Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Thursday his run for governor will be focused on bringing down costs for families and he will be a candidate \u201cwho puts delivering results before grabbing headlines.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross Florida, families are working harder than ever but struggling to keep up with the rising cost of housing, groceries, insurance and electricity,\u201d Demings said in a statement. \u201cOur state has become more expensive and less fair for everyone, all while power is being stripped away from local communities that know their residents best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demings has his first campaign rally scheduled for Thursday evening in Orlando. He formally filed paperwork to run last week after being rumored as a candidate for several months.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s wrapping up his second and final term as mayor of one of Florida\u2019s last Democratic bastions. Throughout his term, he\u2019s clashed with state leaders on a host of issues ranging from COVID-19 response and restrictions to, more recently, requirements for local governments to participate in immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
Jasmine Burney-Clark, the founder of the Black-led civic engagement organization Equal Ground, said Demings\u2019 moderate views and law enforcement background \u2013 he was Orlando\u2019s first Black police chief and Orange County\u2019s first Black sheriff \u2013 could be a factor in Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state wants to prioritize policing and I think he\u2019s one of the best candidates to put that forward,\u201d she said. \u201cMy belief is, who better than him? Particularly because Democrats have not been able to be successful with the Republican-to-independent pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Demings enters a Democratic primary facing former congressman David Jolly, who served in D.C. as a Republican before leaving the party in President Trump\u2019s first term. He became a Democrat and joined the race earlier this year.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Jolly welcomed Demings to the primary.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of Florida\u2014Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike\u2014deserves a spirited Democratic Party primary that puts voters first, one rooted in real solutions for the affordability of housing and healthcare, the future of public education, protecting personal freedoms, and restoring trust and competence in government,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The eventual winner of the primary will face a Republican with steep built-in advantages. The Florida GOP is a fundraising juggernaut and has a 1.4 million-voter advantage in registration.<\/p>\n
Already in the contest are U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, who is backed by President Trump, and former House Speaker Paul Renner. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins has said he\u2019s strongly considering running, and rumors have swirled about First Lady Casey DeSantis as well.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Thursday his run for governor will be focused on bringing down costs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,99,109],"class_list":["post-36227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-politics","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36227","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=36227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}