DeSantis Preps Argument That Any Florida Special Election Disappointments Are Not Trump’s Fault

Florida state Sen. Randy Fine (R) is still expected to win Tuesday’s special election in Florida’s Sixth Congressional District. But as multiple local and national news outlets have noted in recent days, national Republicans never expected it to be this close.

Ahead of polls closing on Tuesday afternoon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to do some expectation resetting around the race for the seat that he used to hold before he became governor, a district that President Trump and former Rep. Mike Waltz (R) both won by more than 30 points in November. The margins of that special election and another in Florida, as well as the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, also today, have been cast as the first electoral bellwethers on Trump’s presidency. Specifically, some Democrats says they’ll view the results as a referendum on Trump’s first few months in office, and political commentators are eager to read into the results as a measure of how well the American public is stomaching Elon Musk’s assault on congressionally authorized federal spending. (Musk in particular has become a flashpoint in Wisconsin, where he has been campaigning for the candidate in person and promoting questionable get-out-the-vote gimmicks that experts have likened to vote buying.)

DeSantis, for his part, is trying to get out ahead of any bad-for-Trump headlines that may arrive if Fine wins the race by close margins, telling reporters in Florida this afternoon that the special election should not be seen as a test of voters views on Trump, but, rather, on Fine. DeSantis has been publicly blaming Fine for his own potentially impending poor performance — despite Trump giving Fine his MAGA endorsement — for a few weeks now. The attacks began once it became clear that Fine’s Democratic opponent — a progressive and a school teacher named Josh Weill — had substantially out-raised him. Weill raised about $10 million for his campaign and began airing TV ads in the district at the beginning of March. Fine reportedly raised a little less than $1 million. 

Of course, Trump and DeSantis and national Republicans are only in this position because Trump decided to make Waltz, who previously represented the district in Congress, his national security adviser. The Atlantic/SignalGate snafu paired with Fine’s lackluster fundraiser may be giving Trump some buyer’s remorse on Waltz. It’s believed to be part of the reason Trump decided to pull Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) UN nomination last week — concerns about special election turnout among scared Democratic and Independent voters while Republicans hold such a tiny majority in the House.

Here’s what DeSantis told reporters this afternoon, per The Hill:

“You can quibble with Trump endorsing or not, but that’s a separate question from why are voters reacting the way they do if there’s an underperformance, and I think it’s going to be more of a local reason. I think it’s going to be more of a candidate-specific reason. I don’t think that if there’s an underperformance that that’s a referendum on the president,” the governor said. 

DOJ Drops Biden-Era Georgia Election Suit

Attorney General Pam Bondi has instructed the Department of Justice to dismiss a 2021 Biden administration legal challenge to a Republican-backed Georgia election law, which the government, at the time, argued disproportionately impacted Black voters’ rights.

It was assumed that Bondi would eventually drop the suit, as Trump’s DOJ has dropped other litigation brought by the Biden administration. She announced she had done just that in a press release this week, when she claimed that the government’s challenge to the election law, which was introduced in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss, was “weaponized litigation.” 

“President Trump and Attorney General Bondi are committed to dismantling weaponized litigation and ensuring fair, lawful elections for all Americans. Instead of wasting time on false, divisive lawsuits, the Department of Justice will continue to root out real discrimination, promote common-sense election safeguards, and ensure equality for every American,” Bondi added.

Those “common sense election safeguards” that the Trump administration has attempted to mandate thus far are, of course, mostly unconstitutional, with Trump exceeding his branch of government’s authority. Much of what the Trump administration outlined in its new executive order targeting elections has been not only outside the authority of the executive branch, it’s also involved giving the DOJ a sweeping mandate to police states’ election administration. If states refuse to comply, they could lose out on federal funding for conducting elections.  

— Khaya Himmelman

Small Win For Alabamians Seeking Abortion Care

A federal judge ruled on Monday that the state of Alabama — with its draconian abortion ban, one of the most strict in the nation — can’t prosecute doctors or health care clinics for aiding patients in seeking abortion care outside the state. The ruling came in response to lawsuits filed by several doctors and clinics in the state after Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall suggested in 2022 that doctors could be charged criminally for recommending a patient leave the state for an abortion. Per the Times:

On Monday, the judge, Myron H. Thompson of the Middle District of Alabama, in Montgomery, ruled that Mr. Marshall would be violating both the First Amendment and the right to travel if he sought prosecution.

“It is one thing for Alabama to outlaw by statute what happens in its own backyard,” Judge Thompson, who was named to the court by President Jimmy Carter, wrote in his 131-page opinion.

“It is another thing,” he added, “for the state to enforce its values and laws, as chosen by the attorney general, outside its boundaries by punishing its citizens and others who help individuals travel to another state to engage in conduct that is lawful there but the attorney general finds to be contrary to Alabama’s values and laws.”

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Judge Gives DOGE Go-Ahead To Plunder U.S. Institute Of Peace 

Judge Beryl Howell of the D.C. District Court ruled that DOGE can continue to ransack the U.S. Institute of Peace, which its lawyers said Tuesday includes over $20 million in various bank accounts and its $500 million building.  
The fired board members of the Institute had filed an emergency motion to stop the transfer of the organization’s assets. Howell denied the motion for similar reasons that she denied the members’ request for a temporary restraining order last week: They hadn’t shown a likelihood to succeed on the merits, and she still had significant questions about whether USIP is an executive branch agency or not.

— Kate Riga

Yesterday’s Most Read Story

Inside Cory Booker’s Plan To Disrupt ‘Business As Usual’ On The Senate Floor

What We Are Reading

The Onion: White House Correspondents’ Dinner Scraps Host In Favor Of Terrified Silence

Waltz and staff used Gmail for government communications, officials say

The Lawlessness Is the Point