Donald Trump mulls 2024 run. Where would that leave Florida Republicans?

Komen Pink Party at Maralago January 14, 2012

Barring a series of improbable reversals to state-level election results, Donald Trump will not begin a second term as United States President next year.

However, that doesn’t mean he’s done.

Axios reports that the President is already kibitzing with advisers about a 2024 run. This move could have consequences for Republicans who have considered their own campaigns.

“Aides advising Republicans who are likely to run in 2024 are dreading the prospect of a Trump run given the extraordinary sway he holds over millions of GOP voters,” Axios notes. “Even four years after leaving office, he could remain formidable in a Republican primary. That fact alone could freeze the ambitions, fundraising and staffing of individual candidates — and of the Republican National Committee as it seeks to regroup and move beyond Trump.”

Perhaps no state’s Republican leadership would be as impacted by a Trump 2024 campaign as Florida, where at least three potential contenders have lined up staunchly behind the President and his claims that elections going his way in late-counted mail ballots might not be on the up and up.

They wouldn’t be able to separate from Trump rhetorically, and Democrats would gleefully exploit that in the next two years. And they would be paralyzed in terms of negotiating their own political futures.

Most exposed to a Trump reversal, were he interested in running himself, might be Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida’s Governor owes his current position to Trump’s backing ahead of his 2018 primary against establishment favorite Adam Putnam, and for his part he has been a muscular advocate for the President.

That advocacy includes unsolicited advice for the Republican state legislatures in Arizona and Pennsylvania about potentially overturning the popular vote in the Trump/Biden race.

“Under Article II of the Constitution, presidential electors are done by legislatures and the schemes they create in the framework,” DeSantis said on Fox News last week. “If there’s departure from that and they’re not following the law, if they’re ignoring law, then they can provide remedies as well, so I would exhaust every option to make sure we have a fair count.”

While Florida’s Governor may have overstepped his boundaries in offering this counsel, he was lauded by Donald Trump Jr., who said DeSantis contrasted the “lack of action” from other “2024 GOP hopefuls.”

Florida’s Senators, including one who is on the ballot in 2022, likewise find themselves in a tough position vis a vis Trump.

Senator Marco Rubio, who during a late-campaign rally praised Trump supporters’ campaign vehicles surrounding a Joe Biden campaign bus in Texas on a crowded interstate highway, is already subject of a “Retire Rubio” push from Democrats.

The first ad from the group shows Trump denigrating Rubio, using comments from rallies in the 2016 campaign.

For his part, the Senator says that he and Trump have “mutual respect.” But that would be tested if Trump were exploring a run for the Presidency, again thwarting Rubio’s ambition.

Meanwhile, there’s U.S. Senator Rick Scott, winner of three statewide races over the last decade in the state.

“I’m not focused on it,” Scott said of a 2024 bid. “I like my job as U.S. Senator and that’s what I’m going to focus on.”

While Scott may be focused on the Senate exclusively, he bet on Trump and himself both as the campaign wrapped.

Scott, late in October, released two ads from his political committee. One was a GOTV ad for President Trump, and the second one was more of a personal manifesto, with the Senator saying he was “mad” at rioters and protesters.

Scott and Rubio both have issued calls of support for the President’s team pushing to ensure that only “legal” votes are counted, but most of their defense has been on Twitter.

With Trump exploring four more years in four years, Republicans such as DeSantis, Rubio, and Scott can only wait and wonder if the figure who came to dominate Republican politics in Florida and elsewhere last decade will cast a shadow over this one, driving their White House hopes into pitch darkness.