Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, considered a top candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, is spreading his message about Sunshine State’s successes in trips to critical early voting and battleground states, raising the ire of the party’s number-one GOP candidate, Donald Trump.
The former president on Monday took several shots at Mr. DeSantis on his Truth Social media site, accusing the Florida governor of flip-flopping on a state law that some believe would require him to give up the governor’s mansion if he formally jumps in to challenge Mr. Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Mr. Trump lashed out at Mr. DeSantis as the Florida governor was scheduled to continue a string of visits to battleground states as well as trips later this month to Israel and, according to foreign media reports, Japan and South Korea.
“Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to campaign full-time for president, during the Florida legislative session, while collecting a salary and having the taxpayers pick up the costs for his travel and security,” Mr. Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung said Monday.
A spokesman for the governor, Bryan Griffin, would only confirm the trip to Israel and described it as “a trade mission.” He said the trip was not funded by taxpayers but rather sponsored by Enterprise Florida, which describes itself as Florida’s principal economic development organization. As for the trips to other U.S. states, Mr. Griffin said the state government “does not coordinate or plan political travel, nor does the taxpayer fund political travel.”
Mr. DeSantis has not publicly announced plans to run for the White House, but his busy travel schedule and speaking engagements promoting his successes in Florida strongly suggest he’s exploring a presidential bid.
Mr. DeSantis in March visited the early-voting states of Iowa and Nevada. Earlier this month, he traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he addressed the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference followed by a speech at the conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.
He’ll head later this month to Ohio, another battleground state, where he will speak at the Summit County, Lincoln Day Breakfast.
He will then travel to New Hampshire, a critical early-voting state that Mr. Trump won in the competitive 2016 primary. Mr. DeSantis will headline the New Hampshire GOP’s Amos Tuck Dinner in Manchester.
On April 19, Mr. DeSantis will appear at a Republican event in Spartanburg, South Carolina, another critical early-voting state. He’ll also address Republicans in Utah this month as the keynote speaker at the state GOP convention.
The nationwide speaking engagements appear to have rattled Mr. Trump. The former president leads every other declared and possible GOP candidate, including Mr. DeSantis, by double digits in new polling. But Mr. DeSantis has the support of a significant chunk of GOP voters as well as the interest of some of the nation’s wealthiest GOP donors.
In a new poll of 1,000 likely Florida GOP voters released Monday by Victory Insights, Mr. Trump led Mr. DeSantis 42.9% to 34.8%.
“As the race currently stands, it’s Trump’s race to lose, while DeSantis is the undisputed second-place choice,” the Victory Insight pollsters said.
As Mr. DeSantis appears to ramp up his exploration of a run, Mr. Trump is increasingly targeting the governor in his social media posts, even as the former president remains mostly holed up at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.
On Monday, he called out Mr. DeSantis for appearing to flip-flop on his support for the state’s “Resign to Run” law that requires state-wide officeholders to resign if they plan to run for another office that overlaps with their elected term.
Mr. DeSantis, when he ran for governor in 2018, resigned from his seat in Congress when he won the GOP nomination, saying he would likely miss the vast majority of the remainder of the session in Congress.
Mr. DeSantis wasn’t legally required to resign and state legal experts and even state lawmakers don’t agree on how, or whether current law would require him to abandon the governor’s mansion if he runs for president because running for the GOP nomination is a state-by-state process with different filing deadlines.
“Even if you agree with ‘Resign to Run,’ because of the uniqueness of a presidential campaign, you would have to lay out what that means,” State Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican who represents southern Brevard County, told The Washington Times.
The Republican-led Florida legislature may be weighing a measure that would ensure Mr. DeSantis does not have to resign if he runs for the White House.
Florida Senate Republicans introduced a measure that could be used as a vehicle for legislation that would ensure Mr. DeSantis could remain in office while seeking the presidency.
The law requires “any officer who qualifies for federal public office” to resign from their current office “if the terms, or any part thereof, run concurrently with each other.”
Republicans changed the law in 2008 to accommodate Gov. Charlie Crist, who was on the vice presidential shortlist of GOP Presidential Nominee John McCain. The legislature then voted to change it back in 2018.
It’s not clear yet whether the legislature will try to alter it again for Mr. DeSantis.
“We’re still researching whether or not we really need it,” Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, a Republican who represents Naples, told reporters last week.
