November 12, 2025 • 11 mins
Florida Politics Publisher Peter Schorsch breaks down how the ongoing government shutdown is impacting Florida’s political landscape and what the 2025 election results could mean for key 2026 races. He also explains the importance of the upcoming Senate District 14 special election and how it could shape the balance of power in Tallahassee.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back now here on The Ryan Gorman Show, and let's
go to the hotline and bring in the publisher of
Florida Politics, Peter Shore. She can find all of his
work and all of his teams reporting at Florida politics
dot com. Peter, we have a lot to discuss, and
I want to start with the government shutdowns impact on
Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What have you seen? What have you been hearing? You
know so well?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
First of all, from a personal level, I keep looking
at my flights wondering, am I going to make it
to Las Vegas for up one next week, Charleston for Thanksgiving,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I'm sure that's like a lot of people. I
will say, just.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
In conversations with a few of my friends that are
close to the president, there was a there was a
lot of pressure when the President got back from the
former trip. From what I was told, it was, he
was expecting there to be a deal while he was
on the Asia trip and Daddy came home and he
(00:56):
was not happy that there had not been a deal made.
And that's when you really saw the screws being turned
up on Snap and food stamp benefits, and then the
if they knew what they were doing with the FAA
air traffic controllers, you know, by cutting into the flights
and making life uncomfortable for all of those commuters. Those
two things were gonna put a lot of pressure on
(01:19):
maybe not necessarily in Florida, but throughout the country. And
that's why I think you did see the eight Democratic senators,
and I think there's probably more senators behind the scene
that we read through the lines that were ready for
the shutdown to end. But just talking with them, you know,
I just I kept telling people, I'm like, I think
you're gonna see this over now. And this was Sunday
(01:39):
going into Monday, you know, and as the as the
you know, the wheels of slow government come back together here,
we're starting to see it, you.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Know, I will say.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You know, the other thing that I think is interesting
is there's a there's a few special elections that are
going to be taking place, legislative special elections in and
I've been told that there has been a push by
Republican leadership to hold off on those, like Senate District
fourteen in Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's kind of a battleground seat.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It was previously held by a Democrat, then it was
Jay Collins's seat. He obviously opened it up when he
became lieutenant governor. There was some resistance by Florida Republicans
to having the governor call for that seat because they
are worried that the environment is really really bad for Republicans.
And now I don't know that we saw that. You know,
(02:32):
I don't trust the Washington generals, which are the Florida Democrats.
But if you look across the country, and we're not
just talking Virginia, We're not just talking New Jersey. We're
talking Missouri school board races. We're talking statewide stuff in Georgia.
We're looking at Miami, which has had a Republican mayor,
I think it's since ninety two, and now the first
and third vote getters are Democrats. There is, and you
(02:56):
and I have been saying it for about a month now,
there is something in the world. I think that is
that should concern Republicans in special elections.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And heading into twenty six.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
We're joined by the publisher of Florida Politics, Peter Shorsch.
Going back to the government shutdown in the central issue,
at least one of them. I think part of the
reason that Democrats pushed for the shutdown was because they
had to show their base they would push back against Trump.
But the issue that they maintain they were fighting over
(03:29):
healthcare and these enhanced Obamacare subsidies. And this is a
state where you have more people on Obamacare than anywhere else,
and especially down in South Florida. It's an interesting vote
that could be coming up on these subsidies. You have
in South Florida numerous congressional districts represented by Republicans that
(03:50):
have more people on Obamacare than anywhere else in the state.
And that's going to be a vote they're going to
have to take, whether or not to extend them or not.
And I guess go with the line of we have
something better that we're going to do, even though we
still haven't seen that plan just yet from Republicans.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know, you and I talked about this stuff, and
we have to remind that there's such a big difference
between national politics and Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
But this is one of the.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Places where they, you know, where ruby red Florida maybe
intersects more with national mood than anything else. I mean,
I will look, you know, just because I work for myself,
et cetera, and I opened up my bill, and it
increased by I think it's like sixty percent going into
the next year because of the situation with the Oba
Bambacare subsidies. And that's just me. I can't even imagine
(04:44):
what it's like for others out there who might not
be able to afford healthcare, et cetera. And so I
wonder if so we we've seen so many of these
seats been ruled out as being in play, and this
is you know, Maria Salazar, Carlos immanez Anna Polina Luna
in Tampa Bay, etc. That those seats have moved firmly
(05:07):
into the Republican column now, at least by performance level
during a year when Trump is on the ballot. And
I just don't know. I feel like this is the
one issue that Democrats can reliably still win on and
keep their kind of civil war fractured base together. I
think this is the issue that the progressives and the moderates,
(05:27):
who are having so many issues staying together. I mean,
by the time you know this interview is over, Chuck
Schumer may not be a minority leader anymore, but the
one issue that they can come together on is healthcare.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And so I wonder if you just hammer on healthcare
into twenty six because it's going to be bad.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I don't you know they say they're going to get
a vote. Yes, the Senate's going to vote for it,
but the House is not going to take anything up.
I mean, that's just it's crazy to think that this
far right Republican House is going to is going to
agree to Obamacare some subsidies. And I think in a way,
maybe that's the reverse psychology three dimensional chess that you know,
(06:03):
some Democrats we were thinking about as hey, we lose
the shutdown, we lose the Obamacare subsidies for a year,
but then we regain maybe some majorities, we regain a
majority in the House for sure, and we put the
Senate back into play, and then we start taking some
of these ruby red seats like thirteen, twenty six, twenty seven,
twenty eight, and we start putting them back into play.
For Democrats, you lose the battle, but you ultimately win
(06:26):
the war. Now, it remains to be seen if that
is what ends up happening, but I do think, you know,
all this fighting Democrats in disarray, Yes, that's the case
right now, but I think when we get closer to
that Senate vote on Obamacare, and then we see what
the House does. You're going to see a coalescing of
Democrats then, and you're going to see some fracturing within
(06:48):
the Republican Party. And I just feel like, you know,
Florida is kind of ground zero for a lot of
that because we have so many people who are potentially
impacted by those decisions, being on those healthcare exchanges.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And that's why I mean Republicans are talking about it.
I mean Paul Renner, the gubernatorial candidate.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
You know, now he hasn't found a laying yet, but
maybe and maybe he's resisting to maybe him resisting to
what is inevitably coming back this debate over healthcare. Maybe
him being at the forefront of that debate for Republicans.
I don't know, it keeps him in the mix. I mean, again,
I don't think he's going to get past Byron Donald's
(07:28):
but you know, he is making the conservative approach to healthcare,
which is ending Obamacare, at the centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I don't know how you win.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I don't know how you win on that in a
state where, like you say, so many people rely on
those subsidies. But there is at least one person that's
going to be talking about it between now and next fall.
Publisher of Florida Politics, Peter Shorsch. So, Peter, I want
to go back to something that you were talking about
a few minutes ago, that upcoming special election for Senate
District fourteen here in the Tampa Bay area. There was
(08:02):
a vacancy created in August when Jay Collins became lieutenant governor.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Why is it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Taking so long to move this thing along and what
do we need to know about the race?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
So this is the Senate District fourteen is basically one
of the ultimate battleground seats in Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's a seat that's gone from.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
This was part of it was represented back by Charlie
crist then it was later represented by Democrat Charlie Justice,
Republican Jeff Brandis. You had then I think you had
Dana Young in there afterwards, then you went to Janet
Cruz and then you went to Jay Collins. So this
is you know, and it's expensive because of the TV market,
So you've got a real genuine this is this is
a seat that would be more expensive than most states
(08:44):
congressional seats. I think the last time when Janet Cruz
ran against Dana Young, it was a fourteen million dollar
race run, So we're talking about a serious, serious battleground seat.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
The governor has called there.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I know that there was resistance, and I think it
was from Senate President to Be Jim Boyd, who was
in charge of electing Republicans to the Senate for this cycle.
I think he had been asking the governor, Hey, please,
why don't we hold off on this election. Just leave
the seat open because we're not going to be able
to fill it in time for the January special session.
So electing somebody in March doesn't really do anything for session.
(09:23):
Why don't you just leave it open until next year
because we're not sure that we can hold onto this
seat in this environment where Republicans seem to be in
trouble across the country, where you have you know, every
district in Virginia moved to the blue column over the
red column where you saw the results of Tuesday, where
it was a pretty much a resounding defeat of Trump.
(09:45):
You look at the latest like morning Console polls that
Trump's in the worst position he's been in of his presidency.
And so I think there's a reluctance, and you've got
to really You've got two A list candidates on the
Republican side, former Rep. She resigned to run, Josie tomkow
in leadership, an ally of Daniel Perez, the Speaker. And
(10:07):
then you have Melanie Griffin, who is a Rohnda Santis
agency head. Her husband is the vice chair of the
USF Board. Two of the most powerful people in Tampa
Bay politics squaring off. I think there will be if
they do end up both running against each other an
eight nine, ten million dollar GOP primary, then going up
against a Democrat who may not have the resources, but
(10:31):
will you know, may have the wins behind him in
a special election, and real quick, this seat's going to
be vacant during the legislative session, so there's gonna be
no representation for this district during this upcoming session to
start twenty six. Correct, there might be a couple of
days of overlap, but you know, going the way they've gone,
(10:51):
where they may maybe this person will serve in an
extended session. For I am not going to predict that
this upcoming session is going to end on time, but
that no, it will not have There's a lot of
open special elections with all the people resigning to go
work in the Trump administration and resigning for university presidencies,
et cetera, there are I haven't even done the back
(11:13):
of the math on how many vacant seats, but I'd
say it's probably like five six seven right now open
seats in the Florida Legislature.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
The publisher of Florida Politics, Peter Shure. You can find
all of his work and all of his teams reporting,
and sign up for the Sunburn newsletter so you get
the latest in your inbox first thing every morning at
Florida Politics dot com. Peter always appreciate tim and insight.
Thanks so much, all right, Ryan, thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
The Ryan Gorman Show on NewsRadio WFLA.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Ryan Gorman Show,
and find us online at Ryan Gormanshow dot com
Back now here on The Ryan Gorman Show, and let's
go to the hotline and bring in the publisher of
Florida Politics, Peter Shore. She can find all of his
work and all of his teams reporting at Florida politics
dot com. Peter, we have a lot to discuss, and
I want to start with the government shutdowns impact on
Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
What have you seen? What have you been hearing? You
know so well?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
First of all, from a personal level, I keep looking
at my flights wondering, am I going to make it
to Las Vegas for up one next week, Charleston for Thanksgiving,
et cetera.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
And I'm sure that's like a lot of people. I
will say, just.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
In conversations with a few of my friends that are
close to the president, there was a there was a
lot of pressure when the President got back from the
former trip. From what I was told, it was, he
was expecting there to be a deal while he was
on the Asia trip and Daddy came home and he
(00:56):
was not happy that there had not been a deal made.
And that's when you really saw the screws being turned
up on Snap and food stamp benefits, and then the
if they knew what they were doing with the FAA
air traffic controllers, you know, by cutting into the flights
and making life uncomfortable for all of those commuters. Those
two things were gonna put a lot of pressure on
(01:19):
maybe not necessarily in Florida, but throughout the country. And
that's why I think you did see the eight Democratic senators,
and I think there's probably more senators behind the scene
that we read through the lines that were ready for
the shutdown to end. But just talking with them, you know,
I just I kept telling people, I'm like, I think
you're gonna see this over now. And this was Sunday
(01:39):
going into Monday, you know, and as the as the
you know, the wheels of slow government come back together here,
we're starting to see it, you.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Know, I will say.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You know, the other thing that I think is interesting
is there's a there's a few special elections that are
going to be taking place, legislative special elections in and
I've been told that there has been a push by
Republican leadership to hold off on those, like Senate District
fourteen in Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
It's kind of a battleground seat.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It was previously held by a Democrat, then it was
Jay Collins's seat. He obviously opened it up when he
became lieutenant governor. There was some resistance by Florida Republicans
to having the governor call for that seat because they
are worried that the environment is really really bad for Republicans.
And now I don't know that we saw that. You know,
(02:32):
I don't trust the Washington generals, which are the Florida Democrats.
But if you look across the country, and we're not
just talking Virginia, We're not just talking New Jersey. We're
talking Missouri school board races. We're talking statewide stuff in Georgia.
We're looking at Miami, which has had a Republican mayor,
I think it's since ninety two, and now the first
and third vote getters are Democrats. There is, and you
(02:56):
and I have been saying it for about a month now,
there is something in the world. I think that is
that should concern Republicans in special elections.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And heading into twenty six.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
We're joined by the publisher of Florida Politics, Peter Shorsch.
Going back to the government shutdown in the central issue,
at least one of them. I think part of the
reason that Democrats pushed for the shutdown was because they
had to show their base they would push back against Trump.
But the issue that they maintain they were fighting over
(03:29):
healthcare and these enhanced Obamacare subsidies. And this is a
state where you have more people on Obamacare than anywhere else,
and especially down in South Florida. It's an interesting vote
that could be coming up on these subsidies. You have
in South Florida numerous congressional districts represented by Republicans that
(03:50):
have more people on Obamacare than anywhere else in the state.
And that's going to be a vote they're going to
have to take, whether or not to extend them or not.
And I guess go with the line of we have
something better that we're going to do, even though we
still haven't seen that plan just yet from Republicans.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know, you and I talked about this stuff, and
we have to remind that there's such a big difference
between national politics and Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
But this is one of the.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Places where they, you know, where ruby red Florida maybe
intersects more with national mood than anything else. I mean,
I will look, you know, just because I work for myself,
et cetera, and I opened up my bill, and it
increased by I think it's like sixty percent going into
the next year because of the situation with the Oba
Bambacare subsidies. And that's just me. I can't even imagine
(04:44):
what it's like for others out there who might not
be able to afford healthcare, et cetera. And so I
wonder if so we we've seen so many of these
seats been ruled out as being in play, and this
is you know, Maria Salazar, Carlos immanez Anna Polina Luna
in Tampa Bay, etc. That those seats have moved firmly
(05:07):
into the Republican column now, at least by performance level
during a year when Trump is on the ballot. And
I just don't know. I feel like this is the
one issue that Democrats can reliably still win on and
keep their kind of civil war fractured base together. I
think this is the issue that the progressives and the moderates,
(05:27):
who are having so many issues staying together. I mean,
by the time you know this interview is over, Chuck
Schumer may not be a minority leader anymore, but the
one issue that they can come together on is healthcare.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
And so I wonder if you just hammer on healthcare
into twenty six because it's going to be bad.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
I don't you know they say they're going to get
a vote. Yes, the Senate's going to vote for it,
but the House is not going to take anything up.
I mean, that's just it's crazy to think that this
far right Republican House is going to is going to
agree to Obamacare some subsidies. And I think in a way,
maybe that's the reverse psychology three dimensional chess that you know,
(06:03):
some Democrats we were thinking about as hey, we lose
the shutdown, we lose the Obamacare subsidies for a year,
but then we regain maybe some majorities, we regain a
majority in the House for sure, and we put the
Senate back into play, and then we start taking some
of these ruby red seats like thirteen, twenty six, twenty seven,
twenty eight, and we start putting them back into play.
For Democrats, you lose the battle, but you ultimately win
(06:26):
the war. Now, it remains to be seen if that
is what ends up happening, but I do think, you know,
all this fighting Democrats in disarray, Yes, that's the case
right now, but I think when we get closer to
that Senate vote on Obamacare, and then we see what
the House does. You're going to see a coalescing of
Democrats then, and you're going to see some fracturing within
(06:48):
the Republican Party. And I just feel like, you know,
Florida is kind of ground zero for a lot of
that because we have so many people who are potentially
impacted by those decisions, being on those healthcare exchanges.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
And that's why I mean Republicans are talking about it.
I mean Paul Renner, the gubernatorial candidate.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
You know, now he hasn't found a laying yet, but
maybe and maybe he's resisting to maybe him resisting to
what is inevitably coming back this debate over healthcare. Maybe
him being at the forefront of that debate for Republicans.
I don't know, it keeps him in the mix. I mean, again,
I don't think he's going to get past Byron Donald's
(07:28):
but you know, he is making the conservative approach to healthcare,
which is ending Obamacare, at the centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I don't know how you win.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I don't know how you win on that in a
state where, like you say, so many people rely on
those subsidies. But there is at least one person that's
going to be talking about it between now and next fall.
Publisher of Florida Politics, Peter Shorsch. So, Peter, I want
to go back to something that you were talking about
a few minutes ago, that upcoming special election for Senate
District fourteen here in the Tampa Bay area. There was
(08:02):
a vacancy created in August when Jay Collins became lieutenant governor.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Why is it.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Taking so long to move this thing along and what
do we need to know about the race?
Speaker 3 (08:11):
So this is the Senate District fourteen is basically one
of the ultimate battleground seats in Florida politics.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's a seat that's gone from.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
This was part of it was represented back by Charlie
crist then it was later represented by Democrat Charlie Justice,
Republican Jeff Brandis. You had then I think you had
Dana Young in there afterwards, then you went to Janet
Cruz and then you went to Jay Collins. So this
is you know, and it's expensive because of the TV market,
So you've got a real genuine this is this is
a seat that would be more expensive than most states
(08:44):
congressional seats. I think the last time when Janet Cruz
ran against Dana Young, it was a fourteen million dollar
race run, So we're talking about a serious, serious battleground seat.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
The governor has called there.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I know that there was resistance, and I think it
was from Senate President to Be Jim Boyd, who was
in charge of electing Republicans to the Senate for this cycle.
I think he had been asking the governor, Hey, please,
why don't we hold off on this election. Just leave
the seat open because we're not going to be able
to fill it in time for the January special session.
So electing somebody in March doesn't really do anything for session.
(09:23):
Why don't you just leave it open until next year
because we're not sure that we can hold onto this
seat in this environment where Republicans seem to be in
trouble across the country, where you have you know, every
district in Virginia moved to the blue column over the
red column where you saw the results of Tuesday, where
it was a pretty much a resounding defeat of Trump.
(09:45):
You look at the latest like morning Console polls that
Trump's in the worst position he's been in of his presidency.
And so I think there's a reluctance, and you've got
to really You've got two A list candidates on the
Republican side, former Rep. She resigned to run, Josie tomkow
in leadership, an ally of Daniel Perez, the Speaker. And
(10:07):
then you have Melanie Griffin, who is a Rohnda Santis
agency head. Her husband is the vice chair of the
USF Board. Two of the most powerful people in Tampa
Bay politics squaring off. I think there will be if
they do end up both running against each other an
eight nine, ten million dollar GOP primary, then going up
against a Democrat who may not have the resources, but
(10:31):
will you know, may have the wins behind him in
a special election, and real quick, this seat's going to
be vacant during the legislative session, so there's gonna be
no representation for this district during this upcoming session to
start twenty six. Correct, there might be a couple of
days of overlap, but you know, going the way they've gone,
(10:51):
where they may maybe this person will serve in an
extended session. For I am not going to predict that
this upcoming session is going to end on time, but
that no, it will not have There's a lot of
open special elections with all the people resigning to go
work in the Trump administration and resigning for university presidencies,
et cetera, there are I haven't even done the back
(11:13):
of the math on how many vacant seats, but I'd
say it's probably like five six seven right now open
seats in the Florida Legislature.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
The publisher of Florida Politics, Peter Shure. You can find
all of his work and all of his teams reporting,
and sign up for the Sunburn newsletter so you get
the latest in your inbox first thing every morning at
Florida Politics dot com. Peter always appreciate tim and insight.
Thanks so much, all right, Ryan, thank you.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
The Ryan Gorman Show on NewsRadio WFLA.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Ryan Gorman Show,
and find us online at Ryan Gormanshow dot com
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