It\u2019s only about six months before Republican voters decide their nominee for Florida governor.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t give Paul Renner<\/a>, who served as Florida House speaker from 2022 to 2024, much time to catch up to front-runner U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds<\/a>, not to mention beating out Lt. Gov. Jay Collins<\/a> and James Fishback<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Tampa Bay Times caught up with Renner in South Tampa on Friday over coffee at Dutch Bros. The following is an excerpt of the 30-minute conversation.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump endorsed Donalds. Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom you worked closely with when you were House speaker, hasn\u2019t endorsed anyone. How is your campaign compensating for not getting endorsed by the two people who matter most to conservative voters in Florida?<\/p>\n Campaigns are long interviews with the voters, and the governor, much more recently, commented that my two years leading the Legislature and the House were the two most consequential of any state in America at any time. There\u2019s always an ebb and flow of people\u2019s perceptions about candidates over the course of the campaign, and what we feel at the grassroots level is a phenomenal response.<\/p>\n You worked closely with DeSantis. Were you surprised that he didn\u2019t endorse you?<\/p>\n The governor and I have a good relationship. (When I announced I was running), that was right at the point that Lt. Gov. (Jay Collins) had been appointed. There was an expectation by some that he might be with the lieutenant governor. There\u2019s not that expectation now. \u2026 My hope would be that we\u2019ll earn his support at the end of the day. Honestly, if I were the governor, I would sit back and watch, and I think that\u2019s right for the governor to do. But I think at the point we get closer, when people start paying attention, and it shapes up as a two-person race, I have every confidence he would refer me over Congressman Donalds.<\/p>\n What\u2019s it like to have the dynamics of this race be flipped from your relationship with Donalds when you were both in the Florida House and you beat him in the race for House speaker?<\/p>\n I\u2019m the only one in the race who\u2019s beaten him once already.<\/p>\n Any insight on why Donalds got Trump\u2019s endorsement and not you?<\/p>\n I support the president. I don\u2019t have the relationship that Donalds has with him because I\u2019m at the state level, not at the federal level. But look, if you love the Free State of Florida and what Gov. DeSantis has done, I was a key architect.<\/p>\n What do you think of James Fishback, who has created a social media campaign that is noisy and positioning him, not you, as the foil to Donalds?<\/p>\n (Fishback) starts with a massive social media following that is independent from politics, and he is rightly criticizing Byron Donalds as a do-nothing empty suit.<\/p>\n What do you think of Fishback\u2019s campaign?<\/p>\n He\u2019s spot on with young people, but so are we. So that part of the agenda, when it comes to making sure young people can afford a home, making sure young people have a job and I\u2019m committed to, in writing, not having any (foreign) visas for state employees or state contracts so that those jobs go to Florida graduates. If we have people graduating from our No. 1-ranked university system<\/a> and can\u2019t find a job, that\u2019s a problem. So I\u2019m absolutely committed to the generation that\u2019s coming out of high school and college and looking for work. The difference is I\u2019m the guy that can actually get it done, and I have a record of getting it done and will do whatever is necessary to make sure that this upcoming generation has the same opportunities I had when I came out of college.<\/p>\n Fishback has said some inflammatory and racist things about Donalds. Do you denounce his attacks?<\/p>\n Some of the things he said I do not agree with at all. But I speak for myself, and I think at the end of the day, whether it\u2019s people that he\u2019s appealing to currently, or people that are in their retirement years, I will unite all sides of the party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s only about six months before Republican voters decide their nominee for Florida governor. That doesn\u2019t give Paul…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[445,28,3291,30,9129,29,82178,28912,5187,7381,57471,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-174179","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-governor","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-house","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-house-speaker","15":"tag-james-fishback","16":"tag-jay-collins","17":"tag-paul-renner","18":"tag-republican-voters","19":"tag-ron-desantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174179","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=174179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}