By J.C. Bruce
Remember the TV spot that Byron Donalds used to launch his campaign for governor back in February? The one with him and Donald Trump, face to face, Old Glory in the background, with the words:
TRUMP TRUSTS BYRON
Well, Trump’s trust might have been misplaced.
This week, Donalds pulled some prominent references to Trump from his website, joining a growing number of Republicans, including here in ruby red Florida, who are dumping Trump for this election.
Small wonder: With Trump’s approval rating in the toilet, with so many voters unhappy about the cost of living, with concerns about the cruelty of Trump’s mass immigration roundups (not to mention the murder of American citizens), and his war of choice in Iran, they’ve realized a Trump endorsement is toxic.
Not to mention tearing down the East Wing, the ballroom fiasco, the possible demolition of the Kennedy Center, and all the rest of the craziness.
So, it was time for a little redesign of Donalds’ website.
“Enact the Trump Agenda”: This has been removed from the top of his campaign’s priority and agenda landing page, replaced with “affordability” as the primary issue.
This, after Donalds unabashedly supported Trump’s Big Beautiful Budget Bailout for billionaires.
Photographs: Donalds removed a featured photo of him and his wife posing with Trump.
You know, pictures like the one above that he used to launch his campaign.
Prominent Endorsements: He also stripped out multiple explicit mentions and outward displays of Trump’s endorsement, relegating it to a standard rolling banner alongside other conservative figures.
Donalds isn’t the only Florida Republican running from Trump.
Last week, Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar told Trump in a new ad that Hispanic voters feel betrayed because of his immigration policies.
In the ad, Salazar looks into the camera, speaking directly to Trump:
“Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far…Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024, feel betrayed today.”
This followed polls showing Hispanic voters abandoning the G.O.P. in droves.
According to The New York Times:
In an average of high-quality national polls over the last month, Democrats led Republicans among Hispanic likely voters by 35 percentage points, 64-29, on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they will support for Congress.
That would mark an extraordinary reversal since 2024, when the same pollsters found Kamala Harris leading Mr. Trump by an average of only seven points among Hispanic voters in their final surveys.
A shift toward Democrats on anything like this scale could remake the electoral map — threatening longtime Republican incumbents, new Republican gerrymanders and the party’s crown jewel, Texas — and represent a final unraveling of his winning 2024 coalition.
Things are, indeed, shifting.
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J.C. Bruce
Things may be shifting but as far as trusting the Republicans to "do the right thing" for the American people, I don't. The Republican party has backed, for the last few years, almost every idiotic, illegal, unconstitutional thing that Trump has pulled. So now that, as many predicted, they have been pulled down by Trump, they are trying to distance themselves from him. That does not change who they are and what drove them to sanction, for so long, the acts of this maniac! Stop the arch, stop the ballroom, stop giving (he says trading) away our National parks to his buddies, start taking care of our planet, etc., etc. When the republicans can do that, I might possibly believe they could be worthy of being our (We the People) voice/s in Washington and work for the people, not for themselves.
Donalds may back away from Trump but Jolly should do him the favor of emphasizing his Trumpness.