It appears Jubilee Development Group may have funded the “blackface mailer” sent to District 4 via Mark Zubaly’s Committee to Protect Florida. On July 30, the developer contributed $15,000 to the PAC.
- Jubilee also contributed $9,000 to America First Alliance, which is paying for Calkins’s weird, misleading text messages.
State Rep. Michelle Salzman registered with the state to solicit funds for the Committee to Protect Florida – Salzman_Solicit.
- She has recommended Zubaly to several local candidates since she was elected in 2020.
- Salzman had endorsed and campaigned for Ashlee Hofberger, who is running against Walker Wilson and Buck Mitchell in the D4 GOP primary.
- The buzz is Salzman has denied any knowledge of the offensive mailer and has blamed ECUA board member Lois Benson for telling Hofberger to go negative. (Note: An earlier version had Salzman saying Benson was linked directly to the mailer). Read Salzman’s response later today.
Sheriff Chip Simmons has appeared on billboards and mailers standing next to several candidates. However, he has only endorsed one – County Commissioner Jeff Bergosh in the D1 GOP primary. He made that very clear on “Real News with Rick Outzen” yesterday.
“I actually have only endorsed one candidate, and that’s Jeff Bergosh in that district. If people ask me why, it’s because he has been loyal to the sheriff’s office and getting our pay competitive and getting our increase in our manpower.
He’s held these conversations with me about a precinct in Beulah, and he promises that that will be forthcoming. And I think that that’s very important. But he’s the incumbent commissioner, and so that’s the only one that I’m officially endorsing.”
U.S. Senator Rick Scott dismissed any suggestion to disband the Blue Angels, the Navy’s flight demonstration squadron. He agrees with us that the Blue Angels inspire our kids and help with recruitment.
“I tell you what, they probably need to expand,” said Sen. Scott when he visited with military veterans at Warrior Beer Company in Pensacola yesterday. “The Navy’s hurting on recruitment; we’ve got to excite young men and women. What the Blue Angels do is they excite young people to join the service and to be pilots.”
He continued, “I know a young lady who is just starting her fourth year at Annapolis, and she did her first solo this summer. She wants to be a Navy pilot. So no, no, it’d be the opposite. We’ve got to recruit more people.”