Former Gov. Jeb Bush will launch his bid for the Republican presidential nomination at an event in Miami on Monday and he has rallied some of the top GOP leaders from the Sunshine State behind his campaign.
On Friday, the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reported that the three Republicans in the state Cabinet -- Attorney General Pam Bondi, CFO Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam -- were on the Bush bandwagon. So are 11 of the 17 Republicans in the Florida delegation: U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, Vern Buchanan, Ander Crenshaw, Carlos Curbelo, Mario Diaz-Balart, David Jolly, Jeff Miller, John Mica, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Dennis Ross and Dan Webster.
Five of those congressional representatives -- Crenshaw, Diaz-Balart, Jolly, Ros-Lehtinen and Ross -- were for Bush as early as February while Mica said, at that time, Bush was his top choice though he was considering backing former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., and Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis.
While U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is in the top tier of Republican presidential hopefuls, he has not pulled in that many top endorsements from the Sunshine State. The only member of the Florida delegation behind Rubio’s bid so far is U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla.,
U.S. Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla., has backed U.S. Sen. Rand Paul’s, R-Ky., presidential bid. Clawson voted for Paul to be speaker of the U.S. House earlier this year.
There are some Republicans in the Florida congressional delegation who are still up for grabs: U.S. Reps. Ron DeSantis who is running for Rubio’s seat in the Senate, Rich Nugent, Bill Posey and Ted Yoho.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
