Gov. Ron DeSantis indicated he was never on board with Republican Josie Tomkow following her stunning loss to Democrat Brian Nathan in Florida's Senate Distrct 14 special election last week.
"I was not involved at all in that race. The reality is, when I get behind a candidate, I'm telling voters that this is somebody that shares my values and that shares our goals for the state of Florida," DeSantis said in Tampa. "You have a candidate that does not do that. I am not going to be supporting them. And that's what happened, you know, in that race."
Tomkow lost to Nathan by just 405 votes (50.25% to 49.75%) in the race. SD 14 covers parts of Hillsborough County, including Tampa, and was represented by Republican Sen. Jay Collins, now Florida's lieutenant governor, before flipping.
Gov. DeSantis asserted Tomkow's lack of support for his legislative agenda in his comments.
"I mean, people can do what they want, but you know, when you run on one way, and then you do things and take really bad votes, that's just something that I'm not going to sign up for," DeSantis expressed. "And so I was very clear from the beginning, I was not going to be involved in that. And that's just kind of the way the cookie crumbles."
He also blamed the loss on some Republicans turning away from his mandate. The GOP lost a special election race in coastal Palm Beach County the same night.
"When you steer away from that, and you play some of the games, you know, you're not going to have the results. That's just the reality," DeSantis assessed.
Gov. DeSantis won Hillsborough County by nine points over Democrat Charlie Crist in the 2022 gubernatorial election.
"Four years ago, I won that district overwhelmingly. This former senator won it pretty, pretty strongly, too. Not an easy district for us, per se, but that's just the reality. But what you saw in that is you had a 10 Point Republican turnout advantage in that district, and still lost the race," DeSantis stated.
Collins, whom DeSantis appointed as Lt. Gov. in August 2025, won the district by nearly 10 points over Democrat Janet Cruz in 2022.
“To me, that tells you not only you’re not doing well with independents, Republicans are voting the other way, registered Republicans," DeSantis commented. "And whether that’s out of protest... maybe they're not as concerned, I don’t know what goes on there. But I know if you have a 10-point advantage in your party registration, you should be able to win that election."
Unless People Are Just Tired of Your Bull Shit.