Trump comes to Fort Myers to fire up the GOP base

With some polls showing the races for governor and U.S. Senate relatively close in the Sunshine State 11 days before Election Day, President Donald Trump held a rally Friday afternoon in Fort Myers.

His mission was to inspire Florida Republicans — who maintain a more than 1.5 million voter registration advantage over Democrats — to get to the polls to vote for the GOP up and down the ticket, but particularly for Byron Donalds for governor and Ashley Moody for Senate.

He did so for a few minutes at both the beginning and the end of his 90-minute address, with the main body of the speech focused on his own accomplishments in the White House, as well a lot of other stream-of-consciousness commentary.

That same day, Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly and Angie Nixon, running for U.S. Senate, rallied at the Florida A&M University campus in Tallahassee.

Trump called Jolly, a former Republican congressman, a “radical left candidate.”

“I never told Byron this, but I knew Jolly as a Republican,” the president said. “And he was thrown out of the party like a dog. We threw him the hell out. He was terrible. He didn’t represent anything that we stood for. He was in the party and didn’t represent. He was also a bad guy. The guy had no heart. No soul. Everybody hated this guy so much … a very disloyal person.”

Jolly acknowledged in 2018 when he left the GOP that he found it impossible to be “never-Trump” and remain a Republican. He didn’t become a Democrat until last year.

As Vice President JD Vance did in his appearance in Lakeland earlier this month, Trump emphasized Jacksonville state Rep. Angie Nixon’s membership in the Democratic Socialists of America.

“This is the free state of Florida, where people come to escape communists and not to elect them,” he said. “The Sunshine State is not going to send a Marxist maniac to the Senate.” He later referred to Nixon as “a lunatic.”

Trump has always been popular in Florida, winning the state by 1 point in 2016, 3 points in 2020 (when he lost the general election to Joe Biden), and 13 points in 2024. And although his poll numbers are historically bad nationally at the moment (a CNN/SSRS survey recently found his approval rating at a record-low 32%), an NBC6/Telemundo poll showed the president’s approval at 48% in Florida, with his disapproval rating also at 48%.

The president did get into some foreign policy in his speech.

He hinted that the U.S. may attack Iran again soon, adding, “If they’re smart, they’ll just say, ‘Let’s get down to business.’ But I doubt they’ll do that.” He added that ships returning from the Middle East could stop over in Cuba on their way back from Iran.

In addition to Donalds and Moody, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, U.S. Rep. Greg Steube, and Republican National Committee chair Joe Gruters all addressed the crowd at Alico Arena at Florida Gulf Coast University.

‘Communist’

Trump took a few breaks during this appearance, allowing Donalds, Moody, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to speak. RFK Jr. used his time on stage to announce the Trump administration’s “America First Seafood Strategy,” which included a rollout of a new, voluntary “U.S. Caught Seafood” label.

In her speech before Trump appeared, Moody called Nixon a “communist.”

“Do you think that this is a time to keep calm and carry on? We must win this battle. The state of Florida is under attack. Listen to me: We have to make the slogans, ‘Don’t tread on me’ and ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ look PG. You know what we need to say? ‘Don’t F with Florida,’” she said with a grin. “You got that?”

One Florida Republican who did not speak at the rally was Ron DeSantis. The governor did greet the president when he landed at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers earlier in the day.

Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried derided the president’s visit. She said the fact that Trump was visiting a county he won by nearly 30 points just two years ago implies that one of two things was happening.

“Either they’re having trouble turning out their base, including in Lee County, and have to have daddy come home and rev up the base; or two, they went to Lee County to do less harm to the rest of the Republican ticket,” she told reporters Thursday.