{"id":2911,"date":"2024-11-25T18:14:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T18:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-backs-floridas-chief-financial-officer-as-successor-to-gaetz-in-congress\/"},"modified":"2024-11-25T18:14:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-25T18:14:32","slug":"trump-backs-floridas-chief-financial-officer-as-successor-to-gaetz-in-congress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-backs-floridas-chief-financial-officer-as-successor-to-gaetz-in-congress\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump backs Florida’s chief financial officer as successor to Gaetz in Congress"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

TALLAHASSEE, Florida \u2014 President-elect Donald Trump is throwing his support behind Florida\u2019s chief financial officer as his choice to succeed former Rep. Matt Gaetz in Congress, a move that could increase pressure on Gov. Ron DeSantis to pick allies to the president-elect for other posts.<\/p>\n

Trump on Monday said on social media that he would support Republican Jimmy Patronis for the now-vacant northwest Florida congressional seat that Gaetz gave up during his truncated bid for attorney general. Gaetz withdrew from consideration amid an outcry over investigations into his conduct even though he has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Trump said that Patronis had \u201cbeen a wonderful friend to me,\u201d even though Patronis did not endorse Trump in this year\u2019s presidential race until after DeSantis withdrew from the primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cShould he decide to enter this Race, Jimmy Patronis has my Complete and Total Endorsement. RUN, JIMMY, RUN!\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision to back Patronis follows his public support of state Sen. Randy Fine for the congressional seat of another one of his picks in a second administration, Rep. Mike Waltz. <\/p>\n

It comes at a key moment. Elected officials interested in running in the special election to pick Gaetz\u2019s successor are required on Monday to submit their resign-to-run letters if they want to hold on to their seats while campaigning. Two state legislators had already said they planned to jump into the race, as has one local elected official.<\/p>\n

If Patronis does run for Congress, it would fall to DeSantis to pick someone to fill his job until the 2026 elections. State Sen. Joe Gruters, a long-time ally of Trump who has clashed with DeSantis, has already said he is running for chief financial officer. The question is whether DeSantis will fill the job with someone who would be able to run against Gruters in two years.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Lara Trump, Trump\u2019s daughter-in-law, has expressed interest in being appointed to the Senate seat now held by Marco Rubio<\/a>. Trump has nominated Rubio for secretary of state, and it will be up to DeSantis to decide who will hold that seat until the next round of elections in two years.<\/p>\n

When asked about a congressional run on Friday, Patronis texted that he was discussing it with his family.<\/p>\n

Patronis, whose family runs a famous restaurant in Panama City, has been the state\u2019s chief financial officer, a statewide elected post, since being appointed to it in 2017 by then-Gov. Rick Scott. Patronis, who had been a legislator, had been a strong ally to Scott going back to his first run as governor when Patronis supported him over the GOP candidate backed by most of Florida\u2019s Republican establishment.<\/p>\n

Patronis does not live in Gaetz\u2019s congressional district, but he is well known throughout the region.<\/p>\n

This marks the second Florida congressional race that Trump has made his preference known. Over the weekend he put out a social media post urging Fine, the state senator, to run for the congressional seat in northeast Florida held by Waltz. Trump picked Waltz as his national security adviser.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Florida \u2014 President-elect Donald Trump is throwing his support behind Florida\u2019s chief financial officer as his choice to succeed former Rep. Matt Gaetz in Congress, a move that could increase pressure on Gov. Ron DeSantis to pick allies to the president-elect for other posts. Trump on Monday said on social media that he would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}