MIAMI — Facing long odds heading into election season, Florida Democrats on Thursday seized on a bombshell grand jury report that found the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis misused taxpayer dollars for political purposes.

During a flurry of hastily scheduled news conferences, top Democratic office-seekers hailed the report as proof of GOP corruption at the highest levels of state government, which they said implicated their November midterm election opponents.

“My opponent is a criminal,” said former Democratic state Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez during a Zoom call with reporters, referring to Attorney General James Uthmeier. “He’s a criminal who should turn himself in.”

“Everyone involved in this, Ashley Moody included, should resign,” said state Rep. Angie Nixon, who is running for U.S. Senate against Moody.

Democrats based their attacks on a leaked grand jury report that found $10 million from a Medicaid settlement had been funneled through a charity aligned with Hope Florida, a key initiative of first lady Casey DeSantis.

The report, originally published by CBS Miami, found that although taxpayer money was “misappropriated” and “misused for political purposes,” there wasn’t enough evidence to bring criminal charges. Jurors in part blamed witnesses: Many of the lawyers and powerful politicos interviewed couldn’t remember or didn’t know who directed the money to go to Hope Florida.

Will the report sway voters?

As Democrats call for repercussions, resignations and retribution, is it enough for an election-time boost?

Hard numbers say it’ll be difficult.

Democrats suffer from a 1.5 million voter registration deficit compared to their Republican counterparts, who control the governor’s office, three Cabinet seats, both U.S. Senate seats, 20 of 28 congressional seats and a supermajority in both state legislative chambers.

Democrats haven’t won a statewide seat since 2018, when now-chairperson of the Florida Democratic Party, Nikki Fried, became a one-term agriculture commissioner.

On Thursday, Fried wove that history of futility stretching back to 1998 into a rallying cry.

“For 30 years, Republicans have controlled this state, and somewhere along the way, they started acting like taxpayer money was theirs to spend, state government was theirs to exploit and nobody had the right to question them,” she told reporters during a Zoom meeting with Rodriguez and Nixon.

If Democrats are to reverse history, they must grapple with a major cash deficit. Republican nominee for governor U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds has raised more than $111 million, compared to Democratic nominee David Jolly’s $10 million, fitting with a larger pattern in other races. National Democrats have given no indication of pumping money into the Sunshine State before November.

DeSantis: ‘No diversion of any Medicaid funds’

Meanwhile, the DeSantis administration continued to treat the Hope Florida grand jury report much the same as it has since the saga began: maintaining that it’s a politically motivated hoax and all is above board.

“There was no diversion of any Medicaid funds,” DeSantis said at an unrelated news conference Thursday. “I reviewed what [the Agency for Health Care Administration] did, and it was legally sound. It was appropriate, and it was consistent with the state’s mission.”

Both he and Uthmeier, who served as the chair of the political committee that eventually received the Hope Florida funds, doubled down on the claim that the only crime committed was that of the anonymous leaking of the report.

Even asking for his comment on the report’s contents, Uthmeier said, could mean breaking the law.

“Are you trying to solicit a crime here in violation of the law?” the attorney general, smiling, asked a reporter at a Thursday news conference. “I did not think so.”

Moody, who served as Florida’s attorney general when the settlement was approved, struck a more reserved note, appearing to distance herself from the investigation.

Posting to her social media account, she maintained that it was “standard practice” for her office to sign off on a Medicaid settlement to the state — although she says she had no role in spending the money.

“The Attorney General’s office had no knowledge of how funds would be spent or played any role in how Hope Florida, [the Agency for Health Care Administration], or the Legislature would spend the settlement money,” the senator wrote.

Uthmeier and Moody were appointed by DeSantis to their current positions last year. Uthmeier had been DeSantis’ chief of staff. Both face their first election for their offices in November.

Calls to step down

Democratic opponents have called for resignations and more from top leaders mentioned in the report.

On Thursday, Nixon, a progressive, said criminal charges should be a possibility, despite the grand jury not recommending them.

“They need to be held accountable, and some people need to be forced out, or even hit with some major, massive fines,” Nixon said. “And if it gets really bad, I’m not against, you know, arresting some folks.”

Rodriguez said if he is elected attorney general, a Hope Florida investigation would be one of many that he would order.

“There are plenty of Day 1 investigations planned: insurance scams, tax breaks, subsidies from data centers, Alligator Alcatraz contracts, millions of public education dollars that have been unaccounted for,” he said. “I should say this, [Hope Florida] is the most brazen political crime in Florida’s history, stealing from taxpayers and needy families. So absolutely, an investigation is on the table.”

Jolly, the Democratic nominee for governor, said Thursday that he, too, would call for a new investigation into Hope Florida if he were elected.

Democrats weren’t the only ones suggesting that a deeper investigation was warranted.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican and Florida’s senior senator, called the report “deeply concerning.”

“Money designated to help poor kids was diverted to political ads,” he said in a statement to the Times. “Florida families deserve accountability, not more finger pointing in Tallahassee.”

Former state Sen. Jeff Brandes, a chief DeSantis critic and Republican, compared the report and witnesses’ apparent amnesia about who decided to divert settlement money to a game of Clue.

“Maybe it was one of them. Maybe it was all of them. But it’s hard to believe nobody knew,” Brandes said on social media. “In a normal game of Clue, that’s when you keep playing until you find out. In Tallahassee, they give up and put the game away.”

Former Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, meanwhile, taunted Uthmeier on social media.

“Misappropriated funds ended up in Uthmeier’s PAC. That’s what [the report] says,” he wrote.

The Donalds campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

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