The Republican Party is sending out automated phone calls from Gov. Ron DeSantis supporting Jacksonville City Council candidate Nick Howland and repeating Howland's misleading claim that his opponent wants to defund police.
"Nick’s opponent is a radical leftist who openly supports defunding the police and taking officers off the streets," DeSantis says in the call.
In fact, Democrat Tracye Polson has never publicly stated that she wants to take away police funding, nor that she wants to take police officers off the streets.
"I'll repeat to Governor DeSantis what I said to Mr. Howland last week: These blatant lies have already been debunked by local news stations and are the reason our voters are fed up with the state of politics," Polson wrote in an email to WJCT News on Monday.
DeSantis' office had no comment about the robocalls. Spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said the office is "unable to respond to any political campaign-related inquiries and isn’t involved with any political campaigns."
Pushaw directed questions to the governor's campaign team, which did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, also tweeted in support of Howland, who he said would "fight to defend our brave law enforcement officers who are under attack from the radical left."
🚨 🚨 Jacksonville Voters - Make sure to vote tomorrow for Navy Veteran and Servant Leader @NickHowland15!
— Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) February 21, 2022
He will fight to defend our brave law enforcement officers who are under attack from the radical left. This is an important election that we must win!
Polson has contended with the defunding claim throughout the campaign, including a candidate's debate on Friday.
"This is one of the reasons why people are disgusted and disengaged with politics," Polson said. "I am on record as being for supporting our law enforcement. I have talked about it from the lens of a mental health professional and expanding the co-responder program," which would send more mental health professionals out on calls with police.
"This is a program that is from Department of Justice funding, so this is not about defunding the police," Polson said.
Howland also has supported this program, to an extent, but says Polson's desire to expand the program amounts to wanting to defund the police.
"If you're calling me a liar, you're calling the sheriff a liar," Howland said during the debate. "You're calling the Fraternal Order of Police a liar. You're calling your own Safer Together report a liar."
City Council’s Safer Together committee was charged with improving relationships between police and the community.
The committee's report states, "When discussing defunding the policing in this report, we are discussing moving budget allocations around to help create solutions, such as funding the co-responder program."
Polson was not involved in the creation of the city’s Safer Together report, which was written before she joined the council race, and she believes outside funding is available without draining money from police.
"It's not my report. My name is not on that report," Polson responded. "This report was done long before I got into this race. I have never called you a liar. I have said that your statements about me are lies."
Howland's campaign also used an out-of-context quote from a News4Jax interview last fall in a campaign advertisement to make the same claim about Polson.
As confirmed by News4Jax, she did not tell any reporter from the local television station that she supports defunding the police.
Howland and Polson's full discussion about policing, and other issues in Jacksonville, is available here.
