Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) tore into Rep.-elect Randy Fine (R-Fla.) following his special election win on Tuesday, arguing he only won the race after President Trump bailed him out.

In comments at a press conference in Ocala, Fla., DeSantis said the relatively close margins in the deeply red 6th Congressional District was not because of Trump but because of candidate quality. 

“I think you have a candidate in Randy Fine, who, one, he’s a squish,” DeSantis said. “He supported restrictions on Second Amendment rights back in 2018. He tried to defeat my immigration proposal to help President Trump enforce immigration laws and he tried to make Florida a de facto sanctuary state.” 

“When people see that, our base voters don’t get excited about that,” he continued. “He repels people.”

Fine responded to DeSantis in a post on the social platform X, writing “a dying star burns hottest before it fades into oblivion.” 

“I’m focused on working with @realDonaldTrump to stop Democrats from taking this country backwards, not working with them. Let’s go,” Fine said in the post. 

Fine won the special election to replace national security adviser Mike Waltz by roughly 14 points. Trump and Waltz, by comparison, won the district by more than 30 points in November. DeSantis, who represented the district prior to running for governor, won it by 37 points in his second governor’s race. 

“It’s an underperformance. I think it’s unique to the candidate and I think the president really had to bail him out at the end because this race would have been much closer had the president sat on the sidelines,” DeSantis said. “If anything it shows the president has got the juice to get Republicans to go out on Election Day and even vote for a candidate that they’re not crazy about.”

DeSantis and Fine have a contentious history going back to 2023 in the Republican presidential primary when Fine switched his endorsement from DeSantis to Trump. Fine said he switched his endorsement from DeSantis to Trump because he argued that Trump’s actions demonstrated his support for the Jewish community.

The governor’s team hit back at the time, calling Fine’s move “political theater.”