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Paul Renner Takes the Long Road in His Run for Florida Governor

Don’t ask former Speaker of the House Paul Renner to be worried about starting out behind in the polls in his run to be Florida’s next Governor. “I knew that going in because, you know, it is what it is in terms of people being on TV for years and years campaigning essentially to build up that name ID.” The Palm Coast Republican tells Pulp City Magazine in an exclusive 20 minute sit down. It’s the only shot he’s taking at front runners.

“The Florida front runner in statewide races never, ever wins. Whoever is ahead, never ever wins, so I am confident that in the end, once people see the contrast of leadership – and I mentioned my leadership background – and the results. They just won’t see that in any other candidate, and that’s why I believe we’ll win next August.”

Paul Renner has the kind of background Republicans usually flock to. He’s done tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan as a Naval Officer. He also served as a prosecutor in Broward County, describing it as ”where you had the defendant and the defense attorney and the judges and the jury sometimes against you, but was able to stand up for victims and put a lot of habitual offenders and bad guys away”. Most recently Renner served in the Florida Legislature, becoming Speaker of the House from 2022 to 2024. He plans to run on that record, including the legislature’s work on home insurance.

“People said it couldn’t get done, but we made major reforms both to the insurers to hold them accountable, but also to some of the lawyers who were kind of gaming the system, and the result has been that we see homeowner’s rates now stabilizing, and I think in the coming year or two we are seeing continuing benefits.”

While Renner does not think insurance rates will go back to where they were, he believes the progress is spreading. According to Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation, in early December the current 180 day average for what insurers are asking is actually a small decrease of .01%. Just last year the 180 day average asked for a 7.6% increase.

“It’s even better news because in auto insurance we are already seeing some pretty significant drops, and you just had State Farm announce another 10 percent decrease effective January 1. It’ll be around 20 percent total since the reforms.”

Renner is calling himself the leading candidate on affordability. To further that aim, he wants to work on property taxes from day one. He is already calling for taxes to be rolled back to the amount local governments were collecting when the pandemic started in 2020.

“Everybody will get a property tax decrease, everybody, not just homeowners, renters, businesses, everybody that pays property taxes” says Renner. “So this would be a broad-based relief for all Floridians who pay property taxes. We all do.”

Renner believes it is too long to wait for voters to take up a measure in 2026, then the Legislature to pass something in 2027. He reasons that if nothing is done now, the 2027-2028 fiscal year would be the earliest voters could see any meaningful tax change. Renner does believe that in the long term, more than just a rollback is needed, but he doesn’t want to see landlords and commercial property owners getting a big break at the expense of the little guy.

“Eliminating all property taxes is such a big number that the only way you could do fundamental core services that everybody agrees on would be to have a massive, a big increase in sales tax,” Renner states. “That’s just how the numbers work, and I can’t change those numbers, but I think you could do something for homestead property owners, and especially if we can’t get all the way there, so it up to a certain amount so that people on a median income, or a fixed income can not have to pay property taxes after they’ve been in their homes, for say, 30 years. You give them some relief, especially in their retirement years, also taking care of those first-time home buyers.”

As Speaker, Renner worked hand in hand with Governor DeSantis to execute the GOP playbook but says he is willing to reach across the isle and work with Democrats.

“I’ll start with the environment and the Florida Wildlife Corridor which I was a big proponent of along with the Senate President,” he says. “We’ve made major investments to conserve wild Florida. It’s good for the wildlife, but it’s also good for our environment, good for our aquifer. It’s good for our farmers and ranchers to keep them in farming and ranching and really just positive. Everglades restoration that we did. Water quality grants to local governments so they can deal with stormwater, wastewater which can be very expensive for local governments and be a state partner in that. Those are all bipartisan and I’ll also mention social media protections for children. We had both very conservative, very progressive, left leaning members who I picked to co-sponsor that bill to protect kids from online pornography and addictive social media platforms.”

Renner is also pledging to boost teacher salaries and ensure parents have choices about which school their child attends. On healthcare, he is more partisan, calling Obamacare “a colossal failure” wanting to bring control back to the states and revive a program passed when Charlie Crist was Governor and Marco Rubio was the Speaker of the House in Florida.

“If we let the money, just like educational freedom, let the money follow the patient, follow the individual and their family, let them shop with a lot of competition, get the healthcare policy that best fits them. Have a catastrophic policy for people who have chronic illness and chronic disease and to make sure they’re taken care of, and obviously we continue to have the Medicare program for the indigent. We can do it, I believe, and have higher quality, better access, lower cost here in Florida.”

Renner entered the race hoping for support from Governor Ron DeSantis. It didn’t happen, now he’s clearly moving on. Running from the grass roots and hoping to play the long game to a primary, and a general election win.

“I believe at the end of the day people want somebody who is going to get in there, focus on the mission, fix their problems. I’m not running for another office. I’m not going to be in Iowa a year after the election. I’m not doing that. I want to be the best governor Florida can have.”

Mike Synan Senior Reporter

Mike Synan has been a politics reporter in Central Florida since 1998, covering everything from Conventions to executions. He is the winner of the Edward R Murrow award for outstanding journalism, and has won multiple awards from the Associated Press. He currently publishes www.newsassignmentdesk.com. You can reach Mike Synan at msynan@sportsmail.com