With GOP child molester Roy Moore still refusing to concede the Alabama Senate special election even after Democrat Doug Jones was certified as the winner yesterday, it looks like Moore will be the gift that keeps on giving to blue states in the South. Having not learned their lesson, Trump and the billionaires who own him are moving on to Florida's gubernatorial contest, where they plan to set up another Roy Moore-style situation in the Sunshine State.
This time, the GOP frontrunner is the state Agriculture Commissioner, Adam Putnam, who isn't crazy enough for Trump and his megadonors. They're all getting behind GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis, currently the chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security, the right-wing nutjob who's been regularly on FOX News calling for a purge of the FBI and a mass roundup of Democrats since July.
After Donald Trump appeared to endorse Ron DeSantis’ campaign for Florida governor last week, a handful of the biggest and most influential billionaires in Republican politics threw their support behind the three-term GOP congressman, upending the race in the nation’s biggest swing state.
The stable of billionaires and millionaires listed on DeSantis’ “Finance Leadership Team,” obtained by POLITICO, include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, hedge fund heiress Rebekah Mercer, investment tycoon Foster Friess and other donors who have funded the conservative Koch brothers’ network and President Trump’s campaign. Just last week, Trump weighed in on Twitter to say that DeSantis “would make a GREAT Governor of Florida.”
DeSantis has yet to formally announce his 2018 campaign for governor, but his intentions to seek the office became clear in May after he established a state political committee, called the Fund for Florida’s Future, that’s allowed to raise and spend unlimited soft money from corporate contributors.
“This sets DeSantis apart from the rest. He will have the financial resources and the ground game and the Trump base to be an incredible statewide candidate,” said David Bossie, a DeSantis backer, who founded the Citizens United conservative group, served as Trump’s deputy campaign manager and just co-authored the new “Let Trump Be Trump” book plugged by the president.
Putnam doesn't have a chance. He's the Luther Strange in this equation and he's going to have his career as a Republican ruined because he's not crazy enough.
In a state as big as Florida, where a week’s worth of saturation TV during next year’s general election could cost as much as $3 million, cash is king. And Putnam has so far reigned over both his likely and current Democratic and Republican rivals by raising his money from the major industries that do business in Florida’s Capitol, such as agricultural interests, the healthcare industry, power companies and Disney.
With Tallahassee’s institutional GOP donors behind Putnam, a Republican candidate can only hope to match him with outside money or independent wealth, which was a key to Scott’s success in his unexpected primary win in 2010.
Including his campaign and his Florida Grown political committee, Putnam had a total of about $15 million cash on hand at the end of last month. Corcoran, who is not yet an announced candidate, had $4.7 million in the bank in his Watchdog PAC. DeSantis had about $3.6 million in the bank between his political committee and his congressional campaign, whose donors will need to sign off on re-directing their federal contributions to his state race if he runs.
Surveys conducted by Republican pollsters show Putnam leading the GOP primary with less than a third of the vote. DeSantis, depending on the survey, trails by anywhere from 10 points to 20 points. And Corcoran is polling in single digits. More than half of Republican voters say they’re not sure about whom they’ll choose. But 80-90 percent of them back President Trump, the polls show.
Trump’s deputy campaign manager, Bossie, said Trump’s support for DeSantis and the backing of the top donors should help catch up to Putnam quickly.
So once again, Trump and his donors are setting up a hard-right primary challenge to a state party's preferred candidate, because Trump likes him. I bet that's going to go over real well in November in Florida, especially with all the influx of voters from Puerto Rico, which has now been without power for 100 days and counting and deep in a humanitarian crisis that this regime is ignoring daily.
Democrats are running both Gwen Graham, the daughter of former Florida Gov. Bob Graham, and Andrew Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee. We'll see how this turns out, but I'm guessing that after DeSantis wins the primary for the GOP that he finds out just how much being Donald Trump's favorite is worth in November.
And it won't be much.
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