Florida governor Ron DeSantis is expected to formally enter the race for president next week, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The outlet says DeSantis’s team has decided to file formal paperwork with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy next week as donors meet in Miami on May 25. A formal campaign kickoff event is expected to follow but it is not clear when.
A RealClearPolitics average of national polls has Trump leading the race with 56 percent support. DeSantis is a distant second with 19.9 percent support, despite having not formally entered yet.
In early March, Ken Cuccinelli, who previously served as the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security under Trump, announced the launch of the Never Back Down PAC to urge DeSantis to run for president. The PAC has raised millions of dollars and may soon receive more than $80 million from a state committee DeSantis recently gave up control of, according to the report.
Earlier reporting also indicated DeSantis is very close to launching a bid after his political operation began moving out of its Tallahassee offices and into a new location on Monday, according to CNBC. The move will likely cost more than $5,000, which would trigger a 15-day countdown for the team to file a Statement of Candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.
That same day, DeSantis’s press secretary, Bryan Griffin, announced his exit from the governor’s office to “pursue other avenues of helping to deliver the governor’s success to our country.”
It had widely been rumored that DeSantis would enter the race at the conclusion of Florida’s legislative session this month — a wildly successful session that included the creation of the largest school-choice program in the country, a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a ban on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives in universities, and an expansion of the use of mandatory E-Verify in the state, all while cutting taxes by $2 billion.
DeSantis has already participated in a number of campaign-like events and made headlines over the weekend as he interacted one-on-one with voters in Iowa, shedding his reputation as a leader who struggles with retail politicking. He made an unscheduled appearance in Des Moines at a barbecue joint on Saturday while Trump, the front-runner, canceled his own rally in Des Moines that day because of “severe weather.”
The optics of the weekend in Iowa were a win for DeSantis, who also announced a day earlier the endorsements of more than three dozen Republicans in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. The endorsements, which amounted to more than a third of the Republicans in the state legislature, were more than any GOP candidate received in 2016. DeSantis also notched a flurry of endorsements in New Hampshire and Florida in recent days.
DeSantis also recently set up a divide between himself and Trump on abortion, defending Florida’s six-week ban against Trump’s criticism, saying the bill is something that “probably 99 percent of pro-lifers support.”
“As a Florida resident, you know, [Trump] didn’t give an answer about, ‘Would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did, that had all the exceptions that people talk about?’” he said.
“The legislature put it in, I signed the bill, I was proud to do it,” DeSantis said, adding, “He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”
Sixty-eight percent of likely Republican primary voters support banning most abortions after six weeks, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll.
DeSantis’s reported filing will come the same week that Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.) is set to hold an event in South Carolina to launch his own campaign. And Mike Pence may be nearing a campaign launch, as well: Committed to America, a new super PAC supporting the former vice president, launched on Monday and will be led by Bobby Saparow, who previously managed Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s reelection campaign in 2022. Former Republican congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas and veteran GOP consultant Scott Reed will serve as national co-chairs.
DeSantis, Scott and Pence would join a race that already includes Trump, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and talk show host Larry Elder.