{"id":306345,"date":"2026-06-13T13:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T13:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/306345\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T13:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T13:36:10","slug":"what-have-we-become-paul-renner-rips-florida-gop-for-thwarting-gubernatorial-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/306345\/","title":{"rendered":"‘What have we become?’: Paul Renner rips Florida GOP for thwarting gubernatorial debates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former House Speaker\u00a0Paul Renner<\/a> says the Republican Party of Florida<\/a> is cheating voters out of its opportunity to weigh the merits of candidate for Governor by refusing to stage a debate at the impending Sunshine Showdown<\/a> event.<\/p>\n

He argues that the party is \u201ctipping the scales\u201d in favor of U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds<\/a>, the\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>-endorsed front-runner in the race, after its assertion that only Donalds would have met criteria to qualify for a debate. The criteria: 10% support in the RPOF\u2019s own poll; more than $10 million raised; and more than 10,000 donors<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we not the conservative party that believes in free competition so that voters can decide who has the experience, who\u2019s delivered the results, who\u2019s got the vision, who\u2019s led in the fight to build the free state of Florida?\u201d<\/p>\n

Renner\u2019s words here are deliberate, echoing Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis\u2019 comments that Donalds wasn\u2019t a part of his administration\u2019s battles against \u201cthe left.\u201d<\/p>\n

The candidate went further in mirroring the Governor, blasting the state party for discouraging the kinds of independent debates that were routine in statewide Primary races until this cycle.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to the First Amendment? Now they\u2019re determining what is sanctioned and unsanctioned speech, whether you can come to a candidate forum, whether you can participate in a media-run debate. There have been at least two that have been proposed. What have we become? Are we becoming the Democrat Party?\u201d<\/p>\n

That last rhetorical question seems to be a reference to how Democrats shielded President\u00a0Joe Biden and Vice President\u00a0Kamala Harris from competition in the 2024 cycle as the party wrestled with how to handle a leader who lacked the vitality to run for re-election.<\/p>\n

During a press conference Friday, DeSantis criticized the party<\/a> for discouraging debates.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the party has a very limited role. (It) really should be a candidate-driven process and not for people to be making decisions who voters have never voted into those positions to begin with. So line up something with TV, line up something, radio, all these different forms. there\u2019s a whole host of ways that you can do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In lieu of a formal debate at the event later this month, Renner, Donalds, and Lt. Gov.\u00a0Jay Collins<\/a> (who wants a one-on-one debate with Donalds) will be allowed to speak to voters, but will not share a stage.<\/p>\n

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

A fourth candidate,\u00a0James Fishback<\/a>, is being denied the opportunity to speak for having committed to an \u201cunsanctioned\u201d television debate and for what Chairman Evan Power describes as \u201cantisemitic and racist attacks on members of our party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former House Speaker\u00a0Paul Renner says the Republican Party of Florida is cheating voters out of its opportunity to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[128058,28,64744,128059,30,29,128060,28912,7381,32373],"class_list":["post-306345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-debates","tag-florida","tag-florida-gop","tag-florida-gop-primary","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gubernatorial-debates","tag-james-fishback","tag-paul-renner","tag-republican-party-of-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306345","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=306345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}