The campaign of Republican Ron DeSantis is going after Democrat Andrew Gillum over comments made by his running mate nearly two decades ago.
Some voters this week got text messages that noted inflammatory comments made by lieutenant governor nominee Chris King back in 1999. King, who narrowly lost a student election at Harvard University at the time, blamed the school’s newspaper for his loss. He said at the time that he was “nailed to the cross” and that “most of the editorial staff that was so hard on me, the vast majority were Jewish.”
The text messages said that the comments “raise serious concerns about Gillum’s ever-mounting ties to blatant anti-Semitism.”
King, who is a liberal Christian, previously apologized for the comments when they surfaced ahead of the August primary for governor. King came in fifth in the election won by Gillum.
The Gillum campaign sharply criticized the text messages as a “smear tactic” by the DeSantis campaign.
“Ron DeSantis is running one of the most divisive and toxic campaigns in Florida history,” said Johanna Cervone, a spokeswoman for Gillum. “These type of abusive tactics are straight out of the Trump playbook and will not go unanswered.”
DeSantis, during a campaign stop Friday in Doral, defended reminding voters of King’s comments.
“I think the comments are what they are, right?” DeSantis said.
The text messages sent out by the campaign came a few days after DeSantis faulted Gillum for his support of groups such as The Dream Defenders and said that “I can find anti-Semites around him.”
The activist organization, which did a month-long sit-in of the Florida Capitol back in 2013, has been sharply critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and has called for a boycott of Israel. Gillum has said he does not support a boycott of Israel.
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