Florida's Race for Governor Gets a New Candidate

Southeast Politics Publisher Janelle Irwin-Taylor discusses the new candidate set to enter the 2026 race for governor and why Lt. Governor Jay Collins hasn't announced his candidacy yet.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And let's go to the hotline and bring in the
publisher of Southeast Politics, Janelle Irwin Taylor. You can find
all over work and a whole lot more at Southeast
politics dot com and you can follow her on x
at Janelle Irwin fl So, Janelle, we've got a new
candidate set to enter the race for governor. And I
think when everyone hears this person's name, they're going to

(00:22):
say to themselves, who the hell is that? Tell us
about James Fishback?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Dude, I am so in touch with all of this,
and even I said so. James Fishback is a CEO
our company, a Zuria, and he is a pretty divisive
candidate and entering the race. He's been accused of anti Semitism.

(00:52):
He promotes the Great Replacement theory, which I'm sure your
listeners are familiar with, of widely defunked kind of racist
theory that assumes, that, among other things, somehow people of
color are not real Americans. And so you know, he's
he's railing against the H one B VISA program. It

(01:12):
was thought that if he entered the race, he might
get backing from Elon Musk, and that Elon Musk would
bankroll his campaign. And that would make him a credible
threat to anybody else in the race. But when he
announced that he was going to run Elon backed Byron Donald,
so that's out the window. I don't know how serious

(01:32):
of the kansiadacy this guy is going to be able
to mount. But you know, there is a constituency in
Florida that has really really bought into the America First
mindset which he's promoting. And he's also running, you know,
as an ally of Ron DeSantis or a self described
ally of Ron DeSantis, so you know, maybe he's hoping

(01:53):
for an endorsement there since the Santis hasn't actually backed
anybody yet, hasn't said anything negative about Jay Collins, also
expected to enter the race. It's it'll be interesting to
see how the sunfolds over the coming days.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, he's also taken shots at Byron Donald's calling him
DEI Donald's, uh, which is just laughable.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah, right, come on, I mean yeah, it's it's pretty
it's pretty ridiculous. And you know, and the big question
this week is, you know, Jake Hollins has been flirting
with entering this race for weeks, months even, and it's like,
you know, dude, when are you going to do it
like the holidays or upon us now the time? So
it'll be interesting to see if he actually understand. And

(02:35):
he just did an interview on CBS Miami last night
as well, where he kind of deflected on whether or
not he was going to run.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Can you explain to me why I'm seeing commercials telling
me to call and thank Jay Collins for all the
great work he's doing as lieutenant governor, commercials that look
like he's running for governor even though he hasn't announced
a run yet. What is that all about. I saw
that commercial numerous times over the weekend while I was
watching football, So you know, it's.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Kind of like a dip your toe in the shallow
and sort of saying, you know, test the water, see
see what's out there, and you know if he has
a shot nobody. I shouldn't say nobody. A lot of
people don't want to run for office if they're going
to be embarrassed by their bid. There are certainly people
who run for office all the time that don't stand

(03:27):
a snowball's chance in hell of getting even close to
more than five percent of the vote, and they run anyways.
We call them I call them tomato cans, But you know,
Jake Collins, I don't think it's one of those people.
So it is a little odd, but it does seem
like he's still testing whether or not he's going to
be viable going up against the Trump backed candidate who
has thirty plus million dollars already raised. That's no easy feats.

(03:51):
And you know, he's got to be asking himself if
this is worse the toll that it's going to take
on his family, because he is a self described family man.
So I think that that I think that is something
ways onto his decision making.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
And we're seeing a little and I'm joined right now
by Southeast Politics publisher Janelle Irwin Taylor little GOP on
GOP violence here on the social media front, So you
had j Collins post something on x saying, let's face it,
most members of Congress won't pass a single meaningful bill
for their district, so they turned to Fox News or
CNN to build name id and then run for governor.

(04:24):
Seems like a pretty clear shot at Byron Donald's. And
then you've got Republican Congressman Greg Stuby who weighs in
on that post saying like your boss did, referring to
Governor DeSantis, who like launched his career on Fox News.
That's what led him to get that Trump endorsement that

(04:47):
catapulted him to the top of the gopre primary and
into the governor's mansion. It's just it's so interesting to
see this play out. It seems like the party here
in Florida just can't agree on getting behind one person.
You still have this Satisfaction and this Trump faction at
war with each other.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, you know, the the Trump versus the Santas thing
has always struck me as pretty wild, right, like they're
cut from the same cloth. But you know, I think
when you have kind of these strong man figures like that,
they do kind of fall into buckets and people pick one.
So when you talk about Jay Collins and his reluctance
to officially jump into this race, I think that you

(05:30):
have to also analyze that from the context of what's
happening in the White House right now. You know, we're
expecting tomorrow to get a vote on releasing the Epstein files,
and it's widely expected that that's going to be successful.
Trump himself has even come out now and go ahead
vote for it, which is, you know, that's its own
strategy in its own conversation. But you know, if there

(05:52):
is a fallout for Trump based on these Epstein files,
that that could potentially tank Byron Donald's So the hesitant
on Jay Collins's part, he might be waiting for a
window where Donald Trump is damaged and wounded to jump
in and be like, Okay, do you want to do
you want to vote for the guy who hitched his

(06:13):
wagon to a potential pedophile or do you want somebody
who did not? So there might be a strategy in
that as well.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Yeah, And meanwhile, we're not talking about Democrats because let's
be honest, they got an uphill climb regardless.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, that's that is That's also a whole other conversation.
Although you know, I think that I think that David
Jolly has made a smart calculation that there are people
in the state who are, as he described them, soft Republicans,
and that if he can get them and motivate voter
turnout among you know, hesitant voters, people who tend to

(06:50):
sit sit elections out, that maybe he could move that
needle and overcome the voter registration advantage that a GOP
has it's it is an uphill climb, but that's.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
All the stars to align perfectly in order to make
it happen.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
It's just off road right.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Southeast Politics publisher Janelle Irwin Taylor with us this morning,
and you can find all over work a whole lot
more at Southeast politics dot com. Janelle really appreciate it.
Thanks so much, Thanks for having me.