Florida’s Surgeon General will be outside the state later this month, stumping on behalf of the Governor’s presidential campaign.
Joseph Ladapo will be in the U.S. Virgin Islands, appearing at Republican Party receptions Dec. 17 on St. Thomas and Dec. 18 on St. Croix to aid Ron DeSantis’ campaign for the party’s nomination.
Not to be outdone, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds will be at the same events on behalf of former President Donald Trump.
The Virgin Islands hold caucuses on Feb. 8, with nine delegates at stake via ranked choice voting, meaning that the gains a given campaign can get are modest. But given the early placement of the Virgin Islands vote in the calendar, the territorial vote has outsized implications for the narrative of the campaign.
The Florida Governor virtually campaigned in the Virgin Islands already. DeSantis made light of the territory’s current inability to vote in Presidential Elections by joking about them being potentially too Democratic for GOP electoral hopes.
“How would the Virgin Islands vote for President — would they be red or blue?” DeSantis asked, as reported by the local St. Thomas Source. “I don’t want to pony up free electoral votes for the other team.”
Independent Sen. Alma Francis-Heyliger asked the Republican presidential candidate about not being able to vote in the Presidential General Election, describing the disenfranchisement as being “almost like you’re in a different class of citizen, even though we are citizens of America.”
Told by the Senator that three of the five territories are Republican, DeSantis then offered an answer, essentially telling the group on the call not to get their hopes up.
“Obviously I think that we have these territories, people are Americans, and they should be treated as equal citizens. How that works with the Electoral College, I’m not sure that there’s going to be necessarily a movement on that front, but I do think just generally speaking, the more equal the better,” DeSantis said, dodging the question.
Meanwhile, though this is Ladapo’s first solo campaign swing for DeSantis, he has been on the trail with the Governor, with a co-appearance at a “medical freedom” town hall in New Hampshire.
The Surgeon General described DeSantis as “willing to do what he believed is right despite the opposition.” He also lauded DeSantis’ “amicability” and his “free-flowing love and care about other people,” continuing his habit of glowing language for the Governor who hired him.
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