Trump easily wins Florida primary; DeSantis comes in third

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Donald Trump romped to an overwhelming win in Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in Florida, although there were signs that he did not command complete loyalty over the state’s GOP voters.

Trump won the primary by a substantial margin, taking home all 125 delegates, but other candidates — including former rivals Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley — still managed to pick up around a fifth of the vote in the relatively low-turnout primary. Four years ago, incumbent Trump won nearly 94 percent of the vote against three other candidates on Florida’s GOP presidential primary ballot.

With more than 90 percent of the vote tallied, Haley, who was still in the race when early voting and mail-in voting started, took home just over 14 percent of the vote. DeSantis came in behind her on his home turf, getting just under 4 percent of the Republican vote. He even fell behind her in Leon County, where the state capital of Tallahassee is located.

“This was a primary that only a few weeks ago had well-funded candidates and the sitting governor of our state sharing the ballot,” said Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes. “Nevertheless, President Trump demonstrated absolute dominance in the result. Polling for the general election shows that his dominance in Florida will continue to November. Florida is Trump Country.”

Trump has won Florida in the past two presidential elections and, barring some sort of campaign collapse, would be seen as likely to win yet again in November and pick up the state’s 30 electoral college votes. The state has shifted rightward since Trump beat Biden by 3.3 percentage points in 2020.

The former president’s dominating win on Tuesday, however, remains the final proof of Trump’s hold over Florida Republicans despite the rise of his one-time ally DeSantis. DeSantis rose to the national spotlight and earned backing from conservatives due to his response to the Covid-19 pandemic and controversial legislation he pushed on education, race and gender issues.

DeSantis, however, was unable to transform that into a winning coalition to sway GOP voters away from Trump despite the president’s multiple indictments and legal troubles. DeSantis left the race for president back in early January after getting blown out by Trump in the Iowa caucuses. Haley ended her campaign after she won only one state on Super Tuesday earlier this month.

DeSantis endorsed Trump when he exited the race, but some Trump supporters saw the endorsement as half-hearted. In the weeks since he stopped campaigning, DeSantis has reached out to supporters, donors and delegates that many have seen as evidence that he plans to run again in 2028.

Trump, who viciously and personally attacked the governor over the course of the primary season, initially promised a detente but recently ramped up criticism again. During a rally in Ohio over the weekend, Trump called DeSantis a “shell of a man” and said, “I hit him hard, I hit him low,” comparing his fight with DeSantis to fighting the terrorist group ISIS.

Evan Power, the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, brushed aside any worries that those voters who did not cast a ballot for Trump would give President Joe Biden an opening.

“Our grassroots are united and ready to work,” Power said.

Power also downplayed DeSantis’ poor showing by noting he had been out of the race for weeks.

“DeSantis was no longer a candidate when our mail in votes went out so I do not think it is any judgment on him,” Power said.

With Florida’s primary relatively late in the nominating calendar, the race lacked any real drama leading up to Election Day.

But Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said the results showed “Trump is in trouble in Florida,” and interpreted them as signifying that centrist Republicans would be up for grabs in November.

“The results of Florida’s Republican primary show Donald Trump backsliding by 14 percent, losing support from moderate Republicans who are rejecting his extremism in growing numbers,” she said.

Democrats didn’t even hold a primary, opting to only certify President Joe Biden’s name for the ballot which triggered the cancellation of the election. The decision by Florida Democrats to only back Biden angered some challengers, including Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips who called it “intentional disenfranchisement.” A Tampa attorney filed a federal lawsuit and tried to get a judge to force Democrats to open up the primary to other candidates, but the judge rejected the legal challenge.