The Bucs are back!
Sort of.
We spent the last two weeks blindsiding Tampa Bay, and they earned every hard hit. They were 0-4 with an undrafted rookie at quarterback and Todd Bowles’ seat somewhere north of molten. So when Tampa flew to Dallas for Thursday Night Football as big underdogs, nobody outside of the Bay gave them much of a chance.
Then they went out and stunned the Cowboys, 24-16, killing many a survivor pool entry along the way.
Jalon Daniels, in just his second NFL start, didn’t turn the ball over once. Bucky Irving did the heavy lifting, running for a career-high 165 yards and two scores, including a 72-yarder.
Down 3 at halftime, the Bucs scored 17 points in the third quarter and never looked back. The defense forced three turnovers, capped by Alex Anzalone’s interception of a tipped pass intended for Jake Ferguson.
The Bucs are still 1-4, and only one team in league history, the 1992 Chargers, has made the playoffs after starting 0-4. But Tampa Bay is only a game and a half back, pending the result of Sunday Night Football.
A prime-time road win over a Cowboys team that had been scoring nearly 31 points a game is the first real sign of life this franchise has shown since last Fall.
Now, it’s on to our weekly game of winners and losers.
Winners
Honorable mention: Elected officials in their emergency response jackets. There’s no ad buy in the world that beats standing in front of a microphone during a hurricane. And with just weeks until Election Day, Hurricane Isaias gave Florida politicians a stage no campaign can buy.
Gov. Ron DeSantis knows the drill better than anyone. He appeared at the Emergency Operations Center Thursday alongside Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Perdue, warning about Isaias’ impact and detailing the state’s resources. On Friday afternoon, he was back again, telling Panhandle residents this was their last chance to execute their plans.
The congressional delegation showed up too. U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and U.S. Rep. Jimmy Patronis held a Thursday briefing in downtown Pensacola with Mayor D.C. Reeves, Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons and other local officials. Patronis also told Florida Politics that residents should photograph their homes now in case they need to file claims.
Byron Donalds, who is running for Governor, cut a storm-prep video alongside Scott urging Floridians to get ready, which is about as close as a nominee can get to the EOC without holding the office yet. U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, who faces Angie Nixon next month, spent the week sharing evacuation orders and reminding people to stock a week’s worth of food and water.
Of course, Isaias is no joke. It made landfall Friday night as a Category 2 hurricane, and the real test for every one of these officials is the recovery. But for a few days before landfall, the people in charge got to look like they were in charge, and in a close election year, that can be worth more than any 30-second spot.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest winner: Marco Rubio. The Secretary of State wrapped a swing through Europe this week, with stops in Iceland, Greece and Portugal.
The headliner arguably came during Rubio’s appearance in Athens. Speaking at sunset with the Acropolis glowing behind him, Rubio delivered what the State Department billed as a major address on democracy, urging Americans and Europeans to rediscover the civilizational roots that run from ancient Greece through Rome to modern-day America.
“The story of our civilization is the greatest story ever known to man,” Rubio said. “And it began here with the first men and women of the West. From them, we can rediscover the virtues, the courage, and the strength to confront the dangers that we face in our time.”
The address built off of his February appearance at the Munich Security Conference, where Rubio managed a rare feat in this administration: reassuring nervous European allies while still delivering the Trump message on immigration, energy and trade. That speech drew a standing ovation and a fresh round of 2028 chatter. This one, staged in front of one of the most recognizable backdrops on Earth, will only add to it.
Not everything was rosy. Leftist protesters also turned out across Greece, and Rubio sidestepped questions about misconduct allegations involving U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle.
But overall, one of the front-runners to lead the GOP in a post-Trump world effectively made a case that appeals to a base he’ll need to win over if he seeks to make a play in 2028.
The biggest winner: Rays fans/Tropicana field. In late 2024, it was fair to wonder whether the Trop would ever host another playoff game.
Hurricane Milton tore through Tampa Bay exactly two years ago Friday, ripping apart the dome like wrapping paper. The Rays spent all of last season playing across the bay at Steinbrenner Field, the Yankees’ Spring Training park. And much progress has been made to relocate the Rays to Tampa in the years ahead.
But with St. Petersburg spending close to $60 million to put the Trop back together, the new roof was installed in time for this year’s home opener, and the Rays went on to win 98 games and the AL East.
Then October arrived, and the building is playing host to a run to the ALCS. A vocal crowd drowned out the visiting Yankees fans as Drew Rasmussen carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning of a 1-0 Game 1 win. It was the first postseason baseball in St. Pete since the storm. The Rays followed that with a 5-2 win Monday, sending the series to the Bronx, where the Rays earned a sweep.
There’s a bittersweet edge to all of it with the new ballpark set to open in Tampa by 2029, which means the Trop’s remaining days are numbered. But for a fan base that spent years being mocked for empty seats and catwalks, packing a rebuilt dome and rattling the Yankees is about as good a goodbye tour as anyone could ask for.
Losers
Dishonorable mention: Political discernment. You’d think “don’t endorse the guy charged with molesting a child” would be an easy call. Apparently not.
And it happened not once this week, but twice!
In Palm Beach County, the local Republican Party listed suspended Clerk Mike Caruso as part of its guide to recommend candidates ahead of November.
Caruso was arrested in August on felony charges involving sexual abuse of a child, and he’s running to win back his old job against Boca Raton Council Member Yvette Drucker. It took a public rebuke from DeSantis and Republican Party of Florida Chair Evan Power before the county party pulled him from the guide.
Credit to DeSantis and Power for stating the obvious: This guy is entitled to his day in court, but belongs nowhere near public office in the meantime.
OK, so conservative leaders made clear where they stand, and this guy should be up in November with no significant public backing.
Apparently United Christians of America didn’t get the memo.
The group is recommending Caruso and, to boot, is backing Rep. Fabián Basabe in House District 106, three months after a jury found him liable for sexual harassment, battery and defamation against two former staffers.
Plenty of Basabe’s former supporters have walked away since the verdict. This group, which says it stands for Christian values, is embracing him.
Former Rep. Jackie Toledo, who’s challenging Democratic Hillsborough County Commissioner Harry Cohen, proudly shared a screenshot of the same group’s Hillsborough guide recommending her on Facebook. Asked whether she knew it was also backing Caruso and Basabe, and whether she’d reject its support, Toledo condemned sexual misconduct in general but dodged the main question.
It shouldn’t be a hard one. If a voter guide puts your name next to an accused child abuser’s, the right answer takes about five seconds — about the same time it should take to Google these people and realize they don’t deserve a public endorsement. Instead, we got this.
Almost (but not quite) the biggest loser: JD Vance. Vice President Vance came to Florida to help boost the GOP’s chances in November, including in a key U.S. Senate race.
Instead, he handed Nixon one of the best weeks of her campaign.
At a GOP rally in Lakeland, Vance spoke about Nixon and said that when she calls herself a socialist, “the right response is to say, ‘Then get the hell out of here,’” saying she doesn’t belong in America.
It was a baffling response to Nixon, a sitting state Representative from Jacksonville who grew up in Florida.
Her response came fast. She fired back that her ancestors helped build this country and she wasn’t going anywhere. The fallout carried into this week. Speaking Wednesday at U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson’s Pumps, Pearls and Politics event in Miami Gardens, Nixon called the remark a dog whistle meant to divide voters and distract from Republican policies.
She compared it to the slights Black Southerners have long heard and promised Vance that “he’ll be calling me Senator on Nov. 3.”
Vance repeated more nonsense about socialism this week. Pressed on what the term means to him, he defined it as replacing American workers with foreign ones and letting boys play girls’ sports.
Huh? Republicans are notorious for stretching the definition of socialism to tar Democrats, usually by twisting support for European-style government programs into support for murderous regimes.
That can easily be done by doing gymnastics with the word “socialism” and assuming Americans don’t understand context. But these latest salvos from Vance? They just appear nonsensical.
Moody leads Nixon by just 2 points in the latest St. Pete Polls survey. In a race that tight, the last thing the GOP needed was the Vice President flying in to tell a Black Florida lawmaker to leave the country. Vance gave Nixon a rallying cry and her base a reason to show up.
The biggest loser: Jack Campbell. The Hope Florida grand jury was supposed to give us an answer on who engineered what reports described as the diverting of $10 million from a Medicaid settlement toward political purposes.
More than a year later, nobody’s been charged, and the report has now been nuked into oblivion.
It’s hard not to lay the blame with 2nd Circuit State Attorney Jack Campbell. His investigation, which opened in May 2025, returned no indictments. Instead, jurors wrote a document accusing members of the DeSantis administration of a scheme to misappropriate the money — though ultimately throwing up their hands and saying no one in particular could be charged.
This week, the 1st District Court of Appeal ordered that the document be expunged in full. The Judges wrote that jurors overstepped by condemning people they never indicted.
They also had harsh words for Campbell. His Office sent the sealed report in two mass emails to at least 49 people in late January, before anyone named in it got the 15 days state law gives them to challenge it.
The court responded by calling that “not statutory compliance.” Our response? What the f*ck?
Asked about Wednesday’s ruling, Campbell said he’s legally prohibited from discussing it. In other words, more of what this process has offered the public all along: nothing.
The DeSantis camp didn’t hold back. The Governor called the saga “a joke” and demanded an investigation into the leak, while Attorney General James Uthmeier’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Jeremy Redfern, branded it a weaponized grand jury run by Campbell.
So here’s the scorecard: no charges, a report the courts say shouldn’t exist but everyone has already read, and taxpayers who paid more than $300,000 for lawyers to fight it.
Campbell had a chance to get real answers on Hope Florida. Instead, he handed the people he was investigating a top-tier talking point.
