‘Time to look to the future’: Byron Donalds talks Governor’s race, New York mayoral battle

Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds continues to make his case to be Governor, talking to younger activists Friday at Turning Point USA’s gathering in Tampa.

Alone in the race for the GOP nomination for the moment, the Naples Republican stressed his biggest endorsement from President Donald Trump, while noting that Gov. Ron DeSantis and his predecessor Rick Scott have done a “tremendous” job.

“We’ve had great policy and great leadership in our state. Now it’s time to look to the future, diversifying our economy, making sure that the best jobs that exist anywhere in America exist here, making Florida the financial capital of the world, making our roads more efficient and better, cleaning up our insurance markets because we’ve got to do that. You young people, you haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m telling you, baby. Insurance. It’s tough,” the current Congressman said Friday in Tampa.

As other Republicans have before him, the native New Yorker worked his talking points about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, painting the current state assemblyman as a radical socialist who would create government grocery stores.

“I’ve stood in those lines as a young kid. That’s the history, that’s the truth. The government’s so bad at it, they got out of that business and just gave people these things called food stamps. We now call them SNAP Benefits. And that’s what they gave people to go to the supermarket and buy it for themselves, because at some point, somebody realized giving away food out of a government store is not what the government should be doing,” Donalds said.

He also offered a warning to New Yorkers who might flee Mamdani’s collectivist reign in Florida to leave their politics back home.

“If you come here to Florida to be free, to have no state income tax. to live in a state where we want you to innovate, to be successful, where govern’s not in your way. If you come here, do not vote for the same stupid people in Florida. Don’t vote for the same stupid people,” Donalds urged.