Early voting is underway for Florida's Aug. 18 primary election, and a key race on the ballot is for the Republican nomination for governor.
Lt. Gov. Jay Collins of Tampa is one of the candidates. He's a decorated U.S. Army Special Forces combat veteran and served as a Green Beret. He was elected to the Florida Senate in 2022 and represented part of Hillsborough County before being appointed lieutenant governor last year.
Other prominent contenders in the race are congressman Byron Donalds (who is endorsed by President Donald Trump), former House Speaker Paul Renner and investor James Fishback. Those on the Democratic side include former Republican congressman turned Democrat David Jolly and state Rep. Dotie Joseph.
ALSO READ: Judge rejects challenge to Fishback's Florida governor bid
Collins recently made headlines for challenging Fishback's eligibility for governor, saying the opponent violated the state's seven-year residency requirement. But last week, a Leon County judge rejected that attempt, so Fishback will remain on the ballot.
On "The Florida Roundup," Collins addressed the outcome of this hearing. He also discussed his plans to help make the state more affordable, thoughts on the property tax amendment that will be on November's ballot and more.
The transcript below has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What's the priority to go after affordability here in the state if elected governor?
I think coming from my background as a Green Beret working in a tiered asset, we dealt with what we call "no fail missions" all the time. Meaning just what it implies. It is a no-fail mission. You don't let the ball drop, and you make a difference.
ALSO READ: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dotie Joseph lays out her vision for a more affordable Florida
Solving an affordability crisis — the problem — it is a no-fail mission. And you got to hit this in multiple phases simultaneously. One, we can never allow the American dream to be predicated or built on just getting by. That's not the American dream that any of us want or dream about. It just isn't.
So we got to raise the roof on that. We got to bring in more opportunity, more jobs. A lot of those jobs we offshored years and years ago; we got to bring them back in.
You're talking about raising incomes. Is that essentially how you'd like to go about that?
That's part of it. All this happens simultaneously. Raising incomes by providing more of those blue-collar jobs to that middle of America, middle of Florida; that sometimes has been a struggle.
I think you have to modernize some of the things we've had from agriculture, like wood mills. I think you have to modernize those and push them forward where we lost a lot in our very, very rural counties.
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Look at things like shipbuilding. We create a lot of small crafts, but one singular shipbuilding facility for a large craft brings 5,000 jobs — above 80K — on average to start with benefits. Inland, it's going to have 25,000 jobs on average, above 65,000.
Those are real jobs, real salaries and real opportunity. And we have that potential sitting right in our ports all over the state; things like that we can be very purposeful about how we do it. That brings back more of the trades, more economic stability and more opportunity.
There's been an inherent bias that you had to have a bachelor's, a master's or a Ph.D to be successful for a very long time educationally. That's just not the truth.
Excellence should be available in all things. If you want to be in the trades, you want to get a job, we got to make sure our education system prepares them for that. So getting more of an emphasis on the trades is something we need to do educationally to fill those gaps.
And then I think you'll see that bounce economically.
But while this is going on, we also have to bring down insurance rates. We're going to fight for property tax relief and everywhere we can save money.
You support the property tax amendment that's going to be on the November ballot. Is that correct?
I do. I'm going to vote for it. I'm not in love with it. I don't think it's exactly a perfect bill, but nothing ever is.
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I would love to have seen that trust fund at the back end. I think it was critical for our 29 fiscally constrained counties. And if elected governor, I think you're going to have to deal with that right away.
The proposed amendment mandates that local governments use the remaining property taxes for "public safety, including law enforcement, fire service and emergency medical service." If you're governor, would you implement this? Could local governments reduce spending or the rate of spending on police and fire?
I think you have to protect our fire and law enforcement. I really do. I think that you need to focus on those areas. Everything in the community starts with safety. When families feel safe, they're strong. Education thrives, and opportunity thrives from there. You can't underfund those folks.
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Could local government spend less on public hospitals if this amendment passes and you implement it as governor?
I think what you're going to see is we have to spend on those things primary to all. That's education. That's transportation. That's law enforcement, fire, sanitation, certainly emergency management, and healthcare is a big part of what we spend money on. But all of it has to be balanced.
How important is Florida Forever? This is an environmental trust fund for the state to conserve land. Would you increase, decrease or maintain current funding?
At minimum, I think you maintain. We can't give up who we are. Whether it's green zones, whether it's our waterways, whether it's our farm and agricultural land, we've got to protect those things. That's what makes Florida what it is.
ALSO READ: Florida Forever land-buying program gets no state money next year
You recently filed a lawsuit to keep James Fishback off the ballot for the Republican primary. You lost that battle — at least in the first court hearing. Do you recognize that loss?
It doesn't matter whether I like it, love it or I'm in between. I respect the rule of law.
I respect that the judge made his decision, but I also understand that under that rule of law, basically, if you feel like you're a Floridian, you are a Floridian under that ruling. And that's a problem.
We're assessing whether we want to go forward. I don't really know yet. We're weighing everything about that. But in the end, I've got a race to run. Nothing's changed. We're focusing on it and on the next 20 days, give or take. That's the important part of it, and it doesn't change a thing in our mind.
This story was compiled from interviews conducted by Tom Hudson for "The Florida Roundup." You can listen to the full interview in the media player above.
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