\n\t\t\t\t\t\t Less than 24 hours after Democrats scored key victories in elections across the country, the focus in Florida is turning to next year\u2019s race for governor, in which former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner is emerging as one of the top contenders.Renner, who officially launched his campaign last month, made a stop in Collier County on Tuesday, emphasizing his commitment to what he calls \u201chealth freedom\u201d and parental rights, themes that have become central to his campaign.\u201cAs governor, I will end vaccine mandates,\u201d Renner told supporters gathered in Naples at Seed to Table, drawing applause from the crowd.For many attendees, that message struck a chord.\u201cMr. Renner provides that level of choice to the parents who either want to put that needle in their child\u2019s arm or not,\u201d said Ann Vandersteel, a Republican voter from Naples. Another supporter, Maureen Steel, said Renner\u2019s \u201cstance on parental rights and health freedom for our children is absolutely paramount.\u201dRenner said his campaign is focused on connecting with voters at the grassroots level. But when asked about economic concerns, particularly Florida\u2019s high insurance costs and rising cost of living, he insisted those remain top priorities.\u201cThe top issue on the minds of voters right now is affordability,\u201d Renner said in an interview. \u201cWhen I was speaker, we took a big swing at insurance reform, and we\u2019re already seeing auto rates going down in our state.\u201dThe former House speaker raised more than $3 million in the first month of his campaign, but he faces stiff competition in a crowded Republican primary field that includes Congressman Byron Donalds, who has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.Renner declined to say whether he expects an endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis, although DeSantis said he did not want Renner to run. \u201cI don\u2019t know that you can separate his legacy from what I did when I was speaker and what we did together,” Renner stated.Voters will have the next 10 months to decide between the growing list of candidates vying to succeed DeSantis, whose term ends next year.DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tNAPLES, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Less than 24 hours after Democrats scored key victories in elections across the country, the focus in Florida is turning to next year\u2019s race for governor, in which former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner is emerging as one of the top contenders.<\/p>\n
Renner, who officially launched his campaign last month, made a stop in Collier County on Tuesday, emphasizing his commitment to what he calls \u201chealth freedom\u201d and parental rights, themes that have become central to his campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs governor, I will end vaccine mandates,\u201d Renner told supporters gathered in Naples at Seed to Table, drawing applause from the crowd.<\/p>\n
For many attendees, that message struck a chord.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Renner provides that level of choice to the parents who either want to put that needle in their child\u2019s arm or not,\u201d said Ann Vandersteel, a Republican voter from Naples. <\/p>\n
Another supporter, Maureen Steel, said Renner\u2019s \u201cstance on parental rights and health freedom for our children is absolutely paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renner said his campaign is focused on connecting with voters at the grassroots level. But when asked about economic concerns, particularly Florida\u2019s high insurance costs and rising cost of living, he insisted those remain top priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe top issue on the minds of voters right now is affordability,\u201d Renner said in an interview. \u201cWhen I was speaker, we took a big swing at insurance reform, and we\u2019re already seeing auto rates going down in our state.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former House speaker raised more than $3 million in the first month of his campaign, but he faces stiff competition in a crowded Republican primary field that includes Congressman Byron Donalds, who has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Renner declined to say whether he expects an endorsement from Gov. Ron DeSantis, although DeSantis said he did not want Renner to run. \u201cI don\u2019t know that you can separate his legacy from what I did when I was speaker and what we did together,” Renner stated.<\/p>\n
Voters will have the next 10 months to decide between the growing list of candidates vying to succeed DeSantis, whose term ends next year.<\/p>\n
DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than 24 hours after Democrats scored key victories in elections across the country, the focus in Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7886,2353,104,24554,28,3291,30,29,24553,213,24552,5387,920,24549,7381,12667,24550,24551],"class_list":["post-35315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-campaign","tag-child","tag-entertainment","tag-first-month","tag-florida","tag-florida-governor","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-health-freedom","tag-late-news","tag-level","tag-naples","tag-next-year","tag-parental-right","tag-paul-renner","tag-race","tag-republican-voter","tag-supporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315","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=35315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}