GIANNO CALDWELL: Florida needs Byron Donalds to protect the DeSantis legacy

When COVID hit in March 2020, I was living in Los Angeles. What I saw there changed the course of my life.

It became clear almost immediately that local officials in California weren't following the science. They were following the politics. Every decision, every mandate, every shutdown got filtered through one lens: how do we use this crisis to fight back against Trump and Republicans? Californians paid for that calculation. Businesses shuttered. Kids lost years of school. Families lost everything they'd built. I watched it happen in real time.

Florida went a different way. Governor Ron DeSantis stood firm. While Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed school closures, vaccine mandates, and business lockdowns, DeSantis said no. He signed executive orders and legislation suspending every local COVID mandate on Florida's citizens and businesses, and put into state law the presumption that schools stay open for in-person instruction. The pressure on him was relentless, from the left and from parts of the right. He didn't fold.

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That's what made my decision. In May 2020, two months into the LA shutdown, I packed up and moved to Miami.

I wasn't the only one. Ken Griffin moved Citadel, his multibillion-dollar firm, from Chicago to Miami. Major CEOs followed. Florida became the place serious people came when they were done waiting for their blue state to show any gravitas at all.

I didn't agree with every decision Governor DeSantis made. But his tenure speaks for itself. In 2020, registered Democrats still outnumbered Republicans in Florida. Today, Republicans hold a registration advantage of more than 1.5 million voters, and they've expanded their share in all 67 counties.

That didn't happen by accident. That happened because of leadership.

Now DeSantis is term-limited, which raises a question that matters enormously, and not just to Floridians. Who carries this forward?

I've known Congressman Byron Donalds for several years. I've watched him up close. He's the person Florida needs right now.

I say that as the founder of the Caldwell Institute for Public Safety, an organization I built after my innocent teenage brother Christian was murdered in Chicago on June 24, 2022.

Public safety isn't an abstraction to me. It's the reason I do this work. And it's the clearest place where Byron has distinguished himself.

While the defund the police movement swept the country, Byron didn't equivocate. Carlos Arguelles, president of the Hispanic Police Officers Association of Miami-Dade, put it plainly in endorsing him: "During COVID, when the 'defund the police' movement was gaining momentum, Congressman Donalds stood up for law enforcement and doubled down on putting more boots on the ground. He has never been afraid to stand his ground."

The Florida Police Chiefs Association endorsed him too, representing more than 1,300 law enforcement executives, along with a majority of Florida's sheriffs.

His Zero Tolerance public safety agenda would mandate full cooperation between state and local agencies and federal immigration authorities at ICE and ban sanctuary policies statewide without exception.

That last part is personal for me; Chicago has been a sanctuary city for over 40 years. Nearly 7,000 people have been murdered there in the last decade. I've spent four years asking Chicago's politicians to take that seriously. They haven't. Byron is promising Florida will never become that, and I believe him.

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He's also serious about the cost that hits Florida families hardest. Property insurance is the biggest affordability pressure in this state, and Byron says he believes he can bring rates down by as much as 20% by reforming Florida's property insurance regulatory framework.

Byron grew up in Brooklyn. He came to Florida for college, graduated from Florida State, and built a career in banking and finance in Southwest Florida. He worked his way from local conservative activism to the Florida State House to Congress, where he's represented Florida's 19th District since 2021.

President Trump's endorsement was unambiguous: "Byron Donalds would be a truly Great and Powerful Governor for Florida." House Speaker Mike Johnson called him "a principled conservative leader who Floridians can trust as their next governor."

But the endorsement that says the most came this week from an unlikely place. Stephen A. Smith, a lifelong Democrat, said on his SiriusXM show: "I ain't no Republican. But if anybody could make me one, it would be him. He's the real deal. Make no mistake about it. I've seen him battling with Democrats. He ain't backing up. He knows his stuff."

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When a lifelong Democrat says a Republican is the real deal, people pay attention. Congressman Donalds could bring in a new crop of voters like Stephen A. Smith who've traditionally voted for Democrats but are now concerned their party has gone extremely far left. Look at the rhetoric the Democratic Socialists of America are using. Abolish prisons and police. It's crazy talk that's running away traditional Democrats.

What I can tell you from knowing Byron personally is something no endorsement captures. He's a man of strong morals and genuine character. I've seen it for myself. When he speaks he means what he says. In a political environment full of people who say whatever the moment requires, that's rarer than it should be.

Florida is ground zero for conservative values in America. The next governor either protects what's been built here or lets it erode. Byron Donalds will protect it.

The primary is Tuesday, August 18. If you're a Florida voter, go vote.