Charlie Crist launches campaign to become Florida’s governor again
Fifteen years after voters elected him to the office as a Republican, 11 years after leaving it in an unsuccessful independent bid for U.S. Senate and seven years after his comeback attempt as a Democrat fell short, Charlie Crist announced Tuesday he will once again seek his old job as Florida governor.
Crist, elected in November to a third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, said he grew convinced in recent months that Tallahassee is where he could do “the most good.”
“We need to stop the division and hate, bring our state together,” Crist told several dozen supporters gathered under a blistering sun in South St. Petersburg. “You deserve jobs you can live on, housing you can afford and justice that’s equal.”
So begins the long, uphill road for Democrats as they try to find a candidate who can defeat Republican
Gov. Ron DeSantis in
2022. Crist is the first Democrat to officially jump in, but his announcement had the effect of rattling a handful of publicly undecided prospective candidates. Several now appear closer to making that call.
One of them, U.S. Rep.
Val Demings, stole some spotlight from Crist on Tuesday, rolling out a campaign-style video that appeared to hype a looming announcement. It highlighted the recent buzz surrounding her rise from Orlando police chief to potential running mate for Joe Biden. “Ready for the moment,” she wrote on Twitter.
Nikki Fried speaks up Meanwhile, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who has long been expected to run for governor herself, held a news conference in Tallahassee where she essentially laid out how she planned to challenge DeSantis, if she were to enter the race.
Sporting a “Nice Jewish Girl” mask, Fried cast DeSantis as an “authoritarian” who has crafted a legislative agenda aimed less at the needs of Floridians and more at his own political aspirations.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat who is well-liked among progressives and activists, said she will make a decision soon.
DeSantis responded to questions about Crist’s run by quipping: “Which party is he going to run under? Do we even know for sure?”
“He has run as a Republican, lost; independent, lost; Democrat, lost,” DeSantis said. “But now I see he’s voting with Nancy Pelosi 100% of the time, he could probably give it a run for the Green Party in San Francisco.”