Andrew Gillum was supposed to be the future of the Florida Democratic Party. Instead, he keeps ending up in police reports. The former Tallahassee mayor and 2018 Democratic nominee for Florida governor was arrested July 2 in Daphne, Alabama, on drug charges. The Daily Caller News Foundation reports Daphne police took Gillum into custody and booked him into the Baldwin County Jail on drug-related charges. He was released the following day. DCNF identifies Gillum as the former Tallahassee mayor and 2018 Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee, the man who won that primary in a major upset before narrowly losing the general election to now-Gov. Ron DeSantis. The outlet also points to the larger arc here: Gillum was once treated as a major Democratic rising star, but the years after 2018 have brought repeated scandal, legal trouble, and public embarrassment. It also notes the race was so close that DeSantis’ victory remained one of the narrowest and most consequential wins of the 2018 cycle. This latest arrest now puts Gillum back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The specifics of the stop are what stand out. Fox 13 Tampa Bay reports officers stopped Gillum around 10:45 p.m. on U.S. Highway 98 near North Main Street after they say he was driving erratically. Police identified the driver as Andrew Gillum, 46, of Tallahassee. Fox 13 reports an officer spotted a glass pipe sitting on the center console, and that sighting led to a search of the vehicle. According to the report, officers recovered several rolled marijuana cigarettes and three packages of a substance that later tested positive for methamphetamine. Fox 13 also tied the arrest back to Gillum’s Florida political career, noting he served as Tallahassee mayor before losing the 2018 governor’s race to DeSantis by roughly 30,000 votes. A late-night traffic stop in Daphne led to drug charges against Andrew Gillum, a former nominee for Florida governor. Police said officers recovered several rolled marijuana cigarettes and three packages of a substance that tested positive for meth. https://t.co/bZCmmnTaRA — WEAR ABC 3 (@weartv) July 7, 2026 Gillum was booked on possession of dangerous drugs, possession of drug paraphernalia, and marijuana possession. WCTV reports the Baldwin County jail roster showed Gillum taken into custody July 2 at 10:44 p.m. local time and released July 3. The station listed the charges as possession of dangerous drugs, drug paraphernalia, and second-offense marijuana possession. It also reported that Daphne police said the stop happened on Highway 98 near North Main Street after erratic driving. WCTV said one officer noticed a glass pipe on the center console, and the later search allegedly turned up rolled marijuana cigarettes plus three packs of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine. Local reporting also confirmed that the dangerous-drugs charge is a felony, while the marijuana and paraphernalia counts are misdemeanors. That puts one felony and two misdemeanors on the books from a single late-night traffic stop. According to a news release I obtained from Daphne Police, marijuana cigarettes and methamphetamine were found in Gillum's car. He's facing one felony and two misdemeanors. https://t.co/GrjntxU8BJ — Jeff Butera (@BayNews9Jeff) July 7, 2026 Gillum served as Tallahassee mayor from 2014 to 2018 before running for governor. That race was close. He came within less than a percentage point of DeSantis, losing by fewer than 34,000 votes. The years since have been rough for the man Democrats once treated as a national name in waiting. A 2020 incident at a Miami Beach hotel drew heavy public scrutiny, though no charges were filed against Gillum in that episode. Then came a 2022 federal campaign-related case. AP reports his 2023 trial ended with a hung jury on conspiracy and wire-fraud counts and an acquittal on a charge of lying to the FBI. AP also confirmed the Alabama arrest, reporting that Gillum was stopped for erratic driving in Daphne and charged after police said they found marijuana and meth in the vehicle. The report said court records for the new case were not yet available, and lawyer or comment information was not immediately available at the time of publication. AP also noted Gillum had been a co-host of the politically themed Native Land Pod, which won an NAACP Image Award in 2025. That detail matters because Gillum had not fully disappeared from Democratic media circles before this arrest. That means the criminal case still has to move through Alabama, but the political damage is already obvious. The 2018 Florida governor’s race will go down as one of the great sliding-doors moments in American politics. Ron DeSantis, after “begging” for President Trump’s endorsement, eked out a 0.4 percent win over the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, Andrew Gillum. In the years since,… pic.twitter.com/TD99tUPnTH — The Spectator (@TheSpectator) July 7, 2026 Florida made its choice in 2018, and it looks better every year. DeSantis went on to build one of the strongest Republican records in the country while the man he narrowly beat kept turning up in headlines like this one. The next steps for Gillum will play out in an Alabama courtroom, not on any campaign trail. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here. The post Former Democrat Rising Star Andrew Gillum Arrested AGAIN, Police Say Meth And Marijuana Found In Vehicle appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.