{"id":117342,"date":"2026-01-14T04:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/117342\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T04:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:14:08","slug":"triangulation-ron-desantis-warms-to-paul-renner-gubernatorial-campaign-as-jay-collins-launches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/117342\/","title":{"rendered":"Triangulation? Ron DeSantis warms to Paul Renner gubernatorial campaign as Jay Collins launches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Timing is everything, and Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis\u00a0picked the day after Lt. Gov.\u00a0Jay Collins entered the race to succeed him to say something nice about a rival.<\/p>\n

During an interview Tuesday morning with Jenna Ellis<\/a>, DeSantis complimented Collins, but also pointed to the legacy of former House Speaker\u00a0Paul Renner, moving away from a previous brusque dismissal of the Palm Coast Republican\u2019s campaign as an \u201cill-advised decision<\/a>\u201d that he wasn\u2019t \u201csupporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPaul Renner was the Speaker when I was Governor, my first two years of my second term, and I think if you look at that, there\u2019s not a single state in the history of the Republican Party that delivered more meaningful reforms during that period of time, and so he deserves credit for that,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

Regarding Collins, DeSantis said this: \u201cI think the Lieutenant Governor was a Senator in Florida \u2026 had a really strong conservative record, supported us on a lot of key things that were really meaningful. Obviously, has a great history as a Green Beret and serving in Special Forces, which I know a lot of people in Florida really appreciate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

DeSantis didn\u2019t sound ready to endorse either man, saying, \u201cThese guys have got to get out there and make the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI get involved in Primaries when I have someone I believe in, and someone that really reflects what I think the state needs, and that is really bold in that, and you know that\u2019s just something people have to prove as they announce candidacies and get out there and do it,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

That \u201csomeone\u201d is not Rep. Byron Donalds, however, who DeSantis seems to link with a different brand of politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that there are a lot of insiders, there are a lot of people the voters would never necessarily see that they\u2019re kind of behind the scenes. You know, a lot of them have resisted everything I\u2019ve done at every turn. I mean, they just haven\u2019t had the popular support to actually win any of those fights. But I do think that there\u2019s kind of an appetite that\u2019s whetted in kind of the internal bowels of Tallahassee and some of the swamp of Florida politics. They want to go back to good old boys and business as usual. There\u2019s no question about that, and so I think that\u2019s an underlying thing that the voters are going to have to sort out as this thing starts to move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Timing is everything, and Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis\u00a0picked the day after Lt. Gov.\u00a0Jay Collins entered the race to succeed him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[445,28,30,29,5187,59101,7381,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-117342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-byron-donalds","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-jay-collins","13":"tag-jenna-ellis","14":"tag-paul-renner","15":"tag-ron-desantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}