Ron DeSantis

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans playing the migration card: Politics Weekly America

      by

      More ways to listen

      Apple Podcasts

      Google Podcasts

      Spotify

      RSS Feed

      Download

      Share on Facebook

      Share on Twitter

      Share via Email

      Ana Ceballos, a political reporter for the Miami Herald, tells Jonathan Freedland about the Republican party’s attempts to dramatise the question of migration ahead of November’s midterm elections

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      After Governor Ron DeSantis sent migrants in Florida on planes to Martha’s Vineyard – the predominantly Democratic enclave in Massachusetts – we look at Republican attempts to use the issue of migration as a vote winner. Will it work? Subscribe to The Guardian’s new six-part series Can I Tell You a Secret? on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats call for justice department to investigate migrant flights

      by

      Democrats call for justice department to investigate migrant flightsDozens of Congress members seek inquiry into whether transport of asylum seekers from Florida and Texas broke federal law Democratic lawmakers have called on the US justice department to investigate whether Florida and Texas officials broke any federal law when they moved dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under allegedly false pretenses.The letter from the congressional representatives Gerry Connolly, Sylvia Garcia, Ted Lieu and dozens of other Democrats followed the emergence of a report in which a 27-year-old Venezuelan said he was paid $200 by a mystery figure known as “Perla” to find people outside the San Antonio migrant center to board a flight.New York City mayor plans giant tents to house migrants sent by RepublicansRead moreThe migrant, who was called Emmanuel, told the San Antonio Report that he gave Perla contact information for 10 other migrants.“As the federal government retains jurisdiction over cases that involve interstate travel, we request the Department of Justice investigate whether any federal funds were used to operate a fraudulent scheme and request the Department of Justice make a determination as to whether officials in Texas and Florida violated federal law,” the letter said.At least one criminal investigation has already been opened into the situation by a Texas sheriff, and Connolly and others said the justice department should do the same.Multiple media reports have depicted how the asylum seekers had been misled once they arrived in Texas and were incorrectly told they were being flown to Boston.“It is alleged that immigration officials knowingly falsified mailing addresses for the migrants by selecting arbitrary homeless shelters across the United States, with the expectation that migrants would be required to contact the wrong agency,” the letter said.Details have not yet emerged about the planning and execution of the plan, which was spearheaded by the office of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.DeSantis has defended his administration’s actions and denied that migrants were misled.The Democrats pointed out that the migrants who were used in what was called a political “stunt” were fleeing communism, authoritarianism and violence, having walked thousands of miles for what they called a “dignified life”.Justice department officials declined to comment.Got a tip? Please contact Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.comTopicsUS immigrationUS politicsMigrationRon DeSantisnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      DeSantis to face trial for suspension of prosecutor who defied abortion ban law

      by

      DeSantis to face trial for suspension of prosecutor who defied abortion ban lawAndrew Warren, a Democrat, sued Florida governor for suspension after saying he would not enforce new 15-week abortion law A Florida prosecutor suspended by Ron DeSantis for defying a new 15-week abortion law says a federal judge’s decision to send his reinstatement appeal to trial means a reckoning is coming for the state’s Republican governor.Andrew Warren, a Democrat, was removed as Hillsborough county state attorney on 4 August after saying he would not enforce the abortion ban or prosecute providers of gender transition treatment for young people.DeSantis cited Warren’s alleged “woke agenda” in reasons for his decision.At a hearing in Tallahassee on Monday, Judge Robert Hinkle denied motions from DeSantis to dismiss Warren’s lawsuit, and another by Warren seeking an immediate return to office, instead requesting their differences be settled at a trial in the coming weeks.“The governor now has to answer it to a court of law where facts matter and where you have to tell the truth,” Warren said in an interview with the Guardian.“It’s a victory for the truth. A federal judge has ruled that the governor has to come into court to explain the reasons behind my suspension, to show that it wasn’t political, to show that it wasn’t in violation of my free speech rights, to show that it wasn’t in violation of the voters’ rights to have the state attorney of their choice.”The closely watched case is expected to give clarity to DeSantis’s power to purge elected officials who disagree with him. In recent weeks, the governor has also removed four members of a school board in Broward county that defied him over Covid-19 mask mandates.“The governor is entrusted by the people of Florida to utilize his constitutional powers and may suspend elected officials in Florida who refuse to enforce the law,” DeSantis’s office said in a statement following Monday’s hearing.Critics, however, have accused the governor of selective application of the principle. The Orlando Sentinel noted that DeSantis has taken no action against so-called “constitutional” sheriffs who say they won’t enforce certain gun laws.But he did act in 2019, suspending the Broward county sheriff, Scott Israel, a Democrat, for “neglect of duty”.Warren said he believed a trial, which could begin as early as next month, would cut through any political posturing.“This has always been a fight for democracy, and rule of law, and for elections,” he said.“This is our fight for the truth. And now the people will get the truth because the governor is being forced to explain himself.“Ultimately, he may be called to testify in court. The court was pretty clear that it wants to hear from the governor in terms of the explanations about the suspension to make sure that the reasons why I was suspended are consistent with Florida law, and with federal law.”Warren said his reinstatement was not the sole objective of his lawsuit.“I would have liked to be back in office already but there’s more at stake than just my job,” he said.“Regardless of what party you belong to, or who you vote for, yours always matters. No elected official has the right to throw out anyone’s vote. And the governor here has tried to throw out the votes of hundreds of thousands of Floridians and overturn an election.“If he gets away with it, what’s left of our democracy? What’s the point of having elections?”Warren ran as a progressive when he unseated long-term incumbent Republican Mark Ober as Hillsborough county state attorney in 2016, and was re-elected with 53% of the vote four years later.He immediately set about enacting policies that upset conservatives, the Tampa Bay Times reported, including a pledge to introduce programs to rehabilitate convicts and prevent recidivism.According to Tampa’s Fox13, Susan Lopez, whom DeSantis appointed in Warren’s place, has already reversed several of his policies, including the reinstatement of a controversial law enforcement “bike-stop” measure that critics say unfairly targets minorities.TopicsRon DeSantisFloridaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flights

      by

      Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flightsTexas county sheriff says it seems evident that asylum seekers had been ‘lured’ to travel to Martha’s Vineyard ‘under false pretenses’ A criminal investigation has been launched in Texas into whether dozens of asylum seekers were illegally flown from the state to Martha’s Vineyard, as new evidence continues to emerge suggesting they were misled.Attorneys for ‘duped’ migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigationRead moreThe Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, said on Monday that his office was investigating the flights, chartered on behalf of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, which brought dozens of migrants to the island in Massachusetts.While Salazar did not name possible subjects in the inquiry, he said: “Everybody on this call knows who those names are already,” according to NBC News.Salazar did not discuss what specific laws might have been broken, but said it seemed evident that asylum seekers had been “lured under false pretenses”, with a recruiter given a “bird dog fee” to gather dozens of people who were outside a San Antonio migrant resource center.“They were promised work,” said Salazar. “They were promised the solution to several of their problems.”Many of the asylum seekers were given pamphlets advertising cash assistance, help with housing, job training and other resources if they came to Massachusetts.But the promised benefits are only available for refugees, a specific categorization under US immigration law that the asylum seekers do not currently fall under.Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group representing 30 of the recent arrivals, shared links and images of the brochures on Twitter.“This is additional evidence that shows in writing that those false representations were made in order to induce our clients to travel,” said Oren Sellstrom, the group’s litigation director, to NBC News.The group has also called for a federal and state criminal investigation into the chartered flights.A spokesperson from DeSantis’s office defended the flights and the brochures, saying that migrants were sent to “greener pastures” and to places that had more resources than Bexar county.The flights are just one instance of a broader pattern of Republican officials sending thousands of asylum seekers to predominantly Democratic-voting areas, a stunt that Democrats have slammed as illegal and wrong.“There is a process that is in place. And what they are doing is an illegal stunt, is a political stunt,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.TopicsUS immigrationRon DeSantisFloridaMassachusettsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      DeSantis actions on migrants is ‘mini-ethnic cleansing’, expert warns

      by

      AnalysisDeSantis actions on migrants is ‘mini-ethnic cleansing’, expert warnsStephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington Philosophy professor says treating Republican’s decision to move unwitting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard as a political stunt risks diminishing its ‘moral seriousness’Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to move unwitting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last week has been compared to a “mini-ethnic cleansing with genocidal precedence” by a philosopher who has closely studied dehumanization and its role in genocide and the Holocaust.“Of course this is not genocide, but it is somewhat reminiscent of awful things that have happened in the past. As soon as you start treating human beings as undesirable problems to dump on others, you are in very dangerous territory,” said David Livingstone Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of New England.“What frightens me most actually is that someone who does these sort of acts is capable of doing much worse,” he said.The remarks by Smith, who is the author of Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, come as dozens of more people, many of whom are migrants who are believed to have come from Venezuela, arrived in Washington DC on Saturday morning after being bused from Texas. The migrants, including a one-month-old baby, were dropped in front of the Naval Observatory, where Vice-President Kamala Harris resides.The shuttling of about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard – with a stop in Florida – last week has been condemned by US president Joe Biden and human rights groups after it emerged that the migrants were misled and told they were being sent to Boston to find jobs and opportunities. Lawyers for the individuals have called on state officials in Massachusetts to investigate the incident, including the circumstances around the two charter flights that transported them to the Massachusetts island, which were arranged by DeSantis.The Florida Republican, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, has claimed that “every community in America should be sharing in the burdens” of migrants and that he was seeking to draw attention to the Biden administration’s handling of immigration issues between the US and Mexico.But Smith warned that seeing the incident as merely a political “stunt” by an attention-seeking Republican politician risked diminishing the “moral seriousness and the possible future implications of what they are doing”.“In effect,” Smith said, “DeSantis is intimating that this is an ethnic cleansing operations, that he will take these so-called undesirables and pick them up and dump them in the lands of [his] political enemies.”Stone said he was also struck by the way in which both DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott appeared to see liberal American cities like Washington DC or the wealthy liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard as being like a foreign country.“You could say that’s no surprise: there’s often talk of ‘real Americans’ living in the heartland. But this takes it to a new level. To use a gross but apt analogy, it’s as if someone is taking their garbage and dumping it in their neighbors’ yard. DeSantis talks about it like that,” he said.Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who regularly engages in racist diatribes on his show, raised the idea of dropping migrants on Martha’s Vineyard in this summer. In a segment that aired on 26 July, he suggested sending “huge numbers” of migrants to the Massachusetts island, which he claimed must be “begging for diversity” since its major city was overwhelmingly white.“Let’s start with 300,000 and move up from there,” Carlson said.Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti did not respond to questions about whether Carlson had discussed the issue with DeSantis directly or whether Fox had any concerns about Carlson encouraging human trafficking.Carlson has also praised authoritarian leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who argued in a speech earlier this year that Europeans should not become “peoples of mixed race”.TopicsUS immigrationRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansanalysisReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      DeSantis criticized for sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: ‘It’s un-American’

      by

      DeSantis criticized for sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: ‘It’s un-American’Democrats outraged at the ‘reckless’ and ‘soulless’ actions and question the legality of what some called a political stunt Joe Biden has accused Ron DeSantis of “playing politics with people’s lives” for flying Venezuelan migrants to the wealthy liberal island community of Martha’s Vineyard without warning, while the legality of the Florida governor’s move is also under scrutiny.In what immigration activists and Democratic politicians have decried as a “political stunt”, DeSantis, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, arranged for two charter planes of about 50 migrant adults and children to fly from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. DeSantis sends migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, causing ‘humanitarian situation’ Read moreClaiming that “every community in America should be sharing in the burdens,” DeSantis told a press briefing he wanted to draw attention to what he claimed was a failure by the Biden administration to secure the US-Mexico border.The president attacked DeSantis’s action in a speech late on Thursday, also criticising Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott.Abbott arranged for two buses from his state to drop off more than 100 migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela at the Washington DC residence of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, on Wednesday, shortly before the Massachusetts planes landed.The leader of the anti-trafficking charity Polaris on Friday issued a strongly-worded statement that pointedly questioned whether the governors’ actions amounted to human trafficking, citing migrants’ claims that they were deceived about where they were going.“Acts of calculated deception were reportedly used to trick migrants onto buses and planes,” the statement from Polaris chief Catherine Chen said. “Unfortunately, this tactic is one that we know far too well in the anti-trafficking world. Migrants are regularly tricked and defrauded as part of their trafficking experience, with traffickers and exploiters taking advantage of their recent arrival, limited English proficiency, and unfamiliarity with our government systems and labor laws.”Chen added: “If migrants were defrauded, and if this fraud was intended as a vehicle for anyone’s material gain, including that of an elected official, then there is a case for investigating it as trafficking.”DeSantis, Abbott and Doug Ducey, governor of Arizona, have sent thousands of migrants to predominantly Democratic-run “sanctuary” states and cities they deem to be liberal over immigration, although Massachusetts has a Republican governor, Charlie Baker.Attack on asylum seeker in New York sparks outrage over conditions Read more“Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” Biden said at a gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington DC.“What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless and we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border. We’re working to make sure it’s safe and orderly and humane.“Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts,” he added.Veronica Escobar, a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, meanwhile, said DeSantis was “a soulless human being”.On Friday, as Baker said he had ordered up to 125 members of the Massachusetts national guard to help move the migrants to more secure accommodation at a military base in Cape Cod on the mainland, questions were mounting over the legality of DeSantis’s action.The US attorney for Massachusetts, Rachael Rollins, said she planned to speak with the justice department, and Nikki Fried, a member of the Florida cabinet and the only statewide-elected Democrat, wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation into potential human trafficking.California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said he had also written to the justice department, which declined comment when contacted by the Guardian on Friday.Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee for Florida governor, who will challenge DeSantis in November’s midterm elections, said he had filed a sunshine law request demanding information about the state’s legislature-approved “relocation programme”.Earlier this year politicians granted $12m (£10.5m) for DeSantis’s plan to relocate migrants to other states, but the language is specific to undocumented immigrants physically in Florida.Both flights to Massachusetts touched down briefly in Florida en route between San Antonio and Martha’s Vineyard, but DeSantis’s office did not say if that was an attempt to meet the requirement of the programme.The southern Republican governors have been transporting migrants who are, at least temporarily, legally in the US waiting for their immigration cases, such as seeking asylum from violent regimes, to be processed.Crist in a statement accused DeSantis of trafficking humans with Florida taxpayer money. “He owes the people of our state answers,” Crist added.In Edgartown, the Martha’s Vineyard county seat and old whaling port, on Friday, residents and aid groups were working to care for and relocate the Venezuelan families, many of whom speak no English and say they were not told of their destination when they boarded the plane.Several told journalists there was nobody at the airport to greet them, and they walked almost four miles to find help in the town, where they were put up in a church overnight.“They were told there was a surprise present for them, and that there would be jobs and housing awaiting for them when they arrived. This was obviously a sadistic lie,” Rachel Self, a Boston immigration attorney assisting with the migrants’ cases, said at a press briefing.Self said she believes the migrants in question were kidnapped and defrauded, and any who cooperate with investigators may become eligible for a visa granted to crime victims.On Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Republican governors involved of lying to migrants, and said DeSantis did not notify Massachusetts that “migrant children, in need of food and shelter, were about to land on their doorstep”.“These vulnerable migrants were misled about where they were headed.”She condemned what she called Abbott and DeSantis “creating political theater [without] creating actual solution.She noted, however, that any legal challenge would have to come from the US Justice Department rather than the White House.Shaw Drake, senior policy counsel on border and immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the Martha’s Vineyard case has raised “particular concerns about the level of coercion and lack of informed consent”.“The issue of consent is of core legal concern,” Drake added.Meanwhile, NBC News reported friction between the White House and the Department of Homeland Security about how to cope with the latest rise in unauthorized border crossings.TopicsUS immigrationJoe BidenRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Maybe US mainstream media should begin using the term ‘fascism’ | Robert Reich

      by

      Maybe US mainstream media should begin using the term ‘fascism’Robert ReichMy tweet about Ron DeSantis provoked outrage in rightwing media – perhaps it hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican party? I’ve been watching the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for some time. Last Tuesday I tweeted: “Just wondering if ‘DeSantis’ is now officially a synonym for ‘fascist’.”I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked in rightwing media.The Washington Examiner, for example, called me an “ultra-leftwing elitist” who wrote an “insulting slur”, which is “what leftwing ideologues do when they discuss Republican politicians who pose any threat to the existence of their political ideology … Anyone the Democrats don’t like or disagree with is a fascist.”This was among the kindest responses.After a half-century in and around politics, I’ve got a thick skin. But the size of the blowback on my little tweet makes me think I struck a nerve.DeSantis is the most likely rival to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024. The Harvard and Yale educated DeSantis (what do they teach at Harvard and Yale?) has been called “Trump with a brain”.DeSantis is the nation’s consummate culture warrior. Lately he has been campaigning on behalf of Republican election-deniers around the country, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and US Senate candidate JD Vance in Ohio.In Florida, discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity are now barred in schools. Math textbooks have been rejected for what officials call “indoctrination”. Claiming tenured professors in Florida’s public universities were “indoctrinating” students, DeSantis spearheaded a law requiring them to be reviewed every five years.Teachers are limited in what they can teach about racism and other tragic aspects of American history. DeSantis has got personally involved in local school board races, endorsing and campaigning for 30 board candidates who agree with him (so far, 20 have won outright, five are going to runoffs).Abortions are banned after 15 weeks. (DeSantis recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the anti-abortion law.)A new state office has been created to investigate “election crimes”.Florida’s Medicaid regulator is considering denying state-subsidized treatments to transgender people. Its medical board may ban gender-affirming medical treatment for youths.Disney (Florida’s largest employer) has been stripped of the ability to govern itself in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on LGBTQ+ conversations with schoolchildren.Florida’s congressional map has been redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.DeSantis also spews culture-war rhetoric. “We are not going to surrender to woke,” he said last Tuesday. “Florida is the state where woke goes to die.”He describes an America under assault by leftwing elites, who “want to delegitimize our founding institutions”.He calls the state of Florida a “citadel of freedom” and says his job as governor is to fight critical race theory, “Faucian dystopia”, uncontrolled immigration, big tech, “leftwing oligarchs”, “Soros-funded prosecutors”, transgender athletes and the “corporate media”.He charges – using a standard racist dog whistle – that “we’re not letting Florida cities burn down … In Florida, you’re not going to get a slap on the wrist. You are getting the inside of a jail cell.”So, is it useful to characterize DeSantis’s combination of homophobia, transphobia, racism and misogyny, along with his efforts to control the public schools and universities and to intimidate the private sector (eg, Disney), as redolent of fascism?America’s mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about “authoritarianism”. Maybe it should also begin using the term “fascism”, where appropriate.Even Joe Biden, never known as a rhetorical bomb-thrower, last Thursday accused the Republican party of “semi-fascism”.Authoritarianism implies the absence of democracy, a dictatorship. Fascism – from the Latin fasces, denoting a tightly bound bundle of wooden rods typically including a protruding axe blade, adopted by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s to symbolize his total power – is different.Fascism also includes hatred of “them” (people considered different by race or religion, or outside the mainstream, or who were born abroad), control over what people learn and what books they are allowed to read, control over what had been independent government units (school boards, medical boards, universities and so on), control over women and the most intimate and difficult decisions they’ll ever make, and demands that the private sector support the regime.Perhaps my “just wondering” tweet about DeSantis hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican party?Or is DeSantis’s own nascent presidential campaign behind the outsized reaction to my tweet?After all, if you’re seeking a presidential nomination in today’s GOP, there’s nothing like an accusation of fascism to rally Trump supporters. It might be a particularly useful strategy if your primary opponent in 2024 will be Trump.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsRon DeSantisOpinionRepublicansUS politicscommentReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantis

      by

      Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantisFormer Republican governor who became a Democratic congressman edges out Nikki Fried to face the Donald Trump protégé in November Charlie Crist will challenge Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in November after trouncing Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida who switched parties and became a Democratic congressman, fought a campaign touting his experience in office and opposition to the 15-week abortion ban signed by DeSantis.Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRead moreIn his victory speech in St Petersburg, Crist promised that if elected he will on his first day in office sign an executive order overturing the abortion law.And he pledged to end the White House hopes of “wannabe dictator” DeSantis, who is tipped as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. DeSantis has signed a raft of culture war legislation in Florida, attacking LBGTQ+ rights and “woke” corporations.“Our fundamental freedoms are literally on the ballot,” Crist said. “A woman’s right to choose on the ballot. Democracy on the ballot. Your rights as minorities are on this ballot.“That’s what’s at stake in this election, make no mistake about it, because this guy wants to be president of the United States of America and everybody knows it.“However, when we defeat him on 8 November, that show is over.”With fewer than 15% of votes left to count, Crist held a commanding lead over Fried, a progressive and the only statewide elected Democrat currently in office, by roughly 60% to 35%. But turnout, particularly in central Florida, was far below that of four years ago, a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats one of the main fears of party officials.In his final pre-election press conference, Crist said he planned to appear at a “unity rally” with his beaten opponent in south Florida later in the week.Their focus will switch to ousting DeSantis, whom Crist has branded Florida’s “absentee” governor for constantly attacking Joe Biden’s policies and appearing to concentrate on out-of-state fundraising for a national campaign rather than problems at home.“He’s campaigning this last weekend in New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and I think another state, but he’s been doing that for a year, maybe more,” Crist said.“We have issues here the governor ought to be dealing with, the housing crisis, we pay our teachers 48 or 49 of 50 states, that’s embarrassing.“And the fact he already has taken away a woman’s right to choose with the law that he signed, the 15-week law that has no exceptions for rape or incest, is barbaric.”During her campaign, Fried attacked Crist’s Republican roots and perceived flip-flops over abortion, and painted herself as the only candidate capable of beating DeSantis. Crist, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2010, has the unenviable distinction of losing statewide races as a Republican, Democrat and independent.But he appears to have been more popular with women voters in this primary, and pointed out that, when he was governor 12 years ago, he vetoed an anti-abortion bill.On Tuesday night, Fried told NBC News she would accept if Crist asked her to be his running mate.“I’ve said to Charlie, both tonight and throughout this entire election, that my No 1 priority is making sure that we make Ron DeSantis a one-term governor and not eligible to run for president of the United States in 2024.“Ron DeSantis is our greatest threat to democracy, so I will do everything in my power, including being on Charlie’s ticket, to make sure that happens in November.“What we did here in this election, is we created a movement for women across the state of Florida. We gave inspiration, we gave motivation, and so whatever it takes to make sure that Ron DeSantis is defeated in November – I’m all in.”DeSantis won the 2018 election against the Democratic challenger, Andrew Gillum, by barely 30,000 votes, or 0.4% of 8.2m cast. But toppling him in November will be a formidable task as Florida has trended increasingly Republican in recent years.The incumbent also has a war chest in excess of $100m, far above what Crist has been able to raise. Even so, Crist remains confident he can win on the issues.“Today the people of Florida clearly sent a message,” he said. “They want a governor who cares about them to solve real problems, who preserves our freedom, not a bully who divides us and takes our freedom away.”In another much-watched Democratic primary, Val Demings, a congresswoman and former Orlando police chief, easily secured the nomination to challenge the Republican US senator Marco Rubio in November.Rubio’s seat is one of several targeted by Democrats as they attempt to build a majority in the 50-50 chamber and negate their reliance on Vice-president Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.A competitive and crowded Democratic primary for the House seat Demings vacated went to Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old progressive endorsed by the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Pramila Jayapal, a leading House progressive from Washington state.In a tight Republican primary for another central Florida House seat, the far-right extremist Laura Loomer, a self-declared Islamophobe, election denier and conspiracy theorist, narrowly lost to the incumbent, Dan Webster.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022FloridaDemocratsRon DeSantisRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More