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The Florida GOP has announced the list of candidates who qualified for the state's GOP primary in 2024. Here they are:
In case you are wondering, Ryan Binkley is a wealthy Texas businessman and megapastor who clearly knows how to work the levers, at least in Florida. His reading of the Bible tells him that the U.S. needs fewer immigrants and more guns.
The list is tentative, in the sense that the Florida Republican Party will not necessarily pass all of the names on to the Florida Secretary of State. Scott's name, obviously, will be omitted, as will the names of anyone else who suspends their campaign between now and the state's cutoff date, which is... in one week.
The point here is this: Primary and caucus season doesn't start for 6 or 7 more weeks, but time is already running out for candidates other than the ones already declared. The primary ballot deadline has already arrived in several states (Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada and New Hampshire, among others) and it will arrive in many more by mid-December (in addition to Florida, that list includes Arizona, California, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia). That means that if either of the presumed nominees are to be unseated, then by the time Christmas rolls around there will be no possibility of a white knight, and thus only be three ways left to do it: (1) one of the other declared candidates knocks them off, (2) they stand down voluntarily, or (3) the party steps in and replaces them forcibly. None of these seems particularly likely to us. (Z)