By admin 
On paper, the Republican primary to be Florida’s next governor appears to be little more than a formality.
Read more Inside the fight over Israel tearing Democrats on the Hill apart
The clear front-runner, Rep. Byron Donalds, carries into the final weeks of the race President Donald Trump’s endorsement, the backing of most of the state GOP’s establishment, a commanding fundraising advantage and little opposition on the airwaves.
Instead, the contest has become a bitter succession fight driven largely by one powerful holdout: Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Still immensely popular among Florida Republicans but barred by term limits from seeking reelection, DeSantis has refused to hand the baton to Donalds and has spent months publicly and privately arguing the Naples congressman is unfit to replace him. He has even shared his reservations directly with Trump, according to a person close to DeSantis with knowledge of a recent conversation between the two.
Yet DeSantis has failed to throw his support behind an alternative, instead undercutting other Republicans trying to take down Donalds. He has declined to elevate Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, despite appointing him to the post just a year ago, and he has dismissed the candidacy of former state House Speaker Paul Renner, once a close ally who helped muscle the governor’s agenda through the legislature before his presidential campaign.
The resulting vacuum has transformed what could have been a straightforward Republican succession into one of the nastiest GOP primary fights of the midterm season — marked by an ugly public feud between DeSantis’ top staff and his own lieutenant governor, a legal fight to disqualify a candidate and fears of the governor retaliating against those who side with Trump’s chosen candidate.
It has also opened space for James Fishback, a 31-year-old, race-baiting insurgent who has gained national attention despite a troubling legal history and limited financial support. Fishback has called Donalds, who is Black, a “slave to his donors” and a “DEI Republican” who would “turn Florida into a Section 8 ghetto,” and has attracted praise from influential right-wing commentators like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes.
DeSantis’ role in the divisive fight has frustrated his remaining allies in the party and left him increasingly isolated as he drifts toward an uncertain political future. Though the governor has made little secret of his continued presidential ambitions, some Republican friends worry he is eroding the goodwill built during two terms in office, when he rose from relative obscurity to become one of the GOP’s biggest stars before losing the party’s 2024 presidential nomination to Trump, and leaving himself vulnerable as he tries to regroup with an eye toward 2028.
“Everybody has tried to talk sense into him, including the president,” the person said. “Ron is leaving without a lot of friends. There’s going to be a big effort to take the shine off of him and he won’t have a platform to defend himself.”
The saga of Ron and Byron
DeSantis and Donalds were once close. Donalds was a reliable ally for the governor in the state legislature before winning a congressional seat in 2020. DeSantis also worked closely with Donalds’ wife, Erika, a school choice advocate and charter school operator, to expand Florida’s private school voucher program. On election night in 2022, Donalds introduced DeSantis before the governor delivered his landslide victory speech.
Their relationship unraveled the following spring.
As DeSantis prepared to launch a White House bid, Donalds opted to endorse Trump over his home state governor. It helped trigger a wave of endorsements for Trump from Florida Republicans before DeSantis had formally entered the race.
According to the person close to DeSantis, Donalds spent days trying to share his decision with the governor before making his endorsement, but DeSantis refused to take or return his calls. A Republican operative close to Donalds confirmed this account. DeSantis’ office didn’t respond to questions about the episode.
When Donalds began laying the groundwork for a gubernatorial campaign two years later with Trump’s backing, DeSantis quickly sought to undermine it.
“The reality is we’ve achieved victories in Florida. We need to start achieving those victories up there (in Washington),” he said in February 2025. “I think people look at it and say you’ve got a guy like Byron, he just hasn’t been a part of any of the victories that we’ve had here over the left over these last years. He’s just not been a part of it. He’s been in other states campaigning doing that and that’s fine, but OK, then deliver results up there.”
Those attacks have been echoed by Renner and Collins as they’ve tried to chip away at Donalds’ support and position themselves as DeSantis’ heir. They have also regularly highlighted Donalds’ legal troubles as a young man, when he was arrested on separate occasions for marijuana possession and for fraud. Donalds earlier this year acknowledged selling drugs before he met his wife as a 21-year-old and “gave my life to Christ.”
While Renner and Collins both aggressively supported DeSantis’ presidential campaign – including stumping for him in bitter cold Iowa ahead of the state’s caucuses – he has been so far unmoved to the return the favor and help them defeat Donalds.
“If I feel the need to do something, I do it,” the governor said in April about a potential endorsement. “And so you guys can stand by and just watch.”
For a time, first lady Casey DeSantis considered entering the race herself to carry on her husband’s legacy, potentially setting up a proxy fight between Florida’s first couple and Trump. But speculation faded after questions emerged surrounding her state charity initiative, and last month’s candidate qualifying deadline effectively closed the door on a bid.
Donalds has largely ignored the salvos from DeSantis. His campaign told CNN he is now looking ahead to the general election and likely Democratic nominee David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who changed parties amid his opposition to Trump. Donalds has raised more than $100 million between his campaign and state political committee and had nearly $66 million on hand as of last month, about 10 times more than Collins, the next closest. He has declined to debate his opponents, determining that his contenders hadn’t earned the right to share a stage with him.
“If you look at their campaigns, anybody looking at it, any metric, you already see that these campaigns don’t have what it takes to win a statewide election,” Donalds told a Miami CBS station earlier this month. “So why would I then help them raise their credibility, raise their name, or raise their view with the people of Florida?”
Fishback, Collins and Renner recently participated in a debate hosted by Patrick Bet-David on his popular YouTube show, where Donalds’ absence was a much-discussed topic as the candidates argued over who should drop out and clear space for single alternative that could capture the large swath of undecided voters still up for grabs. They all said they intend to remain in the race.
Read more What you need to breathe easier when the air is full of smoke
Last month, the state party canceled a debate scheduled for its annual gathering because only Donalds met the polling and fundraising thresholds to participate. DeSantis called the decision a “farce” on X and accused the party of trying to “engineer an outcome.”
Evan Powers, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, defended the party’s position and argued that the candidacies of Fishback, Collins and Renner were a “sideshow.”
“We know who is going to win the primary,” Powers said, “and we’re moving ahead to general election mode.”
Mudslinging, confrontations and lawsuits
The campaign has nevertheless grown more acrimonious leading up to the state’s August 18 primary.
Christina Pushaw, a longtime adviser to DeSantis who remains on the state payroll, and other allies recently accused Collins’ wife, Layla, of operating multiple anonymous social media accounts critical of the governor and his staff. Layla Collins denied the accusation in a social media post, but the finger pointing and name calling between the two camps continued for days for all of X to watch.
The hostility between DeSantis’ top staff and Collins apparently isn’t new. A senior administration official in Tallahassee told CNN that the state’s second couple has been a “constant source of drama” and predicted the race marked “the potential end of Jay’s political career.”
“The governor gave Jay a platform and opportunity to succeed, and instead of listening to the governor, he and his wife chose to engage in months of attacks on DeSantis staff and allies,” the administration official said.
In a statement to CNN, Collins said the governor had been “given bad information by people who do not want him engaging in this race. I know for a fact that some on his staff have actively worked against me and my wife to stain our names and reputations.”
He added that he would “not be intimidated into dropping out.”
“We have a lane,” he said. “The data has shown that we have a real path to victory.”
DeSantis has not publicly weighed in as the war of words exposes strife within the highest levels of his administration.
Collins, meanwhile, has sued to remove Fishback from the ballot, arguing he doesn’t satisfy the state’s seven-year residency requirement to serve as governor. The lawsuit cites documents that showed he is an active voter in Washington, DC, where he has owned a home since 2021 and claims a property tax deduction only available for a primary residence. A judge is scheduled to hear arguments in the case next week. Collins, who lived in Montana as recently as 2019, has only narrowly eclipsed the residency threshold, Fishback and Renner have pointed out.
In an interview Tuesday with CNN, Fishback said he never lived full-time in DC and accused Collins of “playing the same game the Democrats have for years, and that’s lawfare.”
“If you can’t beat them at the polls, you drag them to court,” he said.
Fishback is also embroiled in a separate legal dispute stemming from his previous employer, the New York hedge fund Greenlight Capital. The firm sued Fishback, alleging he failed to pay back money he borrowed before leaving to start his own investment firm and misrepresenting his role at Greenlight to prospective clients. A judge ruled for Greenlight in March 2025, and the company has spent the past 16 months trying to collect the judgement and legal fees, arguing in court filings that the gubernatorial candidate continues to spend on luxury goods despite claiming he can’t afford to pay. Last month, a New York judge ordered Fishback to pay Greenlight more than $1 million in legal fees.
Fishback told CNN he intends to appeal the ruling and dismissed the lawsuits as the actions of an aggrieved former boss.
Despite those legal challenges, Fishback has pressed ahead with his confrontational campaign. Video posted to social media last week showed Fishback attempting to enter a local party event featuring Donalds, leading to physical confrontations between supporters of the candidates.
For DeSantis, the turmoil reflects a broader decline in his political influence.
After returning to Tallahassee following his failed presidential campaign, DeSantis appeared noticeably diminished as he faced for the first time pushback from his own party.
For a time, though, he retained considerable leverage over Republican lawmakers and other statewide elected officials through his veto powers, especially his ability to cut any proposed line of spending in the budget. Against that reality, few Republicans dared to weigh in on the governor’s race and risk crossing DeSantis, whose vindictiveness is well-documented in Tallahassee over the past eight years.
But the threat largely evaporated last month when DeSantis formally signed this year’s state budget. Since then, a growing list of Republican leaders have endorsed Donalds, including, notably, Attorney General James Uthmeier, DeSantis’ former chief of staff and 2024 campaign manager.
Uthmeier’s endorsement prompted a barrage of criticism from an army of online accounts that DeSantis allies have regularly unleashed on his political foes, especially Donalds. Pushaw and other supporters spent several days this month defending Uthmeier and scrambling to reign them in.
Read more Paul Pelosi charged with misdemeanor hit-and-run over collision with parked car
DeSantis himself, however, has remained silent.