The fight is between Florida's Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (pictured) and Rep. Ron DeSantis. GOP race to replace Rubio could be bloodbath The Republican primary could pit the establishment wing of the party and insurgent movement conservative groups against each other.

MIAMI — The Republican race for Florida’s soon-to-be open Senate seat has the potential makings of a primary bloodbath, pitting the establishment wing of the party and insurgent movement conservative groups against each other as they prepare to pick sides between Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Rep. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis made his candidacy official Wednesday and unveiled the support of influential Washington conservative groups, one of which immediately bashed Lopez-Cantera, whose allies intend to start rolling out a leadership and super PAC in anticipation of a formal campaign announcement in coming weeks.


The friendly fire from Team DeSantis is a hallmark of some of these groups, and it isn’t lost on D.C. Republicans that many of his consultants and allies — Jamestown Associates, Senate Conservatives Fund and FreedomWorks — are the same crew that unsuccessfully backed now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s 2014 Republican primary opponent.

“Many conservatives, many in the Senate are just not happy DeSantis has done this,” said one top-level Republican who’s familiar with the inner workings of the Senate GOP. “There are some people who are ready to give dollar-for-dollar to make sure any advantage DeSantis gets from these groups will be wiped out.”

Whether the GOP establishment actually goes out of its way to settle a score is unclear. Primary day is Aug. 30, 2016, and the May 2 filing deadline is a year away. The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee and McConnell’s team are officially neutral as of now.

And the GOP field to replace Sen. Marco Rubio is far from set: Rep. Jeff Miller stopped here Thursday as part of a state listening tour to gauge support for a potential bid. Former state Attorney General Bill McCollum is making calls to see how much support he can muster. Rep. David Jolly, former Sen. George LeMieux and state Sen. Don Gaetz have expressed interest as well.

Barney Keller, DeSantis’ spokesman and a consultant with Jamestown, took a veiled shot at Lopez-Cantera and those who are criticizing the Ponte Vedra Beach congressman’s team.

“Congressman DeSantis is going to run his campaign based on his positive vision for Florida and America. Insiders attacking from the cover of anonymity simply want to see a Charlie Crist Republican as the nominee, which would be divisive for the party,” Keller said in a written statement. “Ron believes it is important to unite economic, defense and traditional conservatives so that the GOP can defeat the Democrats.”

Keller’s comment echoed a statement from Senate Conservatives Fund leader Ken Cuccinelli, who criticized, in part, Lopez-Cantera’s votes when he served in the state Legislature, including his 2009 support for a budget that accepted Obama stimulus money and raised taxes to do so.

“Carlos Lopez-Cantera is not a conservative,” Cuccinelli, the conservative former Virginia attorney general who lost the 2013 gubernatorial race, told The Palm Beach Post on Wednesday. “He supported Charlie Crist‘s budget that raised taxes by $2.2 billion, he supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens, and he’s supported wasteful spending at the state level. If he runs, we will actively oppose his nomination.”

Lopez-Cantera, who couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday, has heard the criticism before and in interviews has told reporters that the state House budget that was initially produced had no stimulus money or tax increases — but that then-Gov. Crist and the state Senate essentially forced the House to accept the budget. After taking that vote, House members tried but failed to repeal many of the tax increases the Legislature hiked to qualify for stimulus money in a year when the state had a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall. As Gov. Rick Scott’s lieutenant, Lopez-Cantera was part of the administration that ultimately led for the repeal of an auto-tag tax hike.

One of Lopez-Cantera’s major backers, Miami billionaire auto dealer Norman Braman, took issue with the attack against the lieutenant governor.

“It’s complete nonsense what they’re saying. What the Legislature did during that period was heroic, considering all of the problems Florida faced as one of the hardest-hit states in the recession when we had high foreclosures and job losses,” said Braman, the former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team.

“It’s not the Club for Growth or Senate Conservatives Fund that will ultimately decide this election — but the voters of Florida,” Braman said. “And I’ll defer to the voters rather than leave that to these D.C.-based groups to make that decision.”

But Braman knows how the political game works: Informing voters costs millions in an election in a state as big as Florida, where statewide TV ad buys can cost as much as $3 million weekly at the end of the election. And Braman said he’s prepared to make a “substantial contribution” to a super PAC backing Lopez-Cantera.

Braman has made a similar pledge of support for Rubio, Lopez-Cantera’s close friend. Lopez-Cantera has spoken to Rubio about a bid for the seat that the senator is vacating to run for president.

Rubio isn’t expected to endorse in the primary to succeed him, nor will Scott, the second-term governor. But Lopez-Cantera allies are hoping he can leverage some of Scott’s fundraising network and institutional support in Tallahassee, where supporters hope he can count on endorsements from Attorney General Pam Bondi, state Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.

The Republicans aren’t the only ones likely to face a battle between the establishment and the insurgents. On the Democratic side, centrist Rep. Patrick Murphy is preparing to face liberal firebrand Alan Grayson, who has said he’s likely to run for the seat. As with Lopez-Cantera and DeSantis, the Murphy-Grayson race is being cast as a contest between those concerned with electability vs. those who value ideological purity.

One of DeSantis’ biggest threats could come from within the House GOP ranks. Miller, another staunchly conservative member from North Florida, could take away social conservative votes. Miller told POLITICO on Thursday that he’s taking his time, having traveled from West Palm Beach, to Miami, to the Tampa Bay area, to the Panhandle.

“I’m trying to find out if somebody like me is a candidate people can get behind. It is a huge state — 18 million people — and it will be a very expensive primary, a very expensive general,” Miller said. “To do something like this, you have to know if you have the capability of raising that type of money.”

DeSantis’ team is a who’s who of insurgent conservative players and also includes the Club for Growth, which opted to not oppose McConnell in 2014. DeSantis on Friday will be a special guest Friday at a tele-town hall event for the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed nonprofit.

Though DeSantis’ team is giddy at the prospect of the grass roots and financial support it’s getting from the conservative groups, Republican political consultant and former NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh, a frequent critic of the groups, cautioned that they had a poor batting average in 2014 in contested primaries. He said the groups in and of themselves aren’t bad, they just have a tendency to pick poor candidates in competitive races.

“These groups show little appetite for growing the Republican Party, and it matters little to them if their candidate can really win a general election,” Walsh said, who took issue with those who compare DeSantis with Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton — both Ivy League-educated former soldiers.

“Arkansas is not Florida, where you need to reach out to the Hispanic community,” Walsh added.

The criticism from those currently or formerly associated with the NRSC are nothing new for DeSantis’ team. In 2013, Jamestown Associates was blacklisted from getting party contracts for working against McConnell, cutting ads in Kentucky for Senate Conservatives Fund — one of the groups backing DeSantis.

DeSantis’ team believes none of this ultimately will matter to voters. His consultants say the candidate’s biography — he’s a former Navy judge advocate general — and the electorate’s increasing focus on national security will carry the congressman to victory.

DeSantis’ spokesman, Keller, said it simply: “Ron’s service to our country, his strong support for pro-growth kitchen-table economic policies, and demonstrated commitment to reforming Washington will appeal to Floridians of every community — and will help him carry the day next November.”