A campus town hall for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) has banned all recording — with every debate in Florida’s race for governor now canceled.
The ban appears in the event listing for Tuesday’s forum at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, where Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor, will speak to students. The FAMU Student Government Association is hosting the event, which is limited to current FAMU students, according to the listing. Anyone else who wants to attend must contact organizers.
“No signs of any kind are permitted. No recording, audio or visual recording, is permitted,” the listing states.
The forum took the place of a televised debate between Donalds and Democratic nominee David Jolly, a former congressman, that FAMU had planned to host. The university canceled the debate after Jolly declined to take part, WCTV reported.
The student government then invited both candidates to meet with students instead, and Jolly is scheduled to visit Oct. 12, according to WCTV.
Jolly said Sept. 20 that he would not debate Donalds at all, citing Donalds’ “repeated lies and bad faith,” USA TODAY Network-Florida reported.
“We accepted multiple debates before this week. Byron refused them and instead set his own rules by press release,” Jolly said in a statement.
If no debate takes place, the contest would be Florida’s first governor’s race in more than 50 years without one, WTXL observed.
Two days before Jolly’s announcement, the Donalds campaign had unveiled three debates without consulting Jolly’s campaign, according to the USA TODAY Network-Florida. None would have included an audience or let voters ask questions.
“I said 3 debates. Jolly said 12 debates. Yesterday, Jolly said no debates. Who’s the liar Dave?” Donalds wrote on X in response, WTXL reported.
Earlier in September, a Tampa Tiger Bay Club board member told the Florida Phoenix that Donalds’ campaign had agreed to a joint forum with Jolly, then asked to appear separately, then pulled out and offered to send his running mate, Bryan Avila.
“At no point was it on our calendar,” a source close to the Donalds campaign told the Phoenix.
“I noticed that Jolly does not take questions. … He’s never around for the voters to ask him something,” Donalds said at a Labor Day weekend event near MacDill Air Force Base, according to the Phoenix.
Donalds also skipped debates during the Republican primary, when the state party said his rivals had failed to qualify, the USA TODAY Network-Florida reported.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) criticized that move, according to the network.
Patrick Bet-David, the Fort Lauderdale-based host of the PBD Podcast, criticized the lack of debates in Florida’s governor’s race in a clip the show posted on X Monday. Bet-David has said he voted for President Donald Trump three times, HuffPost reported.
“That’s b—,” Bet-David said, blurting out an expletive.
“Somebody thought that was a good idea. Who the hell were those people? Who are you? Who are you? Faceless. Who were those people?” he continued.
“So now it’s on the voters. ‘Hey, let’s put all the pressure on the voters.’ Wait, what? ‘You should go vote.’ No, I shouldn’t — get me excited,” Bet-David said.
“Is this an entitled Republican Party? What an unattractive approach to take. And this is coming from a conservative guy with conservative values, pro-capitalism, pro-freedom of speech. … No, that is a royal, royal screw-up,” he added.
Trump endorsed Donalds, but Donalds removed most mentions of it from his website last week, NBC News reported. The campaign cited a focus on policy.
Polls show the race effectively tied in a Republican-leaning state ahead of the Nov. 3 election, FOX 13 reported.
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