Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is going after his Florida gubernatorial rival Andrew Gillum (D)as the GOP congressman seeks to move on from controversy surrounding a racially-charged remark made last week, The Hill reports.

Said DeSantis: “This Andrew Gillum, he’s on the far-left socialist fringe. He’s a Bernie Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez type candidate.”

He added: “If you have a guy like this enacting a socialist agenda it’s going to absolutely destroy all the progress that Florida has made. He wants to turn Florida in to Venezuela.”

Robocalls against Florida gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum (D) that say they were paid for by a neo-Nazi group in Idaho are going out to voters, the Tallahassee Democrat reports.

“The automated calls are narrated by someone pretending to be Gillum and using an exaggerated minstrel dialect with jungle noises in the background. The calls end with a  disclaimer that they were funded by The Road to Power, an anti-Semitic, white supremacist website and podcast linked to Scott Rhodes of Sandpoint, Idaho.”

A new Public Policy Polling (D) survey finds Andrew Gillum (D) leading Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) by 5 points in the race for Florida governor, 48% to 43%.

New York  Times: “By going on the network as often as he could to rail against Mr. Mueller’s investigation and defend Mr. Trump — he has appeared on Fox prime-time shows at least 41 times since Mr. Trump was inaugurated — Mr. DeSantis attracted the president’s attention and his favor. After watching a Fox segment on Air Force One last December that featured Mr. DeSantis, 39, Mr. Trump tweeted favorably about the three-term congressman’s campaign for governor but stopped short of a full-throated endorsement… But according to White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose private discussions, Mr. Trump kept bringing up Mr. DeSantis, a candidate who is not only among the president’s most visible allies but also possesses attributes he prizes: Ivy League degrees (Yale undergraduate and Harvard law) and military service (Navy officer and Iraq veteran).”

“Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has even gone so far as to conduct polls on the Fox News viewing habits of Florida’s Republican electorate. They found that 66 percent of likely primary voters watch the cable network anywhere from every day to a few times a week, according to Mr. DeSantis’s strategists.”

First Read: “DeSantis’ path to becoming the GOP frontrunner in this race is largely the same path that Trump took in 2015: heavy appearances on Fox News.”

“Within a one-year period, beginning in early 2015, three staffers in Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam’s office admitted to sexual harassment and watching pornography on a work computer,” Politico reports.

“In all three cases, which are detailed in separate inspector general reports, Putnam, who is now a Republican candidate for governor, carried out some form of punishment. Two of the employees are still with the department, which has about 3,650 employees, while the third left for unrelated reasons.”

Politico: “First, a poll showed that Florida Democrats might want an unprecedented bipartisan ticket in the 2018 governor’s race. Then came a legal analysis indicating it could, in fact, be done.”

“Now former congressman and 2016 Senate candidate Patrick Murphy is entering a new phase in his exploration of a potential bid for governor with former Republican Rep. David Jolly: Dialing for possible dollars, thinking about a campaign team and talking openly about the chance of hitting the trail.”

“The potential bipartisan bid — the kind of unity ticket makes pundits and political analysts quiver, despite the fact that it rarely pans out — has injected a surprise element into the gubernatorial race in the nation’s largest swing state.”

Gwen Graham (D) said she would consider David Jolly (R) as a Florida gubernatorial running mate, “a move that opens her to criticism from a progressive rival, and that contradicts her own campaign and supporters who had said a bipartisan ticket isn’t legal in the state,” Politico reports.

“An anti-Trump Republican who had served in the House with Graham in 2015 and 2016, Jolly was first mentioned as a possible running mate for yet another former Democratic member of Congress from Florida, 2016 Senate candidate Patrick Murphy, whose allies want him to run for governor this year. Graham said she might pick Murphy as well.”

“After yet another defeat blamed on low voter turnout, some Florida Democrats want to change the rules and elect the governor in the same year voters pick the president — when turnout is always much higher,” the Miami Herald reports.

“The 2014 election was the first Florida midterm in which 6 million people cast ballots, but that figure pales in comparison to the 8.5 million who voted in the 2012 presidential election in Florida. For Democrats, the call for change is an admission that they can no longer compete with Republicans in statewide races for governor and three down-ballot, powerful Cabinet seats.”