A Florida Republican who rode President Donald Trump’s endorsement through his primary is suddenly keeping his distance now that he’s locked up a spot on the November ballot.
According to the Washington Examiner, former state Rep. Mike Beltran is running for the newly redrawn 14th Congressional District, where he’ll face longtime Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor in what has long been a Democratic stronghold.
Having secured a primary run, the report notes, Beltran scrubbed “prominent mentions” of Trump from his campaign website the day after winning his crowded GOP primary on Aug. 18.
Before the primary, Beltran leaned hard into his Trump loyalty, casting himself as one of the earliest true believers and knocking outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s 2024 primary rival, in the process.
“Mike Beltran has stood with President Trump every step of the way, resisting the pressure that all but 7 Florida legislators gave in to,” his site read before the primary. “He is one of only seven Republican legislators in the entire state of Florida who never endorsed Ron DeSantis for President, standing firm with Trump from the moment he came down the escalator in 2015. That wasn’t a political calculation. It was conviction.”
Now Trump’s name is notably absent from Beltran’s “about” page, which lists over a hundred local and national endorsers as “leaders.”
His site does still include a photo of Beltran and his family with Trump, beside another photo of the candidate posing with former Sen. Marco Rubio, who now serves as Trump’s Secretary of State.
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