State party’s decision to allow Trump on to presidential ballot without loyalty oath shows governor’s iron grip is loosening
Governor Ron DeSantis visits a neighbourhood in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, in Cedar Key.“This is going to be a case study going forward for many years, just because you won an election in your state“In fact, it may mean relatively little, even when it’s a mega-state like Florida. Wasthe candidate who won in a landslide in 2022, or is he the presidential candidate who’s slipping below the radar today? Well, he’s both of those things. And they aren’t contradictory.
Notably, the measure to reverse the loyalty oath was brought by the Republican state senator Joe Gruters, the former chair of the state party who has clashed with DeSantis over the Disney wrangle. In June, Gruters accused DeSantis of vetoing spending in his district as“The governor is clearly upset I endorsed Donald Trump for president, so he took it out on the people of Sarasota county,” he said in a statement at the time.
“It’s not about the pledge. It’s about creating unnecessary roadblocks late in the game that makes it perceived that it’s anti-Trump,” he said, according to Politico. Before that, however, DeSantis must plot his strategy for the next Republican primary debate on 27 September in California, seen by many as another possible make-or-break moment for his campaign.