According to a report from Politico's Meredith McGraw and Matt Dixon, the first major battle for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination will take place this weekend when Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) host competing rallies in Florida -- which has GOP campaign consultants worried a full-on war could be in the offing.
The former president is slated to head a rally in Miami on Sunday to which DeSantis was not invited. For his part, DeSantis is hitting the road in the state and appearing at 13 different rallies between Saturday and election day to bolster GOP chances in the midterm election.
According to Politico, not everyone is pleased that the two aren't putting aside their differences and worry what barbs they may sling at each other before their respective crowds.
"They did not invite Ron, which I do think was stupid,” said one GOP consultant of the Trump rally. “Why not try and avoid the appearance of the fight? But in their defense, I don’t know that he would have come even if he was invited.”
"Both sides have publicly downplayed any conflict between Trump and DeSantis, but interviews with nine GOP consultants, advisers and party officials say hostilities between the two potential 2024 opponents remain," Politico is reporting with a former DeSantis adviser confiding, "Trump cannot help himself and Ron knows that. So I think what you’ve seen is him strategically take jabs without taking direct jabs at Trump. Ron’s very smart, whatever he does he’s going to be calculated and diligent about it.”
As for Trump, one person close to the former president stated, "DeSantis is still looking for Trump’s affection in a lot of ways, and I think for them to get miffed about not getting invited shows how big of a force Trump is during the midterm elections. Even with a candidate who looks like he’s going to win, they’re upset they were not invited to the rally.”
One GOP consultant with ties to DeSantis expects Trump to try and stick a knife in DeSantis' 2024 presidential ambitions.
"Trump 'is Dr. Frankenstein coming to Florida to try and kill the monster that has gotten out of control,'" they explained. “It’s a fight over control. I think he [Trump] has picked his enemy. In his mind, they are running against each other.”
Christian nationalist Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is pulling out all the stops, sending his wife in to submit his closing argument for re-election: God endorses me. DeSantis is running to keep his seat from former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Democrat.
It's a not uncommon endorsement Republicans are making – or rather, making up. God isn't going to issue a statement of denial or a cease and desist order. Anyone, even embattled GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker, can do it – and they are. Walker this week told Georgians, "I'm a warrior for God."
DeSantis' campaign is a bit more polished.
Many may not be old enough to remember Paul Harvey, but many Florida voters are.
The DeSantis campaign, via DeSantis' wife, Casey, just released a two-minute black-and-white ad, ripping off a wonderful ode the late ABC News Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, who died in 2009 at the age of 90, once recorded.
If you have two minutes it's worth listening to the beautiful, original recording by Harvey, "So God Made a Farmer."
DeSantis' ode to himself is less poetic, but it does enshrine his legacy as a Christian nationalist.
"On the eighth day, God looked down on his plant in paradise and said, 'I need to protect her.' So God made a fighter," the DeSantis ad begins, clearly taking from the Paul Harvey classic.
"God said, 'I need somebody willing to get up before dawn and kiss his family goodbye. travel thousands of miles for no other reason than to serve the people, to save their jobs, their livelihoods, their liberty, their happiness.' So God made a fighter."
"God said, 'I need someone to be strong advocate for truth in the midst of hysteria. Someone who challenges conventional wisdom and isn't afraid to defend what he knows to be right and just,' so God made a fighter."
"God said, 'I need somebody who will take the arrows, stand firm in the wake of unrelenting attacks, look a mother in the eyes and tell her that her child will be in school. She can keep her job, go to church, eat dinner with friends and hold the hand of an aging parents taking their breath for the last time.' So God made a fighter."
"God said, 'I need a family man. A man who would laugh and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his daughter says she wants to spend her life doing what dad does.' So God made a fighter."
In 2013 Ram Trucks used the Paul Harvey ode to farmers in an elegant Super Bowl ad, but at least they credited the author. DeSantis did not.
DeSantis is getting highly criticized for this last-ditch closing argument, just four days before the November 8 election.
"New DeSantis ad says DeSantis was created by God on the 8th day to protect freedom," observed Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall.
""You shall have no other gods beside Me. You shall not make for yourself any graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is heaven above ... You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord Your God, am a jealous God ..."
Florida Attorney Daniel Uhlfelder, who closely tracked DeSantis' possibly unlawful shipping of migrants to Martha's Vineyard, was less eloquent but more specific in his response.
"God created this asshole on 8th day?" he asked.
"If Barack Obama had made an ad like this, evangelicals would have burnt down the country in a ragegasm," wrote Lee Papa, better known as The Rude Pundit.
VICE News' Paul Curst said, "I'm not an expert on Christian theology but I did go to Catholic school for a while and I don't remember reading 'God created the governor of Florida in order to save America from the libs' in the Old Testament."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it not kinda heretical/blasphemous to suggest DeSantis is some kind of prophet sent specifically by God to save us?" asked MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan. "Is it also not weird that Republicans seem to need to create cults of personality around all their leaders? Idolatrous even?"
Rev. Ben Crosby, an Episcopal Church priest, asked: "Under the imaginary Christian nationalist republic that exists in the minds of some of these Twitter guys, would the creators and approvers of this ad be punished with jail time for blasphemy?"
Republicans may face a hostage crisis in 2024 if Donald Trump is not the GOP's nominee for the third cycle in a row.
With Trump expected to announce a comeback attempt shortly after the 2022 midterm elections, CBS News chief election and campaigns correspondent Robert Costa began looking forward to 2024.
In a thread posted to Twitter, Costa explained he "spent the day on the phone calling around the GOP, meeting with some longtime sources by Trump Tower."
He noted Trump's team was keeping an eye on Govs. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
"Trump loves idea of forcing others’ hands, making DeSantis, Youngkin, and others have to reckon, soon, whether they want a messy fight with him where he plays by no rules," Costa reported.
He said one Trump advisor asked him, “Do they really believe he’d endorse anybody at the convention if he loses?”
Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr has also voiced similar worries, New York Times correspondent Maggie Hamberman noted.
"This is what Barr recently referred to as “extortion” - the idea that Trump will hold the party hostage if anyone challenges him," Haberman reported. "He did it successfully in 2016 too by dangling the threat of an independent candidacy."
Donald Trump's eldest son is expected to play a more prominent role in his expected 2024 campaign as his son-in-law's role diminishes, according to a new report.
CBS News chief election and campaigns correspondent Robert Costa described what he learned of Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared Kushner's expected roles in a thread posted to Twitter.
"Spent the day on the phone calling around the GOP, meeting with some longtime sources by Trump Tower," Costa explained.
"Trump’s many legal challenges are intertwined with how he thinks about 2024, not separate," he reported. "Some close allies tell him that if he gets in and becomes a federal candidate, it’ll somehow shield him as DOJ digs further into records case and his J6 conduct, all as his allies in House likely probe [Merrick] Garland and FBI next year."
"If he jumps in, Trump wants a small team with him on the road again, with travel focused on his plane and rallies," he reported. "2016 type model but with [Susie] Wiles and likely [Chris] LaCivita running ship, with Don Jr. and his crew increasingly influential as Kushner steps back."
Costa also reported Trump's team is keeping a close eye on Govs. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), who they see as "building ties" with Kari Lake in Arizona and Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
He noted his sources say privately they worry DeSantis could win big on Tuesday.
"They don’t rule out him running since it’s hard for them to gauge his ambition at this point," Costa reported.
ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s been a remarkable midterm election in Florida, with months of campaigning and millions of dollars of ad spending soon coming to an end as voters go to the polls Tuesday to determine the future of the state. But as that final day draws near, the two parties appear to be headed in opposite directions. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is looking to win reelection and cement his status as a national figure and possible presidential contender, while Democrat Charlie Crist seeks to shock the country by taking DeSantis down. Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando has tried to st...
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has the elite credentials of a prototypical US presidential candidate, from graduating with honors from Yale and Harvard Law School to earning a bronze star for meritorious service in the military. The man seen as a possible 2024 Republican nominee – and a political successor to Donald Trump – appears on track for re-election on November 8. But he may find that Trump casts a long shadow.
Ron DeSantis has a Trump problem. The man touted as a likely contender for the 2024 Republican nomination needs to keep the former president on side, given that Trump still wields some influence as a kingmaker. But he must also maintain enough distance to appeal to conservative voters who have turned their backs on Trump.
Some quarters are already predicting that DeSantis will forge ahead as the leader of the Republican opposition and the party’s likely candidate. An August article in the National Review, the standard-bearer of American conservatism, argued that DeSantis was the true "leader of the opposition", lauding him for pursuing conservative causes where other politicians have balked.
Trump threw his support behind DeSantis in his inaugural bid for the governorship in 2018, attending rallies in Florida and calling him a "brilliant young leader". But that support is conspicuously absent as DeSantis faces re-election.
The two men are engaged in a delicate rivalry in which DeSantis avoids criticizing Trump directly or challenging his GOP supremacy while dismissing any 2024 speculation. And so far, DeSantis has skillfully dodged the question of whether he believes the last election was stolen from the former president.
But he has embraced some of the more extreme ideas put forth by election deniers. In a November 6, 2020, interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel – three days after the presidential vote and the day before it was called for Joe Biden – DeSantis suggested that state legislatures could override the results by naming pro-Trump electors regardless of the outcome of the vote.
Culture wars
DeSantis, 44, has also embraced many of the “culture war” arguments of the far right, going full anti-mask during the Covid-19 pandemic and banning schools from teaching critical race theory (CRT) – the idea that racial inequality is systemic and thus intrinsic to, for example, the US criminal justice system – despite CRT having no official place in school curricula.
He was behind a push to ban math books in his state deemed to be too “woke” and a controversial Florida bill that limited discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools nicknamed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. And even before the US Supreme Court moved to overturn Roe v Wade, DeSantis weighed in on the abortion debate by signing legislation banning the procedure after 15 weeks.
DeSantis came under fire in September for transferring unsuspecting migrants to Democratic states in an expensive – and for many critics, cruel – political stunt designed to play to the anti-immigration right wing. He is now facing an investigation by the Treasury Department into whether he misused federal pandemic relief funds to fly two planeloads of Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
‘Trump-like’
Despite the controversies, such combative, high-profile moves have helped elevate DeSantis’s national profile. A pre-election tour to drum up the party faithful across battleground states didn’t hurt, either. Stephan Lawson, head of communications for the DeSantis reelection campaign, suggested it was a way to bolster his support base without challenging Trump directly.
“What he's doing is continuing to elevate his stature and his name ID, his conservative credentials to a larger audience,” Lawson told ABC.
“Put another way – 'I'm gonna get all the good without the bad of taking on Trump directly’,” Lawson added.
As perhaps befits the man viewed as a possible heir to Trump, DeSantis is similarly given to dissembling and hyperbole – Politifact has rated many of his public statements as “false” or “mostly false”.
But there are also notable differences. DeSantis has publicly voiced concern about the growing US deficit, which began ballooning while Trump was in office. Although both men downplay the effects of global warming, DeSantis has supported legislation to combat a rise in sea levels and protect the Everglades.
DeSantis has also criticized the invasion of Ukraine and supported tougher sanctions on Russia while Trump has said that Ukraine should look to strike a deal with Vladimir Putin.
The New York Times quoted one DeSantis ally as saying the governor’s political brand is akin to “competent Trumpism”.
Although Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in national polls asking Republicans who they want to represent them in 2024, DeSantis has started edging out the former president in some state polls. And his fundraising outstripped Trump’s in the first six months of the year, according to OpenSecrets, an NGO that tracks political donations, with DeSantis breaking donation records for a gubernatorial race.
DeSantis might also be able to rely on support from the numerous “Never Trumpers” of the Republican Party – some of whom have since voted for Democrats – giving him broader national appeal.
“There are a lot of establishment Republicans that would come home for DeSantis,” said David Jolly, a former GOP congressman from Florida who served with DeSantis and has since become an Independent, in comments to the Washington Post in September.
DeSantis “has adopted Trump’s playbook in Florida and he does Trump-like things … but he’s actually arm’s-length from Trump”, Jolly added.
And whereas Trump gave no quarter to his critics or political opponents, DeSantis has tried to show that he can rise above politics when the occasion calls for it.
DeSantis praised President Joe Biden for declaring a state of emergency, thereby freeing up federal funding for Florida and allowing agencies to coordinate relief efforts, ahead of Hurricane Ian in late September. “We appreciate the Biden administration’s consideration for the people of Florida during this time of need,” DeSantis said.
It was a shift in tone for DeSantis, who regularly uses the president as a political foil, criticising him on issues ranging from Afghanistan to Ukraine to vaccine mandates.
From Harvard to Gitmo
When DeSantis was sworn in as governor in 2019 he was, at 40, Florida's youngest governor in a century. His official biographies invariably describe him as a “native Floridian with blue collar roots” who went on to follow a top-flight trajectory leading from Yale University to Harvard Law School (he graduated with honours from both).
DeSantis completed Naval Justice School in 2005 and was assigned the following year to serve as a military lawyer at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where his responsibilities included ensuring detainees were treated in accordance with the law, according to an account in the Tampa Bay Times. He subsequently served as a legal adviser to the SEAL commander in charge of a special operations force in Fallujah during the 2007 “surge” of US troops in Iraq.
After his active-duty service, DeSantis was an assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Florida.
DeSantis was first elected to Congress in 2012 as a representative for Florida’s Sixth District. During his first term he co-founded the Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-right conservative lawmakers. He also became a frequent guest on Fox News and earned the support of the Tea Party, a virulently anti-Obama right-wing movement, before winning re-election in 2016.
A Republican rift?
By the time Trump became president in 2017, DeSantis was one of his most vocal supporters. And he had Trump's backing when he announced that he was running for governor of Florida, winning the post the following year.
But the two men's similarities, once a source of affinity, may be emerging as a source of conflict.
Rolling Stone cited Trump insiders as saying the former president has accused DeSantis of "stealing" some of his mannerisms. A video from The Recount portrays the two men speaking side by side in split screen to highlight the parallels.
“DeSantis certainly mimics Trump’s style, rhetoric and body language,” Dan Eberhart, a longtime GOP donor, told Rolling Stone, adding that DeSantis’s “bombastic” style seems to be "ripped straight out of a Donald Trump style guide”.
Eberhart has donated to Trump in the past but said he’d rather support someone like DeSantis in the next presidential race.
Multiple US media outlets have cited sources in Trump's circle as saying he is displeased with DeSantis's ascent. The Washington Post reported that Trump has dubbed the governor "ungrateful", telling advisers: "I made him."
And in what was widely seen as a snub, Trump announced in late October that he would speak at a Miami rally for Senator Marco Rubio on the weekend right before Election Day but made no mention of addressing Florida crowds in support of DeSantis.
DeSantis, for his part, endorsed a Republican Senate candidate in Colorado who has said he would "actively" campaign against Trump if he runs again in 2024.
Amid reports that resentments are simmering just below the surface, it remains to be seen how long the two men can avoid coming into open conflict over the leadership of their party – particularly with a presidential nomination soon hanging in the balance.
On the one side is a report from Vanity Fair that DeSantis is sending out signals that he may not challenge the former president for the top Republican Party spot. On the other hand, the Beast is reporting that Trump and his people believe they have enough ammunition to "destroy" DeSantis should he face off with the former president.
As the Beast's Zachary Petrizzo is reporting, Trump's people think the biggest weakness in DeSantis' campaign to date is their belief that his wife, Casey, is the brains behind the operation.
According to the report, one source with connections to both camps suggested, "She has turned into a de facto point person for the 'very insular' campaign, in the words of a person familiar with the operation," who added, "She is a campaign manager, the political director, and the chief of staff.”
One adviser to Trump stated, "The main thing everyone makes fun of DeSantis for is that everyone knows his wife is the one calling the shots. He’s totally subservient to her ridiculous political opinions.”
That same person claimed that "Casey DeSantis was an easy target for Trump," explaining, "Trump’s going to end up doing to DeSantis and his wife what he did to [Sen. Ted] Cruz and his wife,” linking to Trump's ugly attacks on Heidi Cruz during the 2016 campaign.
The report adds, "Trump advisers seem to believe that, if DeSantis did challenge Trump, the former president would make quick work of the Florida governor."
As one adviser put it, "It doesn’t matter what might be best, Trump is going to try to destroy him."
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis received a fact-check on an outlandish claim about United States history that he made at his only debate with Democratic challenger Charlie Crist.
"You have people that are teaching — and actually his running mate has said this in the past — that teaching the United States was built on stolen land," DeSantis said. "That is inappropriate for our schools; it's not true."
PolitiFact, a nonprofit operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, reached out to the DeSantis campaign for documentation that the statement was not true, but did not receive a response.
"We reached out to historians of Native and non-Native descent. All of them said it is well documented that the U.S. acquired Native American land through dubious treaties and, at times, forcefully confiscated ancestral territories to bolster the country's expansion," PolitiFact reported. "Sometimes the U.S. and Native American tribes struck treaties that defined boundaries and determined land sale prices and forms of compensation. Other times, tribes signed land-ceding agreements under duress."
DeSantis was not just wrong about U.S. history, but was also specifically wrong about Florida.
"Andrew Frank, a Florida State University professor who specializes in the history of the Seminoles, said the U.S. annexed much of Florida through treaties that a majority of the tribal leaders opposed," PolitiFact reported. "The U.S. military drove out more than 3,000 Seminoles from the state, according to the Florida Department of State. Around 300 members of the tribe remained in Florida."
The fact-check ranked DeSantis' claim as "Pants on Fire!"
"Historians of Native and non-Native descent said DeSantis' characterization is wrong. It's well-documented that the U.S. repeatedly made treaties with Native Americans and then violated them using force and other means to accommodate non-Native settlement. Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have time and again affirmed that as fact," PolitiFact reported. "DeSantis' claim is wildly historically inaccurate."
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday raised some eyebrows when he called for the impeachment of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), despite the fact that there is no mechanism for him to be impeached.
"Trump is a long way from 2015 when Sam Nunberg was a bridge to media conservatives wary of Trump [and] Trump used his Fox News connections," she wrote. "He is appearing on fringier outlets as others aren't having him."
From 2015 until his loss in the 2020 election, Trump was a frequent fixture on Fox News. Since then, however, he has appeared less frequently on the network, which has given prominent slots to upcoming Republican figures such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Arizona gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake.
Trump, for his part, has regularly accused Fox News of turning on him and he is still apparently bitter that the network correctly called the state of Arizona for President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The theory in Republican circles has been that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was the "clever" or "more intelligent" version of Donald Trump and would be a much better at running for president in 2024. Given Trump's mounting legal problems and scandals, having someone like DeSantis would be less complicated for the Republican Party.
But according to Gabriel Sherman writing for Vanity Fair, Republican Party insiders are starting to question whether DeSantis would be brave enough to take on Trump.
One source revealed that DeSantis has led donors “to believe he will not run if Trump does." Others, however, said he could “walk into the presidency in 2028 without pissing off Trump or Florida.”
The comment comes after the debate DeSantis had with former Gov. Charlie Crist (D-FL), who asked DeSantis whether he would commit to filling out his term. DeSantis refused to answer. The assumptions about DeSantis come from his behavior for the past year after he's traveled the country and helped promote other Republican candidates. It's something that presidential candidates typically do.
Now, he's reconsidering, according to at least four prominent Republicans. He recently hinted to donors he wouldn't make the challenge against the former president.
“He’s led them to believe he will not run if Trump does,” said a Republican briefed on the conversations with donors.
The matchup has already been spilling out into the digital world after DeSantis rushed to help Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who can't even get the support from his own fellow Utah colleague, Sen. Mitt Romney (R). After DeSantis lent his name to Lee, Trump rushed in to make sure his name was included too.
"Mike has long had my Complete and Total Endorsement, and even more strongly now!" Trump posted on his personal social media website.
“They hate each other,” a former Trump adviser told Vanity Fair.
Another donor noted that at just 44 years old, DeSantis has all the time in the world to wait until Trump is out of the way.
“He can walk into the presidency in 2028 without pissing off Trump or Florida,” the source told Sherman. “What would you rather do? Be the governor of Florida for certain or go run for president?”
That said, one Republican close to DeSantis told Sherman, "he's running."
Right now, DeSantis is on the outs with Trump, but if Marco Rubio is any indication, Trump will welcome him back into the MAGA family if he bows out of 2024.
MIAMI — Documents released this week by the aviation company that helped manage Florida’s $12 million migrant relocation program shed new light on behind-the-scenes dealings as the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis, working with the politically connected vendor, wriggled around a requirement that Florida use the money to export Florida migrants — not those living in some other state. The records obtained by the Florida Center for Government Accountability show, among other revelations, that the president of Destin-based Vertol Systems Company Inc. was not only on the plane when his company f...
Days before the polls close in the 2022 midterm elections, actions by Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are already being seen through the prism of the expected 2024 GOP presidential nomination contest.
DeSantis is starring in a new ad for GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, who is facing an uncharacteristically tough re-election in deep-red Utah as he's being challenged by independent Evan McMullin, who won Lee's vote for president in 2016.
"The great people of Utah have a gem in Mike Lee," Trump argued.
"He will never let you down, whereas his opponent, McMuffin (sic), will only let you down. Mike has long had my complete and total endorsement, and even more strongly now!" Trump said, without specifying why his endorsement was now even more than total.
Business Insider reported, "Trump appears to have made the statement as an act of one-upmanship against DeSantis, who could challenge him for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. But Trump also complained to the Washington Post in May about Club for Growth after it backed a different GOP challenger in the Pennsylvania primary than the Trump-endorsed Mehmet Oz."
The report noted the Club for Growth Action fund and the Crypto Freedom PAC have spent more than $8 million trying to prop up Lee.
"Last week, when DeSantis recorded a robocall for Colorado Senate candidate Joe O'Dea, Trump on Truth Social declared it 'a big mistake.' O'Dea, who is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, has vowed to "actively" campaign against Trump should he choose to run for president again," Business Insider reported. "Trump also plans to campaign with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday, while DeSantis is running his own counter-programming of events throughout Florida over the weekend."
The rivalry between the two has garnered international attention.
"A lot has changed since the 2018 midterm elections when Donald Trump came out swinging for Ron DeSantis, whose chances of winning the Republican primary for governor without the then-president's endorsement were next to none," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported Thursday morning local time. "DeSantis is making waves outside of Florida, too, most notably by upstaging another Republican governor, Texas's Greg Abbott, on immigration policy."
DeSantis is being challenged by Democratic Party nominee Charlie Crist.
"The governor could be waiting to see if Donald Trump announces his candidacy or becomes too much of a political liability if he is indicted by the Department of Justice over the events of January 6 or the Mar-a-Lago document saga," the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. "Polls suggest DeSantis is, by far, the most popular choice among Republicans to run after the former president, with one recent survey suggesting he could be edging ahead."
Republicans are spending big to try and shore up an incumbent governor facing re-election in a reliably red state.
"Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt was supposed to cruise to re-election," Eric Cortellessa reported for Time magazine. "Yet the Republican Governors Association has just released a seven-figure ad buy to help Stitt over the finish line. And prominent Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas are rushing to his side, as party leaders fear Oklahoma might be the site of one of the biggest upsets of the midterms."
Joy Hofmeister, the superintendent of Oklahoma’s public school system, is the Democratic Party nominee after being a Republican until last year, blunting GOP messages attempting to link her to President Joe Biden.
“I was a Republican longer than Governor Stitt was registered to vote,” she told the magazine. “I’m fiscally conservative. I’m aggressively moderate. Always have been.”
"The tight race is largely the result of a series of missteps by Stitt, from scandals that have plagued his administration to a bitter feud with Oklahoma’s 39 American Indian tribes," the magazine reported. "Stitt also signed one of the country’s most restrictive abortions bills into law, which has drawn some pushback even in conservative Oklahoma for its banning the procedure in cases of rape, incest and when the mother’s health is at risk. And he oversaw one of America’s highest COVID death rates, with roughly 17,000 lives lost.
The magazine said Stitt loaned his campaign "roughly $1 million" in recent days.
Governor Stitt has hijacked the Republican Party,’ Hofmeister said. “He is pandering to extremism.”
