Gubernatorial running mates unveiled
Democratic candidate Gillum picks Winter Park businessman King
TALLAHASSEE – Andrew Gillum on Thursday chose Winter Park businessman Chris King for lieutenant governor on the Democratic ticket, a move that underlines his progressive candidacy for governor and highlights how the party is moving further to the left in the Trump era.
“We leaned into choosing an individual who has the ability to be governor of the state of Florida,”
said Gillum, who made the announcement on Facebook.
King, 39, finished last in a five-way race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, garnering less than 3 percent of the vote after spending $5.5 million of his own money on the race. But he impressed some with his progressive policy proposals and command of the issues.
King is the multimillionaire founder of Elevation Financial Group, a Winter Park-based real-estate development and investment firm geared toward affordable housing properties. As a candidate, he was the first of either party to refuse contributions from Big Sugar companies and to highlight the lack of affordable housing as an issue. He’s also called for an end to the death penalty and wants to impose a bullet tax to combat gun violence.
“In trying to beat him, he beat me pretty badly,” King joked about Gillum. “But I came to care for him and I came to admire him — his gifts, his talents and most importantly his vision for the state of Florida; to lift up families all across this state who have not had a champion like Mayor Gillum.”
King attended Winter Park High School and is the son of David King, an attorney who helped the League of Women Voters win a redistricting case against the GOP Legislature. During the primary, he highlighted his Christian faith in pushing for expanding healthcare coverage, criminal justice reform and LGBT protections.
The lieutenant governor has no official duties but would replace the governor in the event of a death or resignation. The pick is typically seen as a way to appeal to a wider set of voters during the general election. But some political analysts are skeptical King, who espoused more aggressively liberal policies than Gillum and was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, will fit that role.
“Chris is a very bright, appealing candidate. I think the challenge here, to be frank about it, is they need to move not to the right but to the middle,” said Dick Batchelor, an Orlando business consultant and former Democratic legislator. “You’ve got to go campaign to those people (in the middle) who now want to know ‘What’s he going to do for me?’”
More progressive Democrats, though, hailed the pick as a sign of tossing aside the conventional wisdom of appealing to the center in general elections.
“It’s a new Democratic Party, and that’s a good thing,” said Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, chairman of the Progressive Caucus in the Legislature. “We’re finally going to win elections — imagine that.”
But other Democrats had hoped Gillum would select former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham, the establishment favorite and fellow Tallahassee resident whom he upset to win the nomination.
“Should have been Graham,” Matthew Isbell, a Democratic consultant who backed Graham in the primary, posted on Twitter. “That was the unity ticket. Gillum camp’s dislike for Graham makes no sense and is causing them to make a bad decision.”
Republican Party of Florida chairman Blaise Ingoglia seemed to welcome the move, calling the Gillum-King ticket a hardleft turn for the party.
“This Florida Democrat Gubernatorial ticket seems light years away from the party of John F. Kennedy or even Bill Clinton — a socialist, scandal-ridden mayor and a progressive, hypocritical millionaire,” Ingoglia said.
Gillum has denied being a socialist.
Batchelor, though, said Gillum’s Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, and his embrace of President Trump’s agenda and anti-immigration rhetoric gives him room to move to the left in the general election.
“The advantage the Gillum-King ticket has now is DeSantis is so far to the right ... he doesn’t want to move back to the middle because of his bromance with Trump,’’ Batchelor said.