek, while Trump made a late announcement endorsing Shoar.

Republicans in HD 94 are seeking to succeed Republican state Rep. Rick Roth. There, DeSantis is behind businessman Anthony Aguirre, while Trump and his allies are backing Meg Weinberger, Chair of the Palm Beach chapter of Moms for Liberty.

Whose support will hold more sway among Republican voters? Stay tuned on Tuesday to find out.

Republican contests in Senate District 13 and House District 81 also each feature a candidate with greater support from Republican leaders going up against a self-funder ready to spend hundreds of thousands to seize the nomination for themselves.

Democrats have plenty of intrigue to look forward to as well. There is a jam-packed Primary in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, where five candidates are looking for the chance to take on incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

There’s also a decent bit of local star power in the Senate District 25 race, as Democrats look to find a successor for state Rep. Vic Torres. That contest features state Rep. Kristen Arrington, former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson and Carmen Torres, the wife of the outgoing Florida Senator.

And while Democrats fielded a candidate in every race this cycle, Republicans did not. That means several highly anticipated Democratic Primary contests — such as Senate District 15, House District 107 and House District 109 — will decide those seats outright on Tuesday.

Who will be the winners and losers emerging from Election Night? Well, we’ll have more on that in next week’s column, of course. But we know one winner already for sure.

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

Winners

Honorable mention: Campaign consultants. That guaranteed winner: the campaign consultant class making bank regardless of the outcome Tuesday.

Seriously, some of those contests mentioned above have seen obscene spending levels. And that, shall we say, generosity, has even spread to some local contests this cycle.

We already covered the projections on campaign spending last month. Mentioned there, but worth repeating, there will be plenty more spending to go leading into November. That’s not just due to General Election matchups, but also due to several high-profile amendment battles that have only become more heated as we’ve gone through the Summer.

But back to Tuesday, we noted several closely watched contests attracting attention, and cash. But even races where there isn’t much drama on Tuesday have nevertheless seen significant spends by at least one candidate.

Sure, these consultants want their candidates to win and have worked hard to make that happen. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what happens on Tuesday, as long as the bills are paid.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Randy Fine. Fine gets credit here this week for strongly speaking out against a fellow Republican who voiced some truly condemnable antisemitic views.

Nathan Tocco is seeking a Duval County Committeeman post, but he’ll get nowhere near that position if Fine has his way.

“The Republican Party of Florida proudly stands with Israel and the Jewish people. The Florida GOP doesn’t want Nazis like this clown Nathan Tocco anywhere near Republican leadership,” Fine posted this week. He also visited Jacksonville to speak out against Tocco’s candidacy.

Now, regular readers of this column know that no one is electing us president of the Randy Fine fan club anytime soon. But you’ll also know that we call it like we see it and give people their due when they deserve it.

Tocco needed to be called out, and in an era where partisanship seems to blind elected officials to sins from their fellow party members, credit to Fine for stepping up and calling out nonsense.

The biggest winner: Florida tourism. Tourism levels were at record numbers in the second quarter, per recently released numbers from the state.

That data showed 34.2 million people visited Florida last quarter, a 1.7% jump from last year. That includes an increase in international travelers, a group that has at times been slow to return post-pandemic.

DeSantis pumped up his efforts leading Florida in a prepared statement.

“Florida continues to set the standard as the top destination for tourists,” DeSantis said. “These impressive numbers reflect the success of our efforts to prioritize public safety, freedom, and common-sense leadership. These priorities make the Free State of Florida a most appealing place to visit.”

Critics will certainly quibble over DeSantis’ role in the surge. But there is no arguing that this is good news for our home state, not just for the tourism industry, but for all of the ancillary businesses that benefit from more wallets opening inside the Sunshine State.

Losers

Dishonorable mention: John Tobia. Valencia College was forced to put Tobia on leave from his teaching position as he faces allegations that, in his role as a Brevard County Commissioner, he used county employees to help with his work, by grading papers and performing other tasks.

According to Eric Rogers of Florida Today, a former Tobia staffer complained of misconduct, which led to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation.

That probe led nowhere regarding those allegations. But the process uncovered claims regarding staffers helping with course work. Tobia later confirmed to Florida Today that staffers “did help with some ancillary tasks related to his courses, including assisting him with entering grades into the college’s online system.” He said, however, that employees never graded anything themselves.

Nevertheless, the allegations were concerning enough that Valencia College stepped in to put him on leave.

It’s bad enough to have questions like that swirling around you as a County Commissioner. But, facing term limits, Tobia is also seeking to oust incumbent Brevard County Supervisor of Elections Tim Bobanic on Tuesday, with this news breaking just days before Election Day.

Now, it’s true that state investigators did close the larger case against Tobia, and perhaps Valencia officials looking at these claims will find them unsubstantiated.

But if Tobia is using state employees to carry out tasks unrelated to work, that’s just not something that should fly in an elections office in this current era of widespread, largely misplaced skepticism over election results. Employees need to be on the ball.

And as of now, it’s unclear whether there is going to be any finality on this before Election Day, leaving voters with questions as they decide who should lead Brevard’s Elections Office.

Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: Florida’s kids. This Summer, kids in need missed out on the Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer Program for Children, which gives families some funds to spend on groceries each month. That’s because our freedom-loving, pull-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps leaders didn’t want to pay the around $13 million in administrative costs associated with the program.

And because of that, they passed up on a whopping $250 million in federal money.

With the deadline approaching for the Summer 2025 version of the program, Democrats urged GOP leaders not to make the same choice again, and to accept the federal money to help kids in need.

Spoiler alert: They didn’t.

You see, when school is in session, children from lower income families — who, let’s remind everyone, were born into difficult situations through no fault of their own — can access free or reduced lunch programs while at school.

But during Summer Break, those options go away.

Now to be fair, state officials say they have funds to provide for these kids. But advocates disagree, arguing too many children are still going hungry in Florida. And forgive us if we aren’t going to take the word of a state government who can’t even get other basic functions to work.

We understand fiscal concerns and the argument that even well-intentioned programs are, at some point, not worth the cost associated with them. But $13 million down to receive $250 million in benefits, for a state with plenty of money in reserve? Sure seems like a good investment to us.

The biggest loser: Ben Sasse. Consider this the inverse of the Fine entry, because we have had plenty of praise for Sasse in the past.

But when you learn new info, that can change your view of a person. And Sasse’s spending habits are giving plenty of reason to reassess his brief tenure leading the University of Florida (UF).

It is quite common for those in power to hook up those who have climbed with them along the way. So it’s no surprise that Sasse hired his former U.S. Senate Chief of Staff, former U.S. Senate Communications Director and others close to him when he took over as UF President.

Those hires alone are not even really a scandal. Maybe they should be, but then we’ve got to have a bigger conversation about how our government works.

What is a scandal is the price tags associated with those hires, as well as their respective living arrangements.

The Independent Florida Alligator deserves all the credit here for digging into this story. What they found: spending under the President’s Office more than tripled under Sasse, going from $5.6 million to $17.3 million.

How did we get there? Raymond Sass, Sasse’s ex-Chief of Staff, made $396,000 working in a newly created position as vice president for innovation and partnerships, an increase from his $181,677 salary in Washington. Former Communications Director James Wegmann pulled in $432,000 to serve as vice president of communications, up from the $270,000 his predecessor made.

It goes on — and on, and on — and we encourage you to read the Alligator’s full accounting.

But OK, perhaps these wizards were doing better work deserving of a raise, rolling into Gainesville and taking the campus by storm.

Except, many of them weren’t even based in Gainesville. “All but one of Sasse’s political appointees worked for UF outside of Florida and commuted to Gainesville on the university’s dollar when needed — a move reflected in his office’s travel expenses,” the Alligator found.

Remote work is here to stay after all!

Look, we know the former U.S. Senator is dealing with a difficult family situation (although it seems now there may have been other reasons for him stepping down as President).

But part of the price you pay when entering a public position of leadership is that your own private struggles — no matter how painful and deserving of empathy — do not permit decision-making like this that screws over taxpayers/constituents/etc.

Sasse came in, brought along his friends, even inventing positions and letting them work from several states away, and just busted open the piggy bank for them.

And it’s a shame. During his time in Washington, Sasse stood out among his Republican U.S. Senate colleagues for taking what seemed like moral, courageous stands against Trump. But doling out exorbitant contracts to your pals after getting a position of power is not moral, it is not courageous, and it’s not fitting for the leader of one the best public universities in the entire United States.

Now, he’ll have to deal with the repercussions.

In 2018, Sasse as a U.S. Senator shaded Trump by arguing he and other Republicans had failed to “drain the swamp,” a common refrain aimed at tackling the worst excesses of Washington. Sasse made that point in a full op-ed introducing several bills to stop those excesses, to get “public servants that serve the public,” as Sasse wrote.

“Everyone talks about draining the swamp, but nobody does it,” he said then. Boy, he wasn’t kidding.