Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis spent this week rubbing shoulders with business leaders in Beverly Hills and openly musing about his political future, offering the clearest signals yet that he intends to run for president again in 2028. The question hanging over the effort is whether Republican primary voters, and the Trump orbit that dominates the party, will give him a second look.
DeSantis, 47, joined the Milken Institute's global conference in California before heading east, where he is set to keynote the New York Republican Party's annual gala at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on May 19. The coast-to-coast itinerary looks less like the schedule of a term-limited governor winding down and more like the early roadmap of a national candidate testing the waters.
When The Post's Charles Gasparino asked DeSantis directly whether he would run, the governor did not shut the door:
"I'm in my mid-40s. [20]28, you know, maybe beyond that, I think that there's a lot of runway."
He added: "Who knows? Like, you never know." That studied ambiguity is itself a signal. Governors who plan to retire quietly do not keynote party galas in Manhattan or fly to Beverly Hills to chat with investors.
DeSantis has spent months assembling the kind of résumé bullet points a presidential candidate needs. He rattled off Florida's transformation during his tenure in terms that double as stump-speech material:
"Who took a state that had more Democrats than Republicans by 300,000 when he got elected [in 2018], and now has 1.5 million more Republicans? Who had a state that had a trillion-dollar economy and now has $1.8 trillion? Who has a state that had some school choice, now universal? A 50-year low in the crime rate? So we've got a good story to tell."
The numbers paint a picture of a governor who moved a purple state deep into red territory. His 2022 reelection, a nearly 20-point rout of Charlie Crist, the state's former Republican governor running as a Democrat, remains one of the most lopsided gubernatorial wins in modern Florida history.
On Monday, DeSantis signed a bill to redraft Florida's congressional districts, a move expected to produce an anticipated four-seat Republican gain in the November midterm elections. That gain would offset a likely four-district loss in Virginia, a redistricting play that could prove critical to Republican control of the House and to advancing the broader conservative agenda.
His former national spokesperson, Carly Bird, framed his appeal in results-driven terms:
"His lane is: most competent and effective governor in our nation's history who consistently delivers on every promise he makes."
Three years ago this month, DeSantis launched his first campaign for the White House. It ended with a distant second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and a withdrawal that left his national brand bruised. President Trump mocked him during that primary with nicknames like "DeSanctimonious" and "Meatball Ron," and the two men's relationship appeared badly damaged.
Over the past year, DeSantis has worked methodically to repair it. He golfed with Trump in February and March. He signed legislation in March to rename West Palm Beach's airport in Trump's honor. He facilitated the construction of Trump's presidential library in Miami. Each gesture carried the same message: no hard feelings.
Trump, for his part, has reciprocated, at least in public. He told reporters last month that he is open to naming DeSantis to his cabinet, and that possibility has drawn considerable attention as DeSantis's term expires in January 2027. At a college athletics panel discussion at the White House in March, Trump offered a warm if characteristically informal shout-out:
"Wherever you may be, Ron, Hi, Ron!, [he] has some great ideas and some great coaches that gave him some great ideas."
He also told reporters plainly: "I think he's good, doing a good job." And he added: "Ron DeSantis has been working very hard with us."
But warmth from the president does not guarantee warmth from the president's inner circle. A longtime Trump operative offered a far blunter assessment of how some Trump allies view DeSantis's ambitions: "Team Trump is chomping at the bit to destroy DeSantis one more time. No matter how many influencers he pays off, Ron will never be the heir to the MAGA movement."
DeSantis is not the only Republican eyeing the post-Trump era. Vice President JD Vance, polling shows, is currently best-positioned to succeed Trump. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who traded attacks with Trump himself during the 2016 primary before becoming one of the administration's most prominent figures, is viewed by some operatives as the emerging favorite.
A GOP operative who frequently spends time in Florida told the New York Post that Rubio's stock is climbing: "Lately, you hear a lot more about Rubio. Rubio is the guy. Vance has his pockets, but overwhelmingly Rubio is the guy among most people... even, say, in Palm Beach."
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is also likely to at least explore a campaign. The field could be wide, and DeSantis has been here before. His 2024 bid collapsed in part because he tried to outflank Trump from the right, faulting the president for listening to Dr. Anthony Fauci's COVID-19 pandemic shutdown guidance. That argument never found traction with a primary electorate that remained loyal to Trump.
DeSantis himself acknowledged as much in a separate appearance on Sean Hannity's show. He told Hannity "We'll see" when asked about another bid and offered a revealing assessment of 2024: "I think that in '24, like in Iowa, the people that voted for Trump, if he wasn't running, I would've gotten like 90% of those people." In 2028, Trump will not be on the ballot. DeSantis clearly views that as the variable that changes everything.
One complication DeSantis cannot easily dismiss is the role of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The Florida political veteran once worked for DeSantis, who fired her in 2019. She went on to mastermind Trump's comeback campaign and now serves as one of the most powerful figures in the administration.
A former Trump White House official downplayed the tension, saying Wiles "isn't in the business of holding grudges. She leaves that kind of baggage at the door and shows up every day to serve the president." But the same official added a pointed jab at DeSantis's interpersonal skills: "If there's any issue from the past with Ron, it's because his social awareness peaked around the age of show-and-tell."
The cabinet question also looms. Trump has publicly floated the idea, and the same former White House official said it "made the most sense", though acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is reportedly "doing well" and may fill that position permanently. The same official called a DeSantis cabinet stint "dumb tactically" for a man who wants to run for president, raising a real strategic dilemma. Does DeSantis serve the administration and risk being defined by someone else's agenda, or does he chart his own course?
The same GOP operative raised a pointed question about Rubio's position as secretary of state in the current foreign policy environment: "Do you want to be defense secretary in the Republican Party, where a lot of the voters aren't necessarily as gung ho about this war stuff, and you have a president who seems willing to go into war? I do think there's reason to think that that's not the right position to be in if you want to run for president." If that logic applies to Rubio, it applies to any potential DeSantis cabinet role as well.
DeSantis, meanwhile, has notched other recent wins that bolster his public image heading into a potential campaign, adding to the narrative of a governor who fights and prevails.
The most honest assessment of DeSantis's position may have come from one of his own former staffers. "It's JD's race to lose right now," the former aide said. "That said, there's a million new cycles between now and a primary, anything can happen with a coalition that's showing cracks."
The same former staffer called DeSantis "by far the most effective, results-driven conservative executive in recent memory" but added a caveat that should keep DeSantis's team up at night: "it remains to be seen if his team learned the right lessons from the [2024] campaign."
That is the core tension. DeSantis's record in Florida is formidable. He turned a swing state into a Republican stronghold. He expanded school choice, drove down crime, and grew the economy. He served in the Navy, including in Iraq. He graduated from Yale and Harvard Law School. He was elected to the U.S. House in 2012 representing the Daytona Beach area before winning the governor's mansion. On paper, the résumé is as strong as any Republican's.
But presidential primaries are not fought on paper. DeSantis's 2024 campaign struggled with retail politics, donor management, and the basic challenge of connecting with voters who already had a candidate they loved. A Republican insider told the Post flatly: "it's not been a secret he's running." The operative who spends time in Florida agreed: "I think DeSantis totally thinks he can win. He'd be top two in Iowa for sure."
Whether Iowa translates into a nomination is another matter. The broader 2028 landscape remains uncertain. The conversation around who will and won't run is already shifting week to week, and the primary is still years away.
The former DeSantis staffer put it best: "The country would be better off in every way should he stay on the national stage. The moves he makes in the coming months should be very revealing."
DeSantis has the record, the age, and the ambition. What he does not yet have is a clear lane in a party that still belongs to Trump and his chosen successors. The governor spent 2024 learning that a strong conservative record does not automatically translate into primary votes when the base has already picked its champion.
In 2028, the champion will be gone from the ballot. That changes the math. Whether it changes the outcome depends on whether DeSantis can do something he has never convincingly done: persuade Republican voters that competence in Tallahassee is worth more than loyalty to the movement that reshaped their party.
Results should speak for themselves. In Republican primaries, they don't always get the chance.
