TAMPA, Fla. — This week in politics…anything happen?
Oh, that’s right — the August Primary has come and gone and while two measures in Hillsborough County are facing a recount, the matchups for November are set.
Former GOP governor turned Democratic Congressman Charlie Crist (D-St. Petersburg) won the Democratic nominee for governor, defeating Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried.
Crist will take on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in November. In the meantime, Fried says she’d be open to being Crist’s running mate.
Congresswoman Val Demings handily won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and will take on Republican incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio.
All four candidates hit the campaign trail hard following Tuesday and had the Tampa Bay area and its voters in their sights. The verbal sparring came with it.
DeSantis and Rubio co-hosted an event in Tampa Wednesday. Crist and Demings also held events in the area that same day before heading to Broward County for an event alongside Nikki Fried Thursday night.
DeSantis was back in Tampa Thursday to get an endorsement from the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.
Money, money, money, money. The top-of-the-ticket races in Florida are already generating a great deal of national attention and raising a lot of cash.
“As Florida goes, sometimes the nation goes, as Pinellas County goes from the Tampa Bay community, so goes the nation. So there's a lot of interest in Florida,” says 10 Tampa Bay Political Analyst Dr. Lars Hafner
Crist says his campaign raised more than a $1 million in the first 24 hours after he was named the nominee. California Gov. Gavin Newsome pledged $100,000 to Crist’s campaign.
On the other side of the ballot is a war chest. Governor DeSantis is on pace to break fundraising records raising more than $165 million since 2019, according to OpenSecrets.