Republicans criticized Donald Trump for elevating candidates who lost in crucial elections last week, but Ron DeSantis, the party’s colossal midterm victory, began building support simultaneously. To position the Florida governor for 2024, allies seized the opportunity. DeSantis proclaimed on the evening of his stunning victory, “We have redrawn the political map.”
Unconnected to DeSantis’ campaign, one operative revived a super PAC intended to support a presidential run that had been put on hold when it was thought that Trump would easily win the GOP nominee. DeSantis’ outside adviser recalled receiving multiple calls from contributors saying, “Ron needs to run.”
Currently, the governor’s decision-making about 2024 will likely be accelerated by DeSantis’s landslide victory in an election year that left former president Trump and other prominent Republicans politically wounded, according to the outside adviser, who, like other people interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
Republicans claimed that DeSantis has emerged strengthened from the midterm elections, which handed the GOP numerous defeats and seeded fresh doubt in the party about Trump’s capacity to carry them to victory in 2024. According to several GOP strategists, donors, and officials, the governor’s nearly 20-point reelection victory has put him in a better position than ever to run for president and maybe challenge Trump’s hold on the party. People are suddenly taking a closer look at him as a potential candidate for president.
According to GOP fundraiser Eric Anton of New York, DeSantis would have been “crushed” by Trump a few months ago. He added DeSantis has recently developed this great enthusiasm and a winning streak. Anton began, “He’s number two—” and then clarified. “He’s either the party’s leader, runner-up or third place. He executed it flawlessly.
The DeSantis campaign chose not to respond to a request for comment. The governor dodged a query about whether he would commit to serving a full second term during a debate last month against Democratic opponent Charlie Crist. A cry that suggested DeSantis look beyond the governor’s office erupted at his victory party on Tuesday night: “Two more years! Another two years!”
Florida is headed in the right direction, while our nation is floundering because of Washington’s ineffective leadership, DeSantis stated in his speech.
If DeSantis decides to run for president, he may have many difficulties. He has yet to have much experience competing on a national level. He is from a former swing state that has shifted to the right and, in some ways, is different from the rest of the nation. And he has already drawn Trump’s wrath, who has launched devastating attacks against opponents who have not yet fully recovered politically from his salvos and degrading monikers years after he unleashed them.
The former president attacked DeSantis more than ever in recent days as the governor’s popularity increased, calling him disloyal and “just average” in a stream of social media posts and statements and using the derisive nickname he debuted just before the election, “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Trump initially attacked DeSantis this fall, sharing an article that suggested it would be risky for the governor to challenge him. A request for a response made on Saturday went unanswered by a Trump spokesperson.
Trump has made it clear that he will declare his second run for president in the coming days, but allies have advised him to hold off for concern that he may harm the GOP’s chances in a Georgia Senate runoff in December. It’s unclear whether Republican dismay over the election will convert into long-term resentment because the former president still enjoys significant support within the GOP base.
However, many Republicans, including some staunch Trump supporters, have argued the party needs a new leader openly and informally since Tuesday.
Numerous current and past Republican leaders have expressed interest in running for office in 2024, visiting early primary states and competitive swing states to do so. According to many, DeSantis is in a solid position to grab the lead since he has a well-known name across the country, appeal to many Trump voters, and a sizable war chest leftover from his reelection campaign.
YouGov polling conducted immediately following the election revealed that Republicans and independents who lean Republican favored DeSantis over Trump as a candidate for 2024, reversing their findings from approximately a month earlier.
Republicans who appeared to be on the “Trump train” a few months ago but are now “sick of it,” according to John Thomas, a Republican strategist who is assembling the super PAC to support DeSantis, have increased in number since election day on Tuesday. Trump assisted in lifting many unproven Republican candidates to victory in GOP primaries, but many lost in the general election.
Thomas said, “We’ve got to try something different.
If DeSantis decides to move forward with a presidential race, an apparatus of advisers who could manage it is “in place,” according to a source close to his campaign. Another source in touch with the governor’s team estimates that DeSantis has about $70 million remaining from the enormous sum he raised for reelection.
The Federal Election Commission might get complaints if DeSantis transfers the funds to a super PAC, a committee required to operate independently of any potential presidential campaign. However, the federal regulator has yet to be forceful about enforcement recently. Democrats and Republicans make up an equal number of its members, but they are increasingly unable to agree on fundamental issues.
DeSantis, 44, ran for governor in 2018 and leaned toward supporting Trump. Although he rejects coronavirus limitations and criticizes “wokeness” in the media, major corporations, and educational institutions, he has developed his political brand in what he refers to as the “free state of Florida.”
DeSantis’ resounding victory has given him time to consider his following action. According to Anthony Verdugo, executive director of Christian Family Coalition Florida, “I have always thought that after Nov. 8, if he earned 55 to 60 percent of the vote, it would be a potential launching pad for his presidential dreams.” And undoubtedly, everything appears to be coming together, and the stars are aligning.
A member of DeSantis’s campaign, Christina Pushaw, posted on social media that the margin of victory for the governor’s reelection was greater than that of another potential 2024 contender, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has positioned himself as DeSantis’s combative blue-state rival.
DeSantis won Miami-Dade County by 11 points, making political history as the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in 20 years to take down a county where Latinos make up 69 percent of the populace. DeSantis narrowly won Palm Beach County, a crucial source of Democratic support, and he turned around the counties that comprise both Jacksonville and Tampa, which came as an even bigger shock to the embattled Democrats.
For the first time in more than a century, Republicans will hold all statewide offices in Florida come January, a development some have attributed partly to DeSantis’s support.
