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Florida GOP chairman backs winner-take-all primary

@PatriciaMazzei

State Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, the new chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, paid a visit this week to the Miami Young Republicans to rally their support and answer their questions about the party's future.

One of them was whether the GOP would support legislation filed in Tallahassee setting next year's presidential primary for March 15, the earliest possible date in which all of the state's nominating delegates would be awarded to a single candidate, rather than distributed proportionally.

"It is my personal belief that the primary process in the state of Florida should be winner takes all," said Ingoglia, who represents Spring Hill, near Tampa. "We are the largest, most diverse swing state in the nation. We are the prize."

If a candidate puts in the work to win Florida, he added, then he or she should be rewarded in full. Left unsaid was that the party would want all of its delegates to back one of the state's native sons -- Sen. Marco Rubio or former Gov. Jeb Bush -- should one of them run and win the Sunshine State primary.

"It's sort of like a microcosm of the United States in general," he said. The person who can win here is "the person that we want to get behind."

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