Tuesday's Afternoon Update | 5/4/2021 Charlie Crist, man of many political comebacks, launches another campaign for Florida governor U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist officially launched his campaign for Florida governor on Tuesday, the first major candidate to jump into the Democratic primary with hopes of taking on Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. This will be Crist’s second attempt at winning back the job he held from 2007 to 2011, when he was a Republican. He was the Democratic Party’s nominee for governor in 2014, a race he narrowly lost to Rick Scott, who is now the state’s junior senator. More from the Tampa Bay Times and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.