Editorial: Restoring runoff may loosen extremists’ grip

When Republicans abolished Florida’s runoff primary in 2002, they eliminated a tool that had produced four beloved Democratic governors. The strategy worked: For that reason and others, Democrats haven’t won a governor’s race since.

But it’s Republicans who may yet regret the winner-take-all primary they created.

A half-dozen or more right-wing figures could be competing for governor in 2026. That means the Republican nomination could be won with as little as 17% of the statewide turnout.

That would be a gift to the Democrats, assuming they practice better candidate discipline and coalesce around one strong candidate.

Helping the radical right

It could also mean Florida being governed by someone as radical as Matt Gaetz, the enfant terrible congressman who would owe his nomination to a sliver of the Florida electorate. (He claims he’s not running.)

Other Republicans who may see a future governor in the mirror are Attorney General Ashley Moody, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds of Naples and probably others who aren’t on anybody’s political radar (like eventual winners Rick Scott in 2010 and Ron DeSantis in 2018).

First Lady Casey DeSantis, the governor’s wife, is a shrewd politician in her own right who’s more popular than Gaetz in a recent poll. (Ron DeSantis is term-limited and can’t run again.)

With so many candidates to be lurching to the right, as those would, it could create an opening for someone more moderate in the tradition of former Republican governors Jeb Bush and Bob Martinez. Some former legislators also fit the description. The question is whether there are enough non-MAGA Republican voters.

But it’s something Republicans should think about, as some clearly were when they ganged up in the recent session to kill a bill restoring the runoff, which exists in only seven states. A politically explosive House bill (SAC-24-06) did not even get a hearing.

Dead on arrival in 2024

House Speaker Paul Renner alluded to those circling GOP candidates as he quickly declared the bill dead.

“I think I heard Carly Simon singing in the background, ‘You must think this bill is about you,’” Renner said, paraphrasing her song “You’re So Vain.” “Because we certainly had some feedback from people who thought it was.”

And what do you know? Gaetz blasted the proposal on X, saying it would “empower establishment candidates over firebrands.”

Gaetz’s dislike for the runoff is telling. Reviving it may be the only way to restore some sanity to our politics.

Florida Republicans have become so dominant, it’s easy to forget when it was the other way around. For generations, Democratic primary voters decided who would run the state.

From 1896 to 1956, Republicans polled a dismal average of 20% in the November elections for governor, and Democratic candidates were as thick as mosquitoes, rarely fewer than five on the ballot and 14 in 1936.

Florida’s greatest governor

That’s why the law called for a runoff if no one got a majority in the primary, which no one did until Gov. LeRoy Collins in 1956.

Voters’ ought to have a choice between nominees who represent consensus in their respective parties, rather than those chosen by the far right or the far left in winner-take-all fashion.

The Legislature did Florida and the voters no favor when it suspended the runoffs for the 2002 election and abolished them permanently thereafter.

The argument was that they were expensive, inconvenient, drew only small fractions of those who had voted the first time, and rarely changed the outcome.

But that wasn’t always true. The turnout was higher in the 1954 Democratic runoff that deposed Acting Governor Charley Johns, a racist and rural “pork chopper,” in favor of the moderate Collins, who kept schools open when rabid segregationists wanted to close them.

The 1956 runoff nudged Florida in a moderate direction in a true turning point in our history.

Askew, Graham and Chiles

Two outstanding governors, Reubin Askew (1971-79) and Bob Graham (1979-87), also won come-from-behind runoffs, as did Lawton Chiles (1991-98) in his election to the U.S. Senate in 1970.

The Republicans’ no-runoff strategy paid off immediately when former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a potentially strong challenger to Bush, lost the 2002 Democratic primary to Bill McBride by 5,904 votes.

State Sen. Darryl Jones of Miami, who ran third with 157,107 votes, had split the Democratic constituency statewide and especially in Miami-Dade, which was Reno’s home. Bush handily defeated McBride that November.

In a more recent example, seven Democrats splintered the 2018 primary vote and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum won the nomination with only 34.4% over Gwen Graham, with 31.3%. His narrow loss to DeSantis that November demoralized the Democrats because Gillum had left nearly $3 million of his campaign funds unspent.

If the runoff existed, Gillum would have faced Graham. What would have happened? We’ll never know. But we know this: There’s still time for the Legislature to restore the runoff for 2026.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Anderson. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.