Two weeks after becoming the Republican nominee for state attorney in the 9th Judicial Circuit, Seth Hyman left the race Wednesday, clearing the way for appointed State Attorney Andrew Bain to square off with suspended prosecutor Monique Worrell. Hyman withdrew from the race in a letter to the Florida Division of Elections.

He received just over 62 percent of the vote in the Aug. 20 Republican primary in the circuit made up of Orange and Osceola counties. The letter did not explain his reasons for withdrawing, but Hyman told the website Florida’s Voice that he didn’t “want the anti-Worrell vote to be split.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis last year suspended Worrell, a Democrat who was elected state attorney in 2020. She is running in November to try to regain the job. DeSantis appointed Bain, a former Orange County judge, to replace Worrell. Bain is running in November without party affiliation. In suspending Worrell, DeSantis alleged that her policies prevented or discouraged assistant state attorneys from seeking minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes and drug-trafficking offenses.

The group Florida Rising Together and two residents have filed a lawsuit that alleges DeSantis violated voters’ due-process and First Amendment rights in the suspension. Worrell criticized Hyman in a post Wednesday on the social-media platform X.

“Today, Seth Hyman showed us exactly who he is, a DeSantis plant and ghost candidate,” she wrote. “Withdrawing from the State Attorney’s race was no surprise, and the mission remains the same. We will beat the Governor, his puppet and any who try to interfere in a free and fair election.”