Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee for governor, Thursday picked Orlando businessman Chris King as his running mate for the November election.
King emerged as a surprise pick given his fifth-place finish in the Democratic primary after a year-long campaign.
But the two developed a friendship in the course of the campaign with King at one point defending Gillum when asked about an FBI public corruption investigation in the capital city.
The 39-year-old King studied religion at Harvard and law at the University of Florida. When he filed to run for governor in May, he called himself a Christian progressive.
"What we have seen across the country at Homestead and other places is an example of how the religious right and the conservative Christian community in this country has twisted the issues that are of most important to people and to caring about people," King said in response to a question about migrant children being separated from their parents and housed in Florida.
"The number one job of the governor of Florida, or a state like this, is to stand up for communities that don’t have a voice," said King.
Gillum won the Democratic nomination building up large margins in big cities and university and college towns. The suburbs split with Gwen Graham carrying them in north and central Florida and Phil Levine in the south.
King campaigned for governor for 18 months, spent $6 million and picked up 37,611 votes, 2.5 percent. Most of the money was his own. And that may be his biggest asset to Gillum.
Gillum made the pick official Thursday in a Facebook Live announcement.
With the tickets set, Gillum and King look to a November matchup with GOP Republican opponent Ron DeSantis and his pick for lieutenant governor Miami Rep. Jeanette Nuñez She is the state's first female Cuban-American lieutenant governor candidate