Save the Bees, Proud American, Beekeeper, Conservative, Patriot, Brevard County GOP Committeeman, Opinions expressed are my own.๐ซ DMs ๐ซPORN๐ซCRYPTO
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๐จ ๐จ In Florida, For decades, dating back to 1990, televised gubernatorial candidate debates have taken place in every Republican primary without a GOP incumbent, unless that incumbent was serving his last term as is the case with governor DeSantis or the incumbent wasn't going to run for reelection.
1990 GOP incumbent. No debate.
1994 DEM incumbent. All 5 GOP candidates who qualified to be on the ballot debated (no onerous FLGOP rules).
1998 DEM incumbent. No debate because there was only one GOP candidate running unopposed.
2002 GOP incumbent. No debate.
2006 GOP incumbent but he was serving his last term. Yes, there was a primary debate (no onerous FLGOP rules).
2010 GOP incumbent but he wasn't running for reelection. Yes, there was a primary debate (no onerous FLGOP rules).
2014 GOP incumbent. No debate.
2018 GOP incumbent but he was serving his last term. Yes, there was a primary debate (no onerous FLGOP rules).
2022 GOP incumbent. No debate.
From 1990 until now, debates for the primary were not party-run. Those debates were held by other non-party entities. The criteria governing who was allowed to participate in those debates was not created by the Republican party. Instead, those independent entities created the qualifying criteria.
Fast-forward to 2026, we have a Republican governor, @RonDeSantis who is termed-out.
The following is a timeline showing just how the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) has created new rules and qualifying criteria to engineer an outcome. ๐ ๐
January 7, 2026- The RPOF website announced that debates would take place and that the qualifying criteria for RPOF sanctioned debates and forums would be released in the coming weeks. Nothing was released for five months.
June 10, 2026- The RPOF released strict criteria to qualify for sanctioned gubernatorial debates and announced only Byron Donalds met their criteria.
June 12, 2026- The RPOF put out a press release stating that participating in a debate unsanctioned by the RPOF is against party rules. The consequence for breaking that rule is being excluded from all RPOF official gubernatorial activities and forums.