problems for candidates on both sides: DeSantis' easy path hits GOP roadblock...Crist is leading the Dem pack. Taking on DeSantis is a different story

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If Democratic voters nominate Charlie Crist, they will hand DeSantis his re-election.

The people who think Crist will win are the same people who claimed Biden would win Florida. Old white centrists are not the way to victory in the Sunshine State.

Crist is leading the Democratic pack. Taking on DeSantis is a different story.

Crist has significantly outperformed in recent polling including one out Tuesday that has him besting primary challengers by double-digits.

www.politico.com

‘Bad blood’: Florida Republicans defy DeSantis

The GOP-led Florida Senate surprised many by bucking the governor ahead of the November election.

www.politico.com

 

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excerpts:

DeSantis is facing resistance to some of his biggest election-year plans from an unlikely source: His own Republican colleagues in the state Senate.

They have refused to go along with DeSantis’ proposed congressional maps, resisted fulfilling his $100 billion-plus state budget and rejected his attempts to reign in tech and social media companies.

In a sign of how personal the clash has become, Republicans haven’t agreed to fund a $100 million request from the governor’s wife for cancer research. DeSantis’ wife, Casey, was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and recently completed chemotherapy.

According to more than a dozen state lawmakers, members of the governor’s administration and Florida political operatives, the conflicts stem from DeSantis using hard-nosed tactics to strong-arm the Legislature, disagreements between lawmakers and the governor’s new chief of staff and DeSantis’ lobbying campaign to pressure Simpson to pass a long-stalled anti-union bill. That effort peaked after conservative groups contacted by the governor’s team bought $75,000 in ads against Simpson in his own district.

“It’s really not hard to see,” said one Republican senator who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “There is bad blood between [Simpson and DeSantis] right now. It will likely work itself out in the end, but right now they are not in a good place.”

Club for Growth announced it was spending $75,000 on TV and digital ads and mailers in Simpson’s central Florida district asking voters to call him and urge the Senate to “hear the bill now.” Club for Growth’s vice president of government affairs is Scott Parkinson, who served as DeSantis’ chief of staff when he was in Congress.

The ads did little more than annoy Simpson, who last week told reporters that the bill’s chances of passing his chamber this session is “pretty bleak at this point.”

“It’s the same for everyone else in the room,” Simpson said when asked about the Club for Growth ads. “Just spell my name right.”

The feud comes ahead of a big election cycle that will see DeSantis run for re-election and Simpson make a statewide bid for agriculture commissioner. Trump has endorsed Simpson, but the Senate president has not yet gotten the blessing of DeSantis, who is wildly popular with the GOP base. A Mason-Dixon poll released Tuesday had DeSantis’ approval rating at 53 percent, a number that jumped to an eye-popping 89 percent with Republicans.

Simpson, unprompted, weighed in on the issue when asked by reporters how he would describe his relationship with DeSantis.

“I think it is very strong. I think the governor did a great job leading us through pandemic,” Simpson began. “Now we are in session, and I think it’s healthy to have debates in all the chambers, we have a Senate House and governor’s office.”

“The relationship is clearly strained. For years, the Senate has leveraged the governor’s office, but they underestimate this governor’s power,” said one GOP consultant who has worked with both sides. “He can’t be leveraged and now Senate Leadership finds themselves in a weird position because DeSantis holds the cards.”