Stone says he’ll run for Florida governor if DeSantis doesn’t do audit

Former Trump adviser Roger Stone said he “may be forced” to run for Florida governor if Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) does not audit votes cast in the state during the 2020 election. 

“If Gov. Ron DeSantis does not order a full audit of the Florida 2020 vote I may be forced to seek the Libertarian party nomination for governor in 2022,” Stone wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday. 

“I heard governor Ron DeSantis say that Florida had the most honest election in our history in 2020 yet I know for a certainty there are 1 million phantom voters on the Florida voter rolls. These ‘voters’ simply do not exist,” he added on the platform to his roughly 20,000 subscribers without backing up the claim.

Stone posted a similar message on Gab, an alternative social media platform.

Roger Stone threatens to sabotage Desantis’ re-election by running against him as a libertarian if he doesn’t come out for an audit of the 2020 election in FL. pic.twitter.com/EcFPmTnMlK

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2021

In August, seven Capitol Police officers filed a lawsuit against Stone alleging he bears some responsibility for the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Trump in 2020 won Florida by about 3 percentage points, but state and local Republican lawmakers have called for a “forensic audit” of the results, which puts DeSantis, who has often defended Trump, in an awkward position given that he called Florida’s election system in 2020 a model for the nation.

The Hill has reached out to representatives for Stone and DeSantis for comment.