Fact-checking Florida Republicans’ Sunshine State Showdown

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Florida Republicans billed their party’s June 27 gathering in South Florida as the "Sunshine State Showdown." But for U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the event’s headliner and GOP frontrunner for governor, it was less of a confrontation and more like a friendly chat.

No other gubernatorial candidates met the party’s fundraising and polling criteria for a debate, and Donalds didn’t call for one.

Donalds took the stage at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino after a video clip of Charlie Kirk, the assassinated Turning Point USA founder, endorsing Donalds’ bid for governor. Donalds didn’t mention his opponents in his speech and took audience questions about the Second Amendment and his plans to lower homeowner’s insurance and protect the state’s water supply. His broad replies didn’t offer much opportunity for fact-checking.

Of the gubernatorial candidates who attended, Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins took direct swipes at Donalds’ vulnerabilities, including his decades-old drug charge and campaign donations from a pro-AI super PAC. Former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner touted his actions shaping state law, including 2023 legislation he supported that restricted citizens from China and other "countries of concern" from owning or buying land in Florida. 

The Aug. 18 primary winner will likely face Democratic candidate David Jolly, a former congressman, in the general election. 

Speakers said little about the party’s withdrawn invitation to controversial governor candidate James Fishback, who held his own event nearby. 

They focused more on what unites them: personal freedom and disdain for New York politics. U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody didn’t mention her leading Democratic opponent Alexander Vindman but described New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani-backed congressional race winners as "anarchist psychos that want to destroy this country." 

Here, we fact-checked some of the speakers’ remarks.

Collins: Donalds voted "against military pay raises."

Collins speaks to the media at the Florida Sunshine State Showdown on June 27, 2026. (Amy Sherman/PolitiFact)

Collins cherry-picked some of Donalds’ votes against defense spending packages that authorized military pay raises, ignoring that Donalds voted for other measures that included them. PolitiFact rated a similar Collins statement Mostly False.

The National Defense Authorization Act is a sweeping annual package that sets funding and policy for the U.S. Defense Department. While it includes military pay increases, the legislation is typically thousands of pages and authorizes billions in funding for a variety of military operations, and often has unrelated provisions tacked on. 

Donalds voted against the legislation in 2022, 2023 and 2025, saying he disagreed with provisions such as Ukraine funding and climate change initiatives. He supported the package with raises in 2021 and in 2024. 

Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia: Florida is "No. 1 in arresting and deporting criminal aliens in our communities."

Florida is near the top for arrests, but it’s not No. 1. (We don’t have similar data for deportations.)

The state trails only Texas in arrests, according to Deportation Data Project records analyzed by The Associated Press.

Through "Operation Tidal Wave" — the partnership between Florida’s state and local law enforcement agencies and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement — agencies arrested more than 10,400 immigrants in the country illegally in Florida in 2025, according to state data.

DeSantis said in January that another 9,600 arrests were made through 287g agreements, which allow state and local law enforcement to enforce certain federal immigration laws. Around 347 state and local agencies in Florida have signed these agreements, the most of any state.

A Miami Herald analysis found that more than 4,800 of the approximately 20,000 people had only immigration violations, and no criminal charges or convictions. A quarter of those arrested had criminal convictions, and the rest had pending criminal charges that included nonviolent crimes.

Data shows that ICE agents in Florida have made more immigration arrests so far in 2026 than in any other part of the U.S. As of March 10, the ICE field office in Miami — which covers Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands — recorded about 120 arrests per day from Dec. 19, 2025, through March 10, or 9,880 arrests in total, The New York Times reported.

U.S. Rep. Kat Cammack: "You should have to show an ID and you should have to be a citizen in order to vote."

Trump takes a photo with Cammack after delivering the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 24, 2026. (AP)

Voters already have to be U.S. citizens to cast ballots in federal elections. Cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare. 

States set voter ID laws. Starting Jan. 1, 2027, the Florida Save Act will require voters to provide photo identification, such as an active U.S. passport or a state driver’s license, at the polls before voting. It prohibits the use of student and retirement center IDs. 

The law also requires new Florida driver’s licenses and state-issued ID cards to include citizenship status. It’s similar to the stalled SAVE America Act backed by Trump.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott: In Colombia’s recent presidential runoff, "They counted the ballots and announced within three hours," much faster than California’s primary election.

Colombia does count ballots faster than California. But the two election setups are vastly different than Scott and others have described.

Colombia’s election had just two candidates on the ballot. The election is administered nationally, and the country doesn’t have mail-in voting. 

California’s June 2 primary — where some race results have taken days or weeks to report — included several contests on the ballot. Counties administer the elections, and most California voters cast ballots by mail, which requires more time to process and verify.

Sign up for our Florida Fact Focus newsletter here.

RELATED: All of our fact-checks of Florida politicians including candidates for governor