Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins announced Monday that Kevin Guthrie, the state's emergency management director since 2021, would join his campaign for governor as running mate, unveiling the pick at a news conference at Crabby Bill's restaurant in Palm Harbor just hours after asking Guthrie to sign on. The move comes one day before the August 18 Republican primary, where Collins trails frontrunner Byron Donalds badly in polling, contributions and endorsements.
The announcement is an eleventh-hour attempt to reset a race that has not gone Collins' way. According to the Miami Herald, Collins and Guthrie had not alerted Gov. Ron DeSantis about Guthrie's new campaign role before making it public. Collins, who was tapped by DeSantis to be lieutenant governor in 2025, told reporters he had been alongside the governor on every major issue in Florida and cast himself as the candidate to carry on the DeSantis legacy.
Money tells a different story about where this primary actually stands. Byron Donalds has raised more than $111 million overall, including roughly $99 million through his political committee, dwarfing the sub-$10 million Collins has brought in through his own committee and about $562,000 in his campaign account, according to Florida Politics. State matching funds underscore the same gap: Donalds pulled in nearly $823,000 from Florida's public campaign finance program ahead of the primary, while Collins received just over $177,000 as the only other Republican candidate to qualify, per CBS News.
A Resume Built on Disaster Response
Guthrie brings more than three decades of Florida public safety experience to the ticket. Before his 2021 state appointment, he spent 23 years with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office as a police officer and emergency coordinator, later directing emergency management in Flagler and Pasco counties, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management. As executive director, Guthrie has responded to Hurricanes Idalia, Helene and Milton, and to the Surfside condo collapse, while the division he leads plans for and responds to floods, hurricanes and hazardous-material threats and has overseen $11.5 billion in disaster funding on his watch, per the seed reporting.
Guthrie's national profile got a boost in April 2025 when President Donald Trump selected him to serve on the federal FEMA Review Council in recognition of his handling of Florida's emergency response operations, the division notes. Collins' campaign spokesperson described Guthrie as a top official in the DeSantis administration in comments dated August 17, 2026.
The campaign's central story is a joint crisis response from last year. During a June 2025 overseas emergency, Florida evacuated more than 1,500 Americans from Israel by air and sea while Ben Gurion Airport was closed due to missile strikes, with Guthrie running logistics from the state side while Collins served on the ground, according to the Flagler News Weekly. Guthrie called joining the campaign an honor and said he has confidence in Ben Fairbrother's ability to run the agency if he steps down, with Fairbrother reportedly ready to serve as director in his place.
Open Questions on Resignation and Hurricane Season
Guthrie's move raises immediate questions about what happens to Florida's disaster response if he leaves office mid-campaign, especially during peak hurricane season. Per the Tampa Bay Times, Guthrie may resign his job as emergency management director if a crisis erupts during the campaign, and he said his own political future could end if Collins loses the primary to Donalds. Guthrie has said his resignation would not disrupt Florida's emergency management operations, though the Florida Division of Emergency Management continues to implement a statewide emergency plan regardless of who leads it.
Under Section 99.012 of the Florida Statutes, state officeholders seeking another office with overlapping terms must submit an irrevocable resignation at least 10 days before qualifying, though the exact filing timeline for a lieutenant governor designation like Guthrie's carries its own procedural wrinkles, according to the Florida Senate. The Tampa Bay Times also reports that Guthrie is late on a report detailing how immigration funding was used, a lingering issue tied to his agency's role after DeSantis tasked him with overseeing immigrant detention centers, including the Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot facilities built in 2025. Florida spent more than $567 million in disaster dollars on immigration that year, per the same reporting.
DeSantis Stays on the Sidelines
Gov. DeSantis has not endorsed a candidate in the governor's race, and his silence has become its own storyline in the primary. Former House Speaker Paul Renner, appearing alongside Collins in Palm Harbor, said DeSantis has not endorsed Collins either — even as DeSantis said on August 6 that Renner himself would be really good as governor, according to Ballotpedia. The remark added another layer of intra-party tension just as Collins tried to project unity around his new running mate.
Collins has spent much of the campaign trying to narrow the field and force a sharper contrast with Donalds, without much success. In July, Collins filed a legal challenge in Leon County Circuit Court seeking to remove rival candidate James Fishback from the ballot over state residency requirements, but Circuit Judge David Frank rejected the lawsuit on July 28, as Hoodline previously reported. Compounding the frustration, the Republican Party of Florida decided not to hold primary debates before the vote, declaring Donalds the only candidate to meet its polling and fundraising thresholds — a decision Collins, Renner and DeSantis all publicly criticized, according to Ballotpedia.
Fishback's own running mate pick has drawn scrutiny as well. He named former Lauderhill police officer Sean Lozano as his running mate in June, but by August, Broward County prosecutors confirmed Lozano was under a public corruption investigation tied to a March 2025 police incident, according to the Gray Florida Capital Bureau. With voting set for Tuesday, Collins is betting that Guthrie's emergency-management résumé can do in a single news conference what months of fundraising and legal maneuvering could not.
