It’s going to be on Ron DeSantis to win the Florida primary or Donald Trump. “It doesn’t hurt Ron DeSantis if Donald Trump’s on the ballot in Florida. “We don’t really want to be in a position of picking sides here, but we want to do what’s fair,” he said. But Donald Trump is not just a candidate. Vic Baker, a Volusia County Republican on the party’s executive committee, said after the vote that the loyalty oath, which also required contestants to pledge not to run as independents, would have been an “imposition on Donald Trump” and would have “put the MAGA nation into an absolute fury. Roughly 70 people gathered outside Friday’s meeting, many of them wearing Trump hats and at one point chanting, “We want Trump!” Trump has aggressively primaried his critics or called them out in deeply sardonic and personal terms on social media, while the governor has demonstrated he’s unafraid to veto legislative spending priorities even by members of his own party - or to take actions such as suspending liberal prosecutors or doubling down on a dispute with Walt Disney World.ĭeSantis and Trump have also had a huge level of support among Florida voters and donors. Some risk seeing their political aspirations fall apart by voting for or against the pledge, while others open themselves up to seeing prized policy goals perish.īoth men have demonstrated punitive streaks. Trump and DeSantis are the most powerful Republicans in Florida, upping the stakes for party members who dare cross them or even fail to offer a full-throated endorsement. “People will be pissed if we keep Trump off the ballot,” Ed Shoemaker of the Polk County GOP, said during the meeting to applause from the group.ĭeSantis and Trump did not attend the Orlando conference and were in Washington, D.C., at the Family Research Council’s annual Pray, Vote, Stand conference while members were voting. He warned that if the change had not been made, it would be detrimental to the Florida party because Trump supporters would be upset - adding that “the Republican Party of Florida would cease to exist.” “It’s about creating unnecessary roadblocks late in the game that makes it perceived that it’s anti-President Trump.” “It’s not about the pledge,” Gruters said. ![]() Joe Gruters, the former chair of the Florida GOP and a Trump supporter, made the move in the meeting to nix the requirement, arguing that the rules should not have been changed right ahead of the primary. Loyal Trump supporters, who were not members of the board, tried to sit in the meeting but were asked to leave - so instead they remained outside the room where members were voting, waiting anxiously for a final decision. ![]() The vote came at the end of a somewhat contentious closed-door session held by the party executive board at an Orlando hotel.
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