Florida Republican Presidential candidates face new rules for the state's primaries

Republican candidates in Florida have new rules and requirements to face in order to get in the primaries. 

First, Republican candidates will have to sign a notarized oath. That pledge states that if they lose, they’ll endorse whoever the Republican nominee is, and that they won’t run as an independent or third-party candidate. That's a similar promise to one required by the Republican National Committee. 

Political science lecturer John Hanley says there likely won’t be any major consequences if a candidate later violates the oath. The impact, he said, would center around accountability. 

"It would provide a little bit of a firewall and would allow Republicans to say, ‘Well, you said you would support the nominee of the party and you were lying, or you changed your mind, or you violated our trust,’" Hanley explained.

Hanley says some may view that as a subtle nod in support of Governor Ron DeSantis, or against former President Donald Trump. However, he doesn’t think Trump will be bothered by the promise not to change parties. 

"It’s not 2016, where he was seen more ambiguously as maybe not a conservative," said Hanley. "Now, he’s been president. He’s appointed conservative justices to the supreme court. So no one will think it’s casting aspersions on him."

If candidates go to the Republican Party’s Florida Freedom Summit, they’ll have to pay $25,000 to get on the ballot. In the last presidential election, there was no fee for entry if a candidate attended that summit. 

If they don’t attend, candidates will have to pay $100,000 to be included in the primaries, or they can opt to get voter signatures instead. The total signature count for voters now stands at about 56,000 – more than 16 times as high as it was before. 

To avoid the fee, candidates could instead collect 56 thousand signatures from voters.

Hanley says there could be some unintended consequences of all this.

"The Republican who’s out there looking to vote in this primary – giving them a larger number of candidates to choose from isn’t really doing anyone any harm. It’s showing respect to that voter."

He also says the changes could set a dangerous precedent. 

"You wouldn’t want, as a national party, to see every state imposing a bunch of elevated requirements for participating in the primary, because that’s going to reduce the quality of your candidate, it’s going to require them to do a lot more busy work," said Hanley.

The lecturer says the people most likely to be affected by the changes would be anyone entering the race late. He says that probably won’t be much of an issue in 2024’s race, but could pose problems for candidates in future races.