Where DeSantis, Gillum stand
And where the candidates differ
TALLAHASSEE — One is a President Trumpbacked former congressman from the tea party wing who vows to cut taxes and slash Florida regulations even more than the current governor. The other is a progressive darling with the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders who wants a $1 billion increase in business taxes to pay for a boost in education spending.
In Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum, Florida voters will choose between the most politically polar opposite candidates for governor in decades.
Gillum, seeking to become Florida’s first black governor, would try to move the state away from the past 20 years of Republican governance by rolling back school choice policies, tax cuts for businesses and lax enforcement of environmental regulations. He also wants to expand health care coverage and impose stricter gun control laws.
DeSantis says he would continue Gov. Rick Scott’s economic policies of cutting regulations and lowering taxes to produce jobs. He also wants to continue the GOP-held Legislature’s push for school choice policies that benefit charter and private schools while cutting administrative costs to put more money into school classrooms.
The two have been locked in a nasty and highly personal campaign. DeSantis and his allies have accused Gillum of being a socialist who is under investigation by the FBI. Gillum has denied being a socialist and said FBI officials have told him he is not a target of an investigation into corruption in Tallahassee.
Gillum and other Democrats say DeSantis’ campaign has been plagued by racially tinged comments by the candidate and some of his supporters, something that DeSantis has vigorously denied.
Who they are
DeSantis, 40, was born in Jacksonville and grew up in Dunedin, where he was a member of a team that went to the Little League World Series in 1991. After graduating from Dunedin High School, he went on to get a history degree at Yale and captaining the baseball team there before getting a degree from Harvard Law School. He later joined the U.S. Navy, serving as a Judge Advocate General officer while in Iraq in 2007.
After winning election to a northeast Florida congressional district in 2012, DeSantis became known as a staunch tea party supporter. He later was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus when it formed in 2015. It’s a band of hardline Republicans who have pressed the GOP leadership to take more aggressive steps to cut spending and helped push out House Speaker John Boehner.
DeSantis also caught the eye of President Trump after DeSantis repeated appearances on Fox News bashing the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference into the 2016 election. Trump’s endorsement was instrumental in helping DeSantis surge to victory over Florida GOP establishment favorite Adam Putnam in the Republican primary. He resigned from Congress last month to concentrate on his campaign.
Gillum, 39, spent his early years in Miami before his family moved to Gainesville. He came to Tallahassee to attend Florida A&M University and in 2003, won a city council seat at the age of 23 while still a student, becoming the youngest elected council member.
In 2014 he ran for mayor, which in Tallahassee is a largely ceremonial position. He rose to national prominence when he got a speaking slot at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
And although he endorsed Hilary Clinton in 2016, he ran on a strongly progressive platform, featuring ideas such as Medicare for All, which garnered the endorsement of Sanders and helped him score a shocking upset of former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham and three other opponents in the Democratic primary.
Whey they stand
DeSantis revealed few details of his platform during the GOP primary, other than declaring he would punish cities that adopt sanctuary policies to prevent local police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement.
No city in Florida has such a policy on their books, although West Palm Beach was among a handful of place across the country targeted by the Dept. of Justice for possibly having a sanctuary policy. Officials there said a resolution declaring itself a welcoming community to immigrants wasn’t an official policy with the force of law.
Since the primary, DeSantis’ campaign has released proposals on education and the environment, although not on health care.
He wants to expand voucher programs that allow low-to-middle income parents to place their children in private schools. For public schools, he wants to install an “80 percent rule” requiring $4 out of every $5 spent on K-12 schools to go to the classroom, cutting back on administrative expenses.
On the economy, DeSantis wants to cut regulations and business taxes, as well as review all fees charged by the state. He also wants to invest in vocational training.
DeSantis’ environmental platform includes a ban on fracking, studying the red tide on the Gulf Coast and investing in Everglades restoration projects. He also wants to halt the discharges from Lake Okeechobee that have helped bring about the green algae scourge.
Gillum wants to increase the state corporate income tax from 5.5 percent to 7.75 percent and put the estimated $1 billion in additional revenue into K-12 schools, putting starting salaries for teachers at $50,000 per year. He calls it an investment in the future in a state that has consistently expanded exemptions to corporate tax in recent years.
The Gillum campaign has slammed DeSantis for not releasing a health care proposal. Gillum has stressed the need to expand Medicaid for the working poor and backed Medicare for All – a federal plan he would have little influence on as governor.
Gillum also backs increasing the state minimum wage from $8.25 per hour to $15 per hour, saying he’ll work to do it “as soon as possible.”
How they differ
In contrast to DeSantis, Gillum said he’d work to make Florida a more welcoming state for immigrants – both those here legally and illegally.
DeSantis and Gillum have clashing ideas of where they want to take the state, but perhaps none more so than on the issues of guns and crime.
Gillum wants a ban on sales of assault weapons; DeSantis has said he supports bills to allow concealed weapons permit holders to carry guns openly in public and on college campuses.
DeSantis likes the stand your ground law as it is written while Gillum has called for its complete repeal.
Gillum’s record on crime in Tallahassee has been fodder for attacks by DeSantis as well.
Tallahassee’s crime rate surged 6.5 percent and 9 percent the first two years of his term before Gillum backed a property tax increase to help pay for more police. The rate decreased 14 percent last year, but the 17 murders in the city was a record.