More than two months into hurricane season, Lt. Gov. Jay Collins announced Monday that he was enlisting Florida’s emergency management director as his running mate.
Collins announced that Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, had agreed to come aboard his gubernatorial campaign.
The announcement’s timing was notable for a few reasons. It came on the eve of a Florida Republican primary for governor that shows Collins is lagging behind the front-runner, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds.
And Collins asked Guthrie to join his ticket only hours before the Palm Harbor news conference at a Crabby Bill’s restaurant. The rushed partnership developed so quickly that Collins and Guthrie said they hadn’t alerted Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed Guthrie to the job in 2021.
“You are the best at what you do, not just in Florida, but in America, quite possibly the world,” Collins told Guthrie as he introduced him to the crowd of supporters. “When people’s lives are on the line, that is the man that we all hope is in charge of what’s going wrong at the time.”
When asked by the Tampa Bay Times how he would balance his duties if a crisis erupted in the state during campaign season, Guthrie said he would consider quitting his job as emergency management director.
“That’s going to be a conversation that needs to happen with the governor’s office,” Guthrie said.
If he were to resign, Guthrie said there would be no disruption in the state’s emergency management.
The deputy executive director, Ben Fairbrother, is “ready, willing and able to step into that position,” Guthrie said.
Like DeSantis, however, Fairbrother apparently didn’t know at the time of Monday’s 6 p.m. news conference that Guthrie had agreed to run as lieutenant governor.
“I haven’t talked to him at all today,” Guthrie said. “But again, I have the full faith and confidence in him to step into that position and run the agency.”
Guthrie’s current job is massive. It oversees an agency that plans for and responds to both natural and man-made disasters. Those include floods and hurricanes and threats posed by hazardous materials. Much of what the agency does is prepare, implementing a statewide emergency plan that braces Florida for various scenarios.
Guthrie responded to the catastrophic damage brought by hurricanes Idalia, Helene and Milton, and to other crises like the Surfside condo collapse. He ran logistics while Collins was on the ground helping when Florida evacuated more than 1,500 Americans in June 2025 when Israel was under attack. Overall, the agency has spent $11.5 billion in disaster funding under his watch.
Among Guthrie’s most headline-grabbing moments came in the past year, when he served, unofficially, as Florida’s immigration czar — a role Collins’ team didn’t mention in the news release announcing Guthrie’s role in the campaign.
DeSantis tasked Guthrie with overseeing the construction, operation and management of the immigrant detention centers the state dubbed Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot, which Florida quickly built last year to match President Donald Trump’s call for mass deportations and detentions of immigrants living in the country illegally.
More than $567 million of Florida’s disaster dollars were spent on immigration last year. Guthrie is more than a month late on a report detailing the specifics of how that money was used.
Guthrie sounded enthused about his entrance into campaign politics, though he did acknowledge it could all be over on Tuesday if, as polls suggest, Collins loses to Donalds.
“What a true honor,” Guthrie said to a beaming crowd of about 50 Collins supporters. “When the lieutenant governor called me earlier today, I was shocked. I was stunned, but at the same time, I was very, very grateful.”
“You know, I’m either going to be a political hero tomorrow or a political zero,” he said.
The political world wasn’t exactly holding its breath for Collins to announce a running mate.
Collins is lagging in all the metrics that indicate how a campaign was going: polling average, contributions, endorsements.
His choice of Guthrie, one of the few remaining prominent officials in the DeSantis administration, illustrated Collins’ desire to be associated with his boss, who is revered by Florida’s Republican base.
A Collins spokesperson teased the pick in a Monday morning blast email to reporters stating that this person was “a top official in the DeSantis administration.”
Tapped to be lieutenant governor by DeSantis last year, Collins has campaigned on the premise that his appointment was a signal from the governor that Collins was his heir.
But DeSantis has yet to endorse in the race. The relationship between the two has appeared to deteriorate since Collins’ appointment, including rare social media jabs by the governor’s staff against Collins and his wife.
Still, Collins continues to say that he is the one to carry on the DeSantis legacy. His opponents do, too, including Donalds; former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner; and investor James Fishback.
But Collins has stood out in seeking validation from DeSantis.
“I have been at the front of the fight on every major issue in the state of Florida, right alongside Gov. DeSantis,” he told reporters last week.
On Saturday, Renner called Collins out during a town hall meeting in Palm Harbor.
“Jay has known for quite some time that he and the governor have had, you know, a bit of a parting of ways, and he continues to tell people today that he’s endorsed by the governor,” Renner told voters. “That is flatly not true, and the governor has not and will not endorse him.
“The fact that he wasn’t endorsed speaks all you need to know,” Renner said.
DeSantis did say earlier this month that he thought Renner would be “really good” as governor.
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