Bill Rufty, Author at Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Bill RuftyJuly 19, 2016

Florida’s Republican National Committeeman Peter Feaman, who sits on the Rules Committee, told the Florida delegation Tuesday he had never seen such careful cooperation between Republican National Committee representatives and a candidate’s representatives coming before the committee Monday. The RNC and the Trump representatives were on the same page. Usually, the candidate and the RNC […]

Bill RuftyJuly 12, 2016

Health care — and expanded Medicaid funds offered by the federal government — are still on the minds of many Floridians if a barrage of questions from Tuesday’s Tiger Bay of Polk County luncheon is any indication. State Sen. Denise Grimsley, a Sebring Republican, came to the lunch prepared to discuss the accomplishments of the […]

Bill RuftyJuly 12, 2016

Members of the Polk County Democratic Executive Committee waited anxiously through their two-hour meeting Monday night in Bartow for Dr. Dena Minning Grayson, a candidate for Florida’s 9th Congressional District. She never showed in what later was discovered to have been a miscommunication by the party leadership. But Valleri Crabtree of Kissimmee, the former Osceola Democratic […]

Bill RuftyJune 8, 2016

The Florida Federation of Republican Women will officially endorse Donald Trump for president during Trump’s rally at the Tampa Convention Center at 11 a.m. Saturday. “I have been asked to speak, and that is when I will announce our support,” said Dena DeCamp, president of the Florida Federation and a Republican National Convention delegate pledged […]

Bill RuftyJune 3, 2016

Republican incumbents Congressman Dennis Ross, State Sen. Kelli Stargel, and state Rep. Colleen Burton, all from Lakeland, will participate in a voter canvass by the Republican Party of Florida. Republican canvassers will meet Saturday, June 11, 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. beginning in Room 104 of the Ordway Building at Florida Southern College, 111 Lake Hollingsworth Drive, Lakeland. In […]

Bill RuftyMay 24, 2016

A fundraiser for Sam Killebrew, Republican primary candidate for Florida House District 41, is scheduled for 5:30-7 p.m., Thursday at the home of Harriet and Dean Boring, 2112 Hawthorne Trail, in Lakeland. Killebrew, retired contractor and a GOP fundraiser and activist, is competing with retired appellate Judge Charles Davis for the party’s nomination. The winner […]

Bill RuftyApril 28, 2016

Former Republican state Rep. Baxter Troutman of Winter Haven left politics in 2010, but politics didn’t leave him. Still mentioned as a potential state Senate candidate when a likely vacancy opens in four years, Troutman is taking a back seat to his wife Rebecca, whom he proposed to on the floor of the Florida House […]

Bill RuftyMarch 30, 2016

David Charles Poulin, a Lakeland Democrat, recently opened a campaign account for Florida House District 56, occupied by Wauchula Republican Ben Albritton, who is seeking his fourth two-year term to the seat. Poulin’s entry means all five House seats in or including parts of Polk County now have Democrats running in them. That hasn’t happened […]

Bill RuftyMarch 30, 2016

As big time Republican leaders prop up their egos and influence by supporting this presidential candidate or that presidential candidate and threatening not to support another, a significant grassroots GOP organization, which does the heavy campaign lifting right down to the grassroots, says it will support whoever the nominee is. The board of the National […]

Bill RuftyMarch 11, 2016

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Motorists nearly always complain about the traffic on Interstate 4, but in the last two days with the Democratic and Republican primaries Tuesday, many on the crowded highway have been presidential candidates. On the Democratic side, both former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders worked Orlando, Kissimmee and Tampa Wednesday and Thursday. […]

Bill Rufty
Image via AP.

Bill Rufty: Tidbits from the Republican National Convention

Denise Grimsley: Health care top issue for 2017 Legislature

Valleri Crabtree ‘shows up’

Florida Federation of Republican Women to officially endorse Donald Trump

Lakeland Republican incumbents to voter canvass June 11

HD 41 candidate Sam Killebrew to hold Lakeland fundraiser Thursday

Wife of former lawmaker Baxter Troutman catches the political bug

Democrats becoming challengers on I-4 again?

Federation of Republican Women: We support the nominee

I-4 heavy with traffic … of presidential candidates