Andrew Gillum with his wife, Jai, at his side addresses his supporters after winning Florida's Democratic primary for governor on Tuesday. (Steve Cannon / AP)

Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate in Florida’s gubernatorial race, demanded Thursday that his Republican opponent apologize to the state’s voters for telling them to not “monkey this up” by casting their ballots for Gillum.

“He doesn’t need to apologize to me, he needs to apologize to Florida voters,” Gillum said during an appearance on MSNBC, referring to GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis. “If he thinks that those kinds of shenanigans are going to be persuasive enough in this midterm election to turn this their way, I think he’s badly mistaken.”

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The Sunshine State’s gubernatorial race came off to a heated start after DeSantis went on Fox News and urged Floridians to not “monkey this up” by electing Gillum.

“The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases bankrupting the state,” DeSantis said. “That is not going to work.”

“This is not about race,” DeSantis told Fox News host Sean Hannity. “This is about ideas and principles.”

DeSantis added he doesn’t plan to apologize.

DeSantis, a current member of the House, was endorsed by President Trump and was one of his earliest congressional supporters.

Gillum connected DeSantis’ “monkey” remark to his closeness with Trump.

“I think DeSantis has decided to pull a page from the Trump campaign playbook and I think it’s unfortunate,” Gillum said Thursday. “People are really sick and tired of this kind of race-baiting, division, derisive element to our politics.”