Ron DeSantis carries on Florida feud with Congressman Randy Fine, calling him a 'squish'

Yahoo

03-04-2025

The coronation of Randy Fine as a newly elected Florida congressman Wednesday didn't come without critical words from a fellow Republican and ally-turned-foe.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a news conference in Ocala Wednesday, ripped Fine's "underperformance" in Tuesday's special election, blaming Fine's personality, which "repels people."
Though Fine defeated Democrat Josh Weil by 14 percentage points, Florida's 6th District – which includes Daytona Beach, DeLand, Ormond Beach and Palm Coast – was won in November by Mike Waltz by 33 points.
Fine returned fire late Wednesday night, texting The News-Journal a series of "factual corrections" and posting on X this response to DeSantis, a lame-duck governor isolated from Trump's circle of trust because of his 2024 presidential challenge.
"A dying star burns brightest before it fades into oblivion," Fine wrote. "I'm focused on working with @realDonaldTrump to stop Democrats from taking this country backwards, not working with them."
DeSantis and Fine have feuded since October 2023, when Fine – then a member of the Florida House –pulled back his endorsement of the governor, and instead became the first of some 100 Florida lawmakers to instead throw support to Trump.
The two – both of whom have Harvard degrees – had previously been allies.
DeSantis, who had predicted Fine would not win as much support as Waltz or Trump had in November, responded to a question about the election in the 6th, which includes part of Marion County.
"What happened with Randy Fine is exactly what I said. He would win but underperform, and that's what happened," DeSantis said. "President won that by 30 points in '24. I won it by 35-plus points (running as governor) in 2022. Fine is out there saying he won it by the same margin I did. That is a total, total lie. I won by more than twice he did there in '22."
Fine said he had based his comparison on DeSantis' first run for Congress in 2012, when the governor was an unknown former Navy JAG officer. DeSantis defeated Democrat Heather Beaven by a 57-43 margin, a nearly identical score as Fine's defeat of Josh Weil this week. And Fine added: "(DeSantis) did not face $14 million in opposition."
It's not entirely clear how much Democratic cash – or Republican money, for that matter – went into the Fine-Weil race. Federal election reports show Weil had raised $9.5 million and Fine nearly $1 million by March 12, but clearly there was more raised in the final weeks. DeSantis said Republicans tossed $4 million or $5 million into the race in the final weeks, but Fine said "there is no evidence" of that.
Whatever Republicans spent, DeSantis said: "The fact that money had to be spent, that's not a good thing. This should have been won going away."
DeSantis attempted to counter one narrative that Weil's performance, cutting the November margin by more than half, was an "anti-MAGA backlash," by blaming Fine and using a term dating back to the Reagan era that's been described in a right-leaning National Center for Public Policy Research blog as "someone who could not be counted on to back a conservative initiative."
"He's a squish, OK. He supported restrictions on Second Amendment rights back in 2018," DeSantis said.
In the weeks following the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, where 17 students and staff were slain by a 19-year-old former student, Fine joined a number of Republicans in supporting a wide-ranging bill that restricted rifle and long gun sales to people under age 21.
DeSantis, who offered an immigration proposal at a special session that went nowhere, also complained that Fine's opposition meant he "tried to make Florida a de facto sanctuary state," which he argued turned off Republican voters.
In response, Fine said: "Ronald signed the immigration bill I sponsored earlier this year in the Senate."
Fine also responded to DeSantis' comments on the 2018 gun restriction for minors, which the House recently voted to repeal, but has not yet been voted upon in the Senate. "Ronald has had six years to fix what it is he claims he does not like about the Parkland bill and has made no effort to do so," Fine said.
DeSantis said of Fine's personality: "He repels people. ... They wanted to get him out of the Legislature so they asked me to put him up for Florida Atlantic president, and I did, and the whole board would have rather resigned than make him president, and so now he's going to be in Congress. I mean, it is what it is."
DeSantis did, indeed, float Fine's name in 2023 to become president of Florida Atlantic University. Fine challenged reporters to ask his former House colleagues and several FAU board members to confirm the governor's claims.
DeSantis said the Fine-Weil race had looked a lot closer a couple of weeks prior to Election Day. And for a few days during early voting, Democrats had turned out more of their own voters than Republicans. But Republicans – with a decided registration advantage in a district that included not just northern Volusia and all of Flagler counties, but rural swaths of St. Johns, Putnam, Marion and Lake counties, as well – rallied on Election Day and boosted turnout to about 35%.
"Then the president did a couple of tele-town halls where he said, 'Listen, for my agenda, we need you to go out and vote,' and so I think the Election Day turnout was really good for a special election for Republicans in the district," DeSantis said.
"The president really had to bail (Fine) out in the end, because this race would have been much closer had the president sat on the sidelines," DeSantis said.
Fine – whose case to voters was essentially, "The president endorsed me, I'll fight for him" – credited Trump right after God in his victory speech. But in his late-night text to The News-Journal, he referenced the parallel 1st Congressional District race in the panhandle, won by a similar margin by Jimmy Patronis.
"President Trump did for me what he did for Jimmy Patronis, nothing more or less," Fine said. "Patronis also won by 14 in a district 10 points redder than this one ... and he faced half the money I did."
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Congressman Randy Fine fires back at Ron DeSantis' election critique