Ron DeSantis, a three-term Republican congressman riding the endorsement of President Donald Trump, surged to win Florida's GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday and will face the mayor of Tallahassee, who captured the Democratic nomination in a major upset.
With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting, DeSantis, 39, an Iraq War veteran and three-term congressman from the Jacksonville suburbs, held a commanding 56 percent to 37 percent lead over Adam Putnam, Florida's agricultural commissioner and the onetime favorite to succeed GOP Gov. Rick Scott.
On the Democratic side, Andrew Gillum, the African-American mayor of Florida's capital, bested the more moderate Gwen Graham _ the daughter of a former governor and longtime U.S. senator _ who was vying to become Florida's first female chief executive.
Gillum, the first member of his family to graduate from college, became the first African-American to win a major-party nomination for Florida governor.
In Tuesday's other major contest, in Arizona, three Trump loyalists were vying in the GOP Senate primary for the seat being vacated by Republican incumbent Jeff Flake. The winner _ whether Rep. Martha McSally, former state lawmaker Kelli Ward or ex-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio _ was expected to face Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, the prohibitive favorite in her primary, in November.
The two Republican races, nearly a continent apart, reflected a similar dynamic: a fight between a favorite of the GOP establishment and pugnacious opponents pitching themselves as outsiders and the truest Trump believers.
DeSantis, who started as an underdog, vaulted into competition after winning the president's endorsement due in good part to his frequent appearances on Fox News. In one TV ad making light of DeSantis' presidential loyalty, the candidate sits on the floor watching his toddler daughter, Madison, play with toy building blocks and urges her to "build the wall" _ a reference to Trump's border policy.
Gillum, also 39 and an underdog, ran with the support of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, embracing a wholeheartedly liberal platform calling for Medicare expansion, a higher minimum wage and welcoming policies to the state's large immigration population.
A contest with DeSantis, a down-the-line conservative, will give Florida _ a perennial battleground state _ one of the starkest ideological choices in the country
In the course of the campaign, the candidates and their backers spent $120 million on television ads, making Florida's gubernatorial race the nation's most expensive.
DeSantis' win extended Trump's nearly unbroken streak of anointing favored primary candidates and helping lift them to victory, underscoring his hegemony over the GOP. The candidate saluted his benefactor in Tuesday night's victory speech.
"Thank you, Mr. President," DeSantis said to loud cheers at a rally in Orlando.
The question is whether the presidential embrace will serve candidates as well in the general election.
Democrats are hoping a Trump loyalist will flop with the broader electorate in November _ fewer than half the state's voters approve of Trump's performance, according to polls _ giving the party control of the governor's mansion for the first time in more than two decades.
In other Florida contests, three-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson won his primary without opposition and will face Scott, who easily topped the GOP field, in November. The race is expected to be one of the nation's hardest-fought and costliest Senate contests, as Nelson is considered among the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
The Democratic Party needs a gain of two seats to take control of the Senate, provided every one of their incumbents wins re-election.
Among a handful of competitive House primaries, Democrat Donna Shalala, who was Health and Human Services secretary in the Clinton administration, won the Democratic primary and will face former journalist and TV presenter Maria Elvira Salazar in an open-seat contest centered in Miami.
The seat, held by retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is considered one of the Democrats' best pickup opportunities in the country.
In Arizona, the Republican contest was a fight for the chance to succeed GOP incumbent Sen. Flake, whose criticisms of Trump made him persona non grata with the president's base.
McSally _ the favorite of party leaders in Washington _ vied with Ward and Arpaio for the mantle of most Trump-worthy, a primary strategy that could prove troublesome in the general election in another state where the president is not widely popular beyond his core Republican supporters.
Despite entreaties from the candidates and their allies, Trump did not endorse anyone in Arizona's contest.
On the Democratic side, three-term Rep. Sinema faced a challenge from civil rights attorney Deedra Abboud, who ran on a liberal agenda.
Even before the polls closed, McSally assailed the Phoenix-area lawmaker, calling Sinema a political chameleon who shed her past left-wing leanings to assume a more centrist persona.
The final days of the race were overshadowed by the death of Arizona's senior senator, Republican John McCain, and a suggestion by Ward that his family intended to harm her candidacy by announcing, the day before he died, that McCain was ceasing medical treatment.
The remark, widely faulted as being insensitive, was in keeping with years of criticism from Ward. She unsuccessfully challenged McCain two years ago in what proved the last primary of his 30-year-plus political career.
