WESTON — If a campaign stop at a South Florida palatial ranch was any indication, the state GOP’s plan for the two-week stretch run to Election Day is to lean harder into the culture war and modern Red Scare strategy.
Gubernatorial candidate U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds and U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody spoke to a crowd of about 175 on Oct. 16. They invoked socialism 16 times at Green Glades Ranch, on the Everglades' edge. It was just one stop on Donalds’ “Defending the Dream” bus tour.
"This is not JFK's Democrat Party. This is not even Bill Clinton's Democrat Party," Donalds said. "This is now the (U.S. Sen.) Bernie Sanders' Democrat Party. It is a Democrat Party built around socialism."
Donalds dedicated part of his speech to how Florida Republicans stopped
Democrats from performing mythical sex change operations on minors. “If that’s a culture war, I’m for that,” said Donalds, who would become Florida's first Black governor if elected.
There were a lot of the old GOP classics, such as attacking blue states like Massachusetts, California and New York. Donalds lambasted the news media. He also took a jab (no pun intended) at Dr. Anthony Fauci, who spearheaded the government’s development of the COVID-19 vaccine that ended the pandemic.
Donalds certainly seemed to tear a page from President Donald Trump with his schoolyard taunts. When speaking of his opponent, former congressman David Jolly, he said, “This man is a walking contradiction — in short, a fraud.”
"This guy is the angriest Jolly I've ever seen," he added.
Donalds continuously compared Democrats to some version of crazy, nuts and/or stupidity threatening Florida's "common sense" way of doing things.
"We are the best state in all of America and Democrats, they can keep the crazy in California. They can have the idiocy in Illinois, and they can keep Zohran Mamdani in New York," he said.
Donalds: 'You (media) are obsessed if I don't mention (Trump) in any speech'
But Donalds got testy with the media when asked outside the event why he didn’t mention Trump in his 16-minute address. “I think you guys are obsessed that if I don’t mention the president in any speech I give, then somehow we’re separating. That’s not true,” Donald said. “Everybody needs to calm down.”
Donald's campaign team scrubbed prominentmentions of Trumpfrom the candidate’s website in September as the president’s popularity plummeted. “He’s still on the website today,” Donalds told reporters.
With some Republicans in office steering clear of Trump as he campaigns across the country, Donalds was asked whether he would join the president in Fort Myers on Oct. 23..
"Of course, I’m going to be there. What kind of question is that?” he said.
Hope Florida scandal touches a nerve with Attorney General James Uthmeier
Moody, appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, also took a few questions and was asked by USA TODAY Network-Florida why she refused to debate her Democratic opponent, state Rep. Angie Nixon. Donalds just chided his opposition, David Jolly, for refusing to debate. Moody repeated, almost verbatim, the exact words she used in her speech, saying Nixon quotes the Communist Manifesto.
Meanwhile, the Hope Florida Medicaid scandal seems to have died down since DeSantis-appointed appellate judges ordered the entire grand jury report to be expunged, rejecting its findings and criticized its handling.
ButAttorney General James Uthmeier, after Moody spoke in Weston, made sure it got a couple more news cycles by threatening to criminally prosecute television stations and the Democratic Party for a scathing TV spot mentioning the report.
Moody signed off on $10 million of a Medicaid settlement to be routed through Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis’ charity and onto political action committees fighting initiatives on marijuana and abortion that the governor didn’t like in 2024.
Byron Donalds’ message for voters in the stretch run: It’s Biden’s fault.
Donalds proved again to be a charismatic speaker and effective campaigner, carrying the GOP’s message that inflation, immigration, healthcare and everything else affecting the lives of American families is the fault of former Democrat President Joe Biden.
“The previous administration was destroying this country,” he told reporters. “We are talking about policies that matter going forward for Floridians: lowering insurance, making it easier for people to make ends meet, making it more affordable for Floridians.”
But in his speech in Weston, Donalds didn’t offer change on any of those issues. He offered to keep DeSantis's policies, promising more deregulation and lower taxes that have benefited the wealthy and corporations. He didn’t mention the proliferation of data centers in Florida, a top issue in the election.
There was a lot of fear-mongering. “This is the same Democrat Party that does believe your children should have their puberty changed if some bureaucrat wants them to,” he said. “The same Democrat Party, if you let them have their way, our borders will be wide open again.”
Moody, in her speech, presented the 2026 version of the Red Scare, the intense anti-communist and anti-leftist hysteria that most historians have called a shameful chapter in U.S. history.
“I know so many of you in this room have family or maybe yourselves fled from communist socialist countries who wanted the same that the agenda says for Democrat socialists,” she said.
And then later she unveiled her big new campaign slogan. “Don’t eff with Florida,” Moody said. “We’re going to tell socialists on Nov. 3, don’t eff with Florida.”
Donalds called Jolly’s property insurance plan "socialism." “It’s a complete takeover of the insurance industry,” he said.
Nixon appeared the next day with progressive U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, drawing about 2,000 people. Floridians pay the highest premiums in the country.
'A future star': Voters at the rally were impressed with Byron Donalds
Voters spoken to outside didn’t seem too concerned with socialism or minors getting sex changes.
Sylvia Hernandez is a Cuban American living in Cooper City. Her husband and two sons work in law enforcement. She likes the Republican message on school choice and public safety.
“I want to make sure that our two boys that are in law enforcement are protected by a state and by an administration that is going to have their backs while they are out there keeping us safe,” she said.
John Finazzo, a veteran and a lifelong Republican from Plantation, said his top concerns are affordability, property insurance, and healthcare for veterans. He loved Donalds.
“We’re looking at a future star there, man,” he said.
John Pacenti is the Government Impact Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, athttps://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: GOP's Donalds, Moody push culture war, anti-socialism message
