Tipsheet

You Cannot Make Up Why a Top Charlie Crist Staffer Resigned

Florida’s elections are over. We haven’t even counted the ballots yet, but the Republicans will win. Notice how we’ve experienced a dearth of stories about how Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Val Demmings will unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. All the glitz and glamour about Gov. Ron DeSantis being unemployed and booted from the governor’s mansion by Florida Democrats have also died a silent death. DeSantis is leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist by nearly a 10-point average, based on the aggregated polls from RealClearPolitics. What about Rubio? He’s leading Demmings by almost six points.

 So, Crist is down by near-impossible margins weeks away from Election Day—there’s nothing more that could go wrong, right? Well, wrong—he lost his campaign manager. Austin Durrer resigned from the Crist campaign abruptly last week, citing a “family matter.” He failed to mention that he caused it, being arrested for domestic violence charges in Maryland (via Fox News):

The campaign manager for former Democratic Florida Rep. Charlie Crist's bid to unseat incumbent Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to have been arrested in Maryland this week, before the campaign said he would leave to handle a "family matter."

Austin Durrer, who has worked for Crist since 2016, was arrested Tuesday in Cambridge, Maryland, on second-degree assault charges in a case classified as "domestic violence," according to Dorchester County court records obtained by Fox News Digital. Durrer was released on $10,000 bond after his arrest, and the court ordered him to surrender firearms and vacate his home.

Durrer's trial is slated for Dec. 7. Based on the charges in the case, he faces up to 10 years' imprisonment.

…the Crist campaign abruptly announced that Durrer would depart the campaign mere weeks before the election to deal with a family issue that had arisen. The announcement didn't mention Durrer's apparent domestic violence arrest.

"Austin Durrer has departed the campaign to focus on a family matter," campaign spokesperson Samantha Ramirez said in a statement, according to independent outlet Florida Politics.

Politico reported that campaign insiders declined to explain why Durrer departed the campaign, but reiterated the cause was a "family emergency."

We’ll see if this story gets some traction, but with the economy in recession, inflation remaining high, and stories about how Democrats are failing as they try to pivot away from Biden's agenda. While there was fear that abortion would supplant the kitchen table issues this cycle—voters are unmoved by the Left’s Roe tantrum. Independent women, even liberals, are thinking economy and crime, which is why Pennsylvania’s suburbs are vulnerable this year.