Overview
- Kevin Guthrie resigned Tuesday after Lt. Gov. Jay Collins named him as his running mate hours before the Republican primary.
- DeSantis tapped Jared Perdue, the state transportation secretary, to run the Florida Division of Emergency Management and said politics does not belong in emergency management.
- Guthrie led FDEM from 2021 and managed more than 20 disaster declarations and six major hurricane responses while supervising migration-related facilities such as the recently closed "Alligator Alcatraz."
- Collins made the late running-mate move to try to close a polling gap with frontrunner U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, but observers said the pick was unlikely to change the primary outcome.
- DeSantis and officials stressed the change will not disrupt operations during hurricane season, though the abrupt leadership shift draws scrutiny over continuity for evacuations, sheltering and resource staging through November.