EXCLUSIVE — Former Florida state Rep. Mike Beltran removed prominent mentions of President Donald Trump from his campaign website after winning the GOP primary for Florida’s 14th Congressional District.
Ahead of Beltran’s crowded primary, the Florida Republican touted his long-standing support for Trump, arguing that it was “conviction,” not “political calculation” that made him support the president going back to 2015. He also dinged outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump rival in the 2024 primary.
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“Mike Beltran has stood with President Trump every step of the way, resisting the pressure that all but 7 Florida legislators gave in to,” his website said before the primary. “He is one of only seven Republican legislators in the entire state of Florida who never endorsed Ron DeSantis for President, standing firm with Trump from the moment he came down the escalator in 2015. That wasn’t a political calculation. It was conviction.”
At the time, Beltran’s website also highlighted his support for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the party-line budget bill passed in 2025 that contains many of Trump’s top legislative and campaign priorities.
“Mike strongly supports President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cut, delivering no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and real relief for seniors on Social Security,” the website previously said. “These cuts are putting more money into the pockets of hardworking American families that earned it, and Mike will fight to make them permanent.”
Just the day after his primary, mentions of both the bill and the president were gone.
Trump did not endorse Beltran or anyone else in running in the GOP primary to take longtime Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) in the newly retooled 14th District. Located in the Tampa Bay area, the seat was redrawn to favor Republicans this year. Trump would have won the retooled seat by 11 points in 2024.
Beltran’s campaign denied that he was distancing himself from Trump, chalking the changes made to the website as updates conducted post-primary.
“Of course Mike supports President Trump and the Working Families Tax Cut, and shame on Kathy Castor for voting against no tax on tips and overtime, a tax cut on social security benefits, and every other provision in the bill that is putting money back in the pockets of Tampa Bay families,” a Beltran spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “Kathy’s record is trillion dollar spending sprees that led to historic inflation, Mike’s record is cutting taxes and regulations to allow Hillsborough County to grow.”
Beltran did not completely scrub his website of the president, as some candidates this cycle have done. On his “Platform” page, Beltran says he “stands 100% with President Trump on immigration.”
His website still contains an image of him and Trump, as does the campaign’s social media pages. But he has not posted about Trump since winning the Aug. 18 primary. In the run-up to the primary, he made social media posts about winning a “House Majority to President Trump” and building “momentum every day towards flipping this seat for Trump.”
He also highlighted support for Trump in his latest “MAGA Mike” ad, though data from nonpartisan tracking firm AdImpact show the spot only ran through the primary, and he has yet to run general election television ads.
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Beltran is not the first Republican to remove mentions of Trump after winning the GOP primary. In Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, GOP nominee Ralph Alvarado erased any mention of the president from his campaign website, while highlighting his “independent leadership.“
This maneuver is not ubiquitous this election cycle, however, with the overwhelming majority of GOP candidates running close to Trump this cycle in hopes of getting his MAGA base out to vote.
“We’ve been told time and time again without Donald J. Trump on the ballot, these people are not coming out. We’ve got a president who is totally invested,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) said on Fox News. “He didn’t run for two years, he ran for four. He understands the gravity of this midterm. He understands that we’re swimming upstream based on history, but we have the best map we’ve ever had.”
