A top adviser to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has severely damaged the efforts by some in Sunshine State circles to take on President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in this year’s GOP gubernatorial primary with a self-admitted lapse of judgment that has led to her saying she was offering the governor her resignation.
Christina Pushaw is a top DeSantis administration official who rose to prominence in political influencer circles in the 2024 GOP presidential primary race when she commanded a legion of “influencers” on DeSantis’s behalf in the race that saw him get blown out by Trump on his path back to the White House. The national conservative movement got a smidge of a taste of just how wild and crazy this world is when DeSantis failed miserably in his race against Trump — Pushaw was a regular target of the Trump team’s criticisms — but now this influencer culture threatens to put a grimy end to the DeSantis era of Florida politics with a future that instead looks a lot Trumpier.
Now, Pushaw works for the governor’s office and apparently has been moonlighting as an informal adviser to a man named James Fishback who is running for the GOP nomination for governor.
Fishback has come under serious scrutiny over reports he lived with an underage girl for some time earlier in his life, and for his associations with anti-Israel activists. He has attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and has even appeared on podcasts of those under scrutiny for alleged antisemitism.
Pushaw, from her perch in the governor’s mansion, had apparently been secretly advising and helping launch Fishback’s campaign while quietly attending campaign events for Fishback. She seemed to attempt to get ahead of this all breaking publicly with a Sunday night screed admitting her involvement:
She also lied about her involvement to NBC News, and now all the chickens are coming home to roost as Fishback refuses to drop out of the race upon the entrance into the fray of DeSantis’s wingman Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins.
For whatever it’s worth, Fishback also apparently lied about this to NBC News:
And the whole thing threatens DeSantis himself and his inner circle as well:
Collins, whom the DeSantis team and the influencer network that Pushaw commanded in 2024 now seems to be sort of aligning behind, is a consolation prize of sorts for the DeSantis folks as a candidate after they could not convince Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis to run for the position herself. Casey DeSantis had been flirting with a potential candidacy for some time but clearly decided against running at least for now, probably because she did not have a clear pathway to victory. So the DeSantis crowd is stuck with Collins, a very short man who’s actually polling just about where Fishback is in the primary. Apparently, DeSantis world is desperate to try to convince Fishback to drop out to make way for Collins — but has been unsuccessful in that regard.
But while DeSantis-world is having enough trouble getting Fishback out of the way for Collins, they are also running into issues from former state House Speaker Paul Renner who has also jumped into the ring. All of this splits the vote and divides the field of those who might challenge Trump’s pick, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is of course looming above all of this drama.
Donalds, the congressman whom Trump has endorsed in the race, is sitting far atop the field, and all this infighting between the other camps would suggest they are not ready for a primetime fight with him.
The saga broke into clear public view on Sunday night, with Pushaw posting a long screed on social media admitting she lied in previous comments about not helping Fishback and complaining about what she says she believes is an effort by Fishback to manipulate correspondence with her for his own gain. She also said in private messages that were promptly leaked by Fishback that she intended to offer DeSantis her resignation after all of this, and publicly stated she accepts whatever fate awaits her.
Meanwhile, Fishback posted screenshots showing just how crazy Pushaw has gotten in recent days. He showed she called him dozens of times in a row one evening into the middle of the night, with text messages she sent him frantically trying to get a hold of him. Pushaw critics across Florida have latched onto these revelations to explain the demise of DeSantis on the national political stage, where despite a strong 2022 midterm election win he sank into irrelevance when he badly failed in his challenge of Trump in 2024.
The 2026 gubernatorial primary in Florida has essentially shaped up to be a proxy war of sorts between the DeSantis and Trump factions of the GOP. While publicly the two sides have laid down their arms after Trump thoroughly decimated DeSantis in the 2024 primary, down in Florida the question of who will lead the state after the term-limited DeSantis leaves office has turned into a battle for the future control of the GOP in one of the biggest red states in the union.
Trump was quick to get behind Donalds as his choice, helping the conservative congressman easily consolidate Trump voters and donors in his lane. On the other side, Casey DeSantis’s ambivalence for a year and Collins’s late entrance as a backup option slowed their roll. Fishback spoils the entire thing for the DeSantis crowd, significantly dividing the lane of those critical of the president — keeping Collins from being able to amass enough support to seriously challenge Donalds. Renner even further complicates the mess, paving the way for Donalds as the future of the Florida GOP.
That’s why Pushaw’s work on Fishback’s behalf — which she apparently did for free, but still did nonetheless — is so important. Essentially, as some in Florida political media have pointed out, she gave life to Dr. Frankenstein’s monster — building up the very thing that appears to be team DeSantis’s undoing. But what’s more, as Florida political journalists like Peter Schorsch and Javier Manjarres point out, the whole thing exposes everyone involved in the whole matter on “all sides” — both Fishback and Pushaw included but also the pro-Collins and pro-Renner crowd — as a bunch of grifters and frauds without a serious political future.
It’s unclear what will happen to Pushaw, and whether she will face any consequences for her actions. But amazingly her own leaked messages seem to undercut any message from DeSantis world that Collins is a serious candidate.
Again, sitting above it all is Donalds: Trump world is laughing at these developments, knowing that the president’s pick is looking better than ever to be the GOP nominee for governor in the Sunshine State this year, essentially solidifying Trump’s control of the GOP nationwide for years to come.
“Trump-endorsed Byron Donalds is the only serious candidate in the race,” Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz told Breitbart News. “Byron is focused on crushing the Democrats, keeping Florida red, and delivering on President Trump’s MAGA agenda.”
If a Donalds victory happens, and he wins the general election as expected, then the chapter of the DeSantis efforts will close for good in Florida and the era of Trump will continue to last well beyond this present fight. Since it continues to make little sense for any Republicans anywhere in the country to challenge Trump’s leadership, it’s unclear if establishment Republicans will ever learn to stop doing it. The saga also speaks to the failures of relying too heavily on “influencer culture” as a political strategy; it might work to juice online engagement, but does it work to win elections? Probably not.