Morning Digest, sponsored by 314 Action: Republican who bragged his tear gas had been used on protesters prepares Senate bid

But Florida Rep. Cory Mills would likely face a primary against Ron DeSantis' pick to replace Marco Rubio

Florida Rep. Cory Mills (R) in a screenshot from a 2022 campaign ad.

Leading Off

FL-Sen, FL-07

Florida Rep. Cory Mills said Saturday that he intends to run for Senate next year no matter who Gov. Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican, appoints to the seat now held by Marco Rubio. Mills, though, stopped just short of committing to a statewide bid.

"You can probably guarantee my hat is going to be thrown in the ring for 2026," he told reporters at the state GOP's annual gathering. That "probably" gives the two-term congressman some wiggle room if he decides he doesn't want to give up his safe seat in the House for a risky Senate campaign.

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DeSantis has yet to announce who he'll pick to replace Rubio, who is on track to be Donald Trump's secretary of state, though Attorney General Ashley Moody is reportedly his likeliest choice. Mills said this weekend that he hadn't spoken to DeSantis about receiving the appointment.

Mills first won office in 2022 when he successfully campaigned for the 7th District, a Central Florida constituency that became reliably red under a new GOP gerrymander. Mills, an Army veteran who co-founded a private security company, ran ads during the primary bragging that his tear gas had been used on targets like "Hillary Clinton protesters" and "radical left protesters."

"And now the liberal media's crying about it," Mills told the audience before firing a gas launcher himself. "If the media wants to shed some real tears, I can help them out with that." The new congressman generated national attention soon after when he announced he would support Trump over DeSantis for president.

Governor

AL-Gov

Two Republicans who are considering bids to succeed term-limited Gov. Kay Ivey have laid out new timetables to the Alabama Daily News. Agriculture Commissioner Rick Pate says he'll make a decision next month, while Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, who previously said he'd make up his mind in "February or March," now says he'll wait until the upcoming session of the legislature ends in May.

VA-Gov

Another new poll of November's race for Virginia's governorship also finds a close contest, though the lone Democrat who's actually running fares better than a potential rival.

Mason-Dixon finds former Rep. Abigail Spanberger leading Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the likely Republican nominee, by a 47-44 margin, while Earle-Sears holds a 46-44 edge over Rep. Bobby Scott. A recent Emerson College survey put Spanberger ahead of Earle-Sears just 42-41 but did not test Scott. Neither poll asked about former Rep. Denver Riggleman, an ex-Republican who has said he might run as an independent.

The 77-year-old Scott has not ruled out joining Spanberger in the Democratic primary, but unnamed "insiders and sources in the Democratic Party" tell reporter Brandon Jarvis of Virginia Scope that they don't think he'll take the leap. Rather, says Jarvis, these politicos say Scott "is keeping his name in the conversation to make sure that Spanberger takes Black voters seriously." (Scott is Black; Spanberger is white.)

House

FL-20

A Florida government agency says in a lawsuit filed late last month that it overpaid a company run by Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick by 100 times the amount it owed—money that she then used to self-fund her successful bid for the House in 2021.

According to the lawsuit, Florida's Division of Emergency Management had intended to pay Trinity Healthcare Services, where Cherfilus-McCormick was CEO, $50,578.50 to assist with its COVID vaccination efforts but instead paid out $5,057,850.00. Trinity cashed that check and several others, says the FDEM, for a total of $5.7 million in overpayments but has since refused to repay the money.

A recently released report from the House Ethics Committee, which is investigating the congresswoman for alleged campaign finance violations, noted that Cherfilus-McCormick reported an income of more than $6 million in 2021 after saying she'd earned just $86,000 the year before.

Cherfilus-McCormick then loaned herself $4.7 million to win a special election for Florida's dark blue 20th District in 2022, upsetting Broward County Commissioner Dale Holness by just five votes in the all-important Democratic primary. She's easily won reelection twice since then.

Cherfilus-McCormick does not appear to have responded publicly to the new lawsuit. WPTV's Ethan Stein says that staffers for the congresswoman said they could not comment "in their official capacity." Those aides instead "directed us to a lawyer, who then directed us to a different lawyer specifically for the congresswoman." The different lawyer does not seem to have commented either.

MA-06

Former state Rep. Jamie Belsito suggested she might once again challenge Rep. Seth Moulton in next year's Democratic primary, telling Politico's Kelly Garrity it would be "an honor and a privilege" to represent Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District.

Belsito lost to Moulton in a 78-12 landslide in 2020, but she bounced back by flipping a longtime Republican seat in the state House in a special election the following year. That seat was dismantled in redistricting, however, so Belsito did not seek reelection in 2022.

Garrity previously reported that Dan Koh, an official in the Biden White House and a former local elected official, was also considering a bid against Moulton, who has repeatedly infuriated progressives over the years.

Other Races

VT-LG

Republican John Rodgers was overwhelmingly elected as Vermont's next lieutenant governor in a joint vote of both houses of the state legislature on Thursday after no candidate received a majority at the polls in November.

Rodgers edged out incumbent David Zuckerman, a member of the state's Progressive Party who also affiliates with the Democrats, by a 49-47 margin at the ballot box last year, requiring lawmakers to weigh in under an unusual provision of state law. Zuckerman initially conceded the race but suggested shortly after Election Day that legislators might nonetheless award him another two-year term, though he later acknowledged he had not engaged in any outreach to them.

Sitting together, the Senate and House ultimately backed Rodgers 158-18 on a secret ballot vote. As a result, as VTDigger's Shaun Robinson notes, this will be the first time in 14 years that Vermont has had a governor and lieutenant governor from the same party after voters handily elected Gov. Phil Scott to a fifth term last year.