The Florida Republican Party dropped its previous plans to require presidential candidates to sign a loyalty pledge in order to appear on the party’s primary ballot, giving a win to former President Donald Trump over Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the two rivals’ home state.
The party voted on Friday night to drop plans to require candidates to agree to the loyalty oath just months after the party agreed to implement the requirement in May. If adopted, the pledge would have required candidates to promise to endorse the eventual GOP nominee on next year’s ballot — something the former president has previously rejected.
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The party agreed to scrap the requirement through a voice vote, citing national party rules that prohibit changes to candidate eligibility requirements within two years of an election.
“Common sense prevailed at the Republican Party of Florida tonight,” state Sen. Joe Gruters, who led the vote, told CNN.
The vote comes as a win to Trump, whose campaign argued the requirement was a ploy to boost DeSantis’s standing in the Sunshine State. The governor’s campaign team pushed back against that notion, noting any candidate should be willing to support the party’s eventual nominee.
“Once Ron DeSantis secures the party’s nomination, we hope everyone in the field will join him in that fight,” DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin told the outlet. “We believe anyone who wants to run for president as a Republican should be willing to pledge their support for our eventual nominee. It is surprising that anyone interested in seeing the defeat of Joe Biden in 2024 would disagree.”
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Trump has previously refused to sign similar loyalty pledges offered by the party, including one that was required by the Republican National Committee to appear at the first presidential candidate debate earlier this year. The former president brushed off that suggestion, noting he doesn’t plan to debate his opponents due to his dominating performance in the polls.
“I don’t see it,” Trump told conservative host Megyn Kelly this week. “Why would I do it?”
