A Ron DeSantis 2028 presidential campaign is in the works, according to a Washington Post report published Friday that cites three people briefed on the Florida governor’s plans. The news comes days after Democrats swept Tuesday’s midterm elections and flipped control of both the House and the Senate, while Florida stood as one of the few places where Republicans mostly held their ground.
That survival is the pitch. An adviser told the Post that Florida withstanding the Democratic wave will be a core part of DeSantis’ argument to Republican primary voters. Republicans kept the governor’s office and both of the state’s Senate seats, and DeSantis has spent the week reminding anyone who will listen.
The moves go beyond anonymous sources. His federal super PAC sent out a fundraising text this week. A super PAC is a political committee that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate, as long as it does not directly coordinate with that candidate’s campaign. DeSantis has also reached out to at least one national strategist about running a campaign, according to the Post.
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On camera, he is not confirming anything. When CNN’s Jake Tapper asked whether he was considering a run, DeSantis said he would be “a free man come Jan. 5th,” the day his term as governor ends, and that he “hasn’t planned anything.” He added that anyone thinking about running needs a reason beyond wanting the job. “Somebody that wants to run, why are you running? You have something you want to accomplish,” he said.
His read on the midterms was far less guarded. DeSantis called the results close to an “extinction-level event for Republicans” and told CNN the night should serve as a warning. “Last night should be a wakeup call for our party,” he said. “We got blasted into oblivion. Florida is the last one standing.”
According to the Post’s reporting, the Ron DeSantis 2028 strategy positions him as an alternative to Trumpism after voters broadly rejected Republican candidates and Trump’s agenda at the ballot box. That is a sharp turn for a governor who spent his first term building a national profile as one of the most aggressive MAGA aligned leaders in the country.
The opening exists in part because of what happened to Vice President JD Vance. Until this week, Vance looked like the natural heir to lead the MAGA movement once Trump leaves office. Many Republicans now see his chances as badly damaged by the midterm losses, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also viewed as a potential contender for the nomination. DeSantis’ odds of becoming the 2028 Republican nominee rose on prediction markets after the results came in.
This is not the first time a midterm made DeSantis look like the party’s future. In 2022, he won reelection by about 19 points while candidates backed by Trump struggled across the country. That win launched his 2024 presidential campaign, which went badly. Never Back Down, the super PAC that functioned as his campaign operation, spent nearly $146 million backing him. He finished second in the Iowa caucuses, dropped out about a week later, and endorsed Trump on his way out.
The Post reports that DeSantis plans to apply lessons from that run. Last time, he waited too long to launch, got outspent, and let Trump’s team define him before voters got to know him. Every one of those problems is on the list of things his camp intends to fix with an earlier and better funded start.
Some Republicans believe the timing is finally on his side. “Florida’s walls not being breached by the blue wave gives DeSantis more credibility than nearly anyone in the opening days of the 2028 primary,” Dan Eberhart, a longtime Republican donor who served as a surrogate for DeSantis’ 2024 campaign, told the Post.
Others see the same old problems. Two Republican consultants told the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald that DeSantis burned too many bridges with party donors and operatives during his last run, and called a 2028 bid “delusional” regardless of what happened this week.
