Ron DeSantis stepped to a podium after the GOP wipeout and compared the night to a meteor strike.
One pollster already calls his postmortem an opening shot at the man in the White House.
And Donald Trump already watched this exact movie once.
The Morning After, the Governor Picked a Target
Outgoing Florida Gov Ron DeSantis faced reporters in Tallahassee the morning after Democrats took control of the House and the Senate, and he skipped the usual pep talk.
“Here’s the thing. Democrats are unpopular,” DeSantis said. “They were able to win based off the sentiment that exists in the country right now. They did not earn a mandate to indulge all their left-wing fantasies.”
He’s right about that much. A party that just sent Medicare for All crusader Abdul El-Sayed to the Senate isn’t shy about where it wants to drag the country, and its socialist wing will treat every new gavel as a down payment on government-run health care and higher taxes.
But DeSantis kept going.
“But this was not a positive view of the Democrats. This was a rejection of Republicans in Washington,” he said. “And Democrats just happened to be the beneficiary.”
“Republicans in Washington” sounds generic until somebody asks who runs Washington. One man sits at the top of that org chart, and he lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And everybody in the room knew it.
DeSantis called the results “close to an extinction-level event” for the party and described “the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States.” Then he pointed to the one crater-free zone on the map. “And the one state that was able to hold the line and withstand that is right here in the free state of Florida,” he said.
He also reminded reporters that come January, Florida will stand as the only one of the 10 largest states with full Republican control.
One Pollster Already Spotted the Campaign Ad
Orlando pollster Doug Kaplan didn’t need a decoder ring. He told reporters DeSantis has “found his lane if he wants to run for president in 2028” and called the remarks an “opening salvo” in an effort to put daylight between the governor and the Trump-led status quo.
DeSantis hasn’t ruled anything out. When Sean Hannity asked earlier this year whether he’d run again, he answered, “We’ll see.” His federal PAC still holds millions left over from the 2024 campaign, and he has reportedly told donors he’s looking hard at the race.
Maybe that’s reading too much into one press conference. Governors brag about their states. That’s practically the job description.
But a governor on a victory lap doesn’t usually spend half the lap grading everybody else’s homework. DeSantis mourned Texas as the “crown jewel of Republican politics,” walked through every statewide loss, and never once mentioned US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the other Republican whom Kaplan expects to try the same distancing routine.
And there’s an irony buried inside that Florida firewall. The state held with Rep Byron Donalds (R-FL), the Trump-endorsed nominee, at the top of the ticket. Donalds now becomes the state’s first Black governor. Voters also passed Amendment 3, a homestead property tax break that DeSantis credited with pulling people to the polls, with about 62 percent of the vote.
So the wall DeSantis brags about carried Donald Trump’s name on its biggest brick.
The Cheering Section Ran This Play in 2022
Go back to November 2022. Several Trump-backed Senate candidates stumbled, DeSantis won reelection by nearly 20 points, and a chorus of conservative commentators crowned him overnight.
The Daily Wire, the outlet Ben Shapiro co-founded, ran a piece declaring Trump the big loser of the midterms and DeSantis the new frontrunner for 2024.
Mark Levin jumped in on his radio show. “I am not going to abide attacks on Ron DeSantis,” Levin said, without naming the man launching them. He didn’t have to.
When DeSantis entered the race in May 2023, Levin shared the campaign’s link within hours, and Trump allies blasted him for fundraising for the Florida governor.
Shapiro made no secret of his pick either. “If the primaries were held today, I would vote for Ron DeSantis,” he said in January 2024, days before Iowa.
But Iowa answered. Trump took 51 percent of the caucus vote, and DeSantis limped home with 21. Within a week, DeSantis quit and endorsed Trump. Shapiro posted a video calling DeSantis “my favorite candidate in the race” before finally getting behind the nominee.
Both men carry a longer paper trail. Shapiro refused to back Trump in 2016. Levin spent that primary championing Cruz and ripping Trump on the air.
And both have spent their careers demanding a harder line on Iran. Both cheered the war that Trump’s own voters later soured on.
Same Donors, Same Map, Same Blind Spot
DeSantis’ autopsy blamed “Washington” in general and skipped the war entirely. Voters didn’t skip it. An Echelon Insights poll of Trump 2024 voters who now disapprove of the President found 15 percent pointing to wars and Iran, compared to just 3 percent citing tariffs.
Vice President JD Vance, the America First heir apparent, didn’t tiptoe around it. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote. Vance argued against that fight before it started, which is exactly why the neocon wing of the party wants a fight with him now.
Funny how the DeSantis cheering section of 2023 lines up almost perfectly with the war cheering section of 2026.
But that’s the lane Kaplan sees, whether DeSantis ever says it out loud. Donors who want the pre-Trump party back need a vehicle. Commentators who picked DeSantis over Trump last time need a comeback story. Hawks who never forgave Vance for questioning the war need somebody to stand behind.
Primary voters will sort out 2028 on their own clock, and anybody claiming to know the ending is guessing.
DeSantis also delivered a gloomy forecast for the party. “Two years, four years, six years, maybe even longer before Republicans could exercise unified control in Washington again,” he said. A party buried that deep, the thinking goes, needs a new architect.
In November 2022, his loudest media boosters declared Donald Trump the big loser of a rough midterm and Ron DeSantis the man of the future. Fourteen months later, Iowa Republicans gave Trump 51 percent of the caucus vote and DeSantis 21.
Sources: Fox News, “Florida’s DeSantis describes GOP midterms wipeout as ‘close to an extinction-level event’ for Republicans”; Fox News, “DeSantis calls GOP midterm losses ‘extinction-level event’ and explains why Florida survived”; Fox News, “DeSantis silent after Trump launches first attacks amid 2024 speculation” (November 2022); Florida’s Voice, “Ben Shapiro touts DeSantis in 2024 primary for conservatism, ‘competent executive’”; The Daily Wire, “Ben Shapiro Reacts To DeSantis Bowing Out Of 2024 Race”; Mediaite, “Ben Shapiro Endorses Donald Trump”; Media Matters, “Ron DeSantis paid over $100K to Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire”; The Independent, “Trump’s inner circle furious as Fox News host seemingly backs Ron DeSantis”; The Floridian Press, “Ron DeSantis Gears up for 2028 Presidential Run”; Washington Examiner, “DeSantis deja vu: Florida governor follows script from failed 2024 campaign”; Echelon Insights polling of Trump 2024 voters