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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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Florida’s outgoing governor Ron DeSantis has been fiercely criticizing Republicans since the GOP’s shellacking in the midterm elections, raising questions about whether the offensive is the opening gambit of another run for president.
DeSantis’ political future seemed uncertain in recent months, but he has returned to the national spotlight this week with a series of unusually blunt attacks aimed at his fellow Republicans after Democrats swept the midterms on Tuesday, recapturing control of both the House and Senate.
It comes as the midterm results have sparked a reckoning within the GOP, indicating that the era of Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) may be nearing an end and scrambling the race for Trump's successor.
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In recent days, DeSantis has spoken out in interviews and at a press conference, calling the results close to an "extinction-level event" for the GOP and a "rebuke" of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
At the same time, he has argued that Republicans should look to his state as a model for governance, saying Florida has shown how Republicans can win in a tough political environment and "was able to hold the line" while other red states were unable to fend off the blue wave. Republican nominees for governor and Senate in the Sunshine State did win their races, though by far tighter margins than two years ago.
DeSantis’ recent moves have fueled speculation that he is positioning himself for another run for the White House, after losing the 2024 Republican nomination to Trump.
The governor, who is term-limited and set to leave office in January, has not ruled that out.
“We'll see what happens,” he said in an interview released on Monday. “Maybe someday. I don't know about '28. Maybe later. Maybe. We’ll see.”
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Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political Science at Northeastern University, said DeSantis’ recent rhetoric “is consistent with planting a seed for a presidential run, while distancing himself from both Trump and congressional Republicans."
Like other 2028 hopefuls, he is “poking around with messaging already,” added Grant Davis Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University.
“They are looking for narratives of the loss that lead to a subsequent narrative of why what they stand for and what they embody are better alternatives,” he told Newsweek.
Newsweek has contacted DeSantis’ office for comment via email.
DeSantis Turns on Republicans
DeSantis began his scathing critique of the second Trump administration before Election Day.
In a lengthy interview released on the eve of the election, he called Trump’s war with Iran a “big, big drag” on Republicans and accused Republicans of gaslighting voters about rising gas prices.
“We just got to be honest. Gas is higher. It hurts people, working class people, and it's higher because of this conflict,” he said on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast, Straight Shooter.
“That’s just the fact. If you can't admit that to voters, then you're gaslighting them, and they're not going to listen to you on other things."
At a press conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday, he said the election results were close to an "extinction-level event" for Republicans.
But he took a victory lap at how Republicans had performed in his state, while Republican candidates fell to Democratic challengers across the map, even in the previously reliably red states of Texas, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina.
“The one state that was able to hold the line and withstand that is right here in the free state of Florida,” he said.
During that press conference, he also said that Republicans were hurt by the Trump administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and took aim at lawmakers for failing to ban congressional stock trading.
And in an interview on Fox News later on Wednesday, he again pointed the finger at Trump and congressional Republicans.
“This midterm, no question, was a rebuke of the president and the Congress by Democrats, independents and some Republicans,” he said.
“A lot of our voters who stayed home, they stayed home because they were frustrated with the lack of productivity from Republicans in the House and Senate.”
Midterms Rout Scrambles 2028 Race
For some, the midterm results have upended the race for Trump's successor.
“The scale of the Republican defeat is so great that it makes the race for the GOP presidential nomination wide open,” former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote on X on Wednesday.
He said a huge victory for the GOP would have meant Vice President JD Vance would have almost certainly become the 2028 nominee.
He listed DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz as among the Republicans who “may decide this is their chance to take advantage of the chaos of the shocking defeat and seek to be the champion who can rescue the party and the country.”
As Tuesday’s result threatened Vance’s prospects, he sought to distance himself from voters’ rebuke of Trump by publicly breaking with the president on his defense of the Iran war.
In a post on X, he blamed the unpopular war as the reason for the GOP’s losses.
"The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so.” Trump has conceded that the war affected the midterms, but he has also defended the decision to go to war.
Gingrich and others have argued the midterm drubbing has boosted Rubio’s chances of becoming the 2028 nominee.
Rubio, who also serves as Trump’s national security adviser, on Thursday dismissed reports that said he was planning to leave the Trump administration and was weighing a 2028 run for president.
Working for Trump until the end of his term has "always been my plan,” he told The New York Times. He declined to answer the newspaper’s questions about whether he was considering a run for the White House.
“I literally will not talk about 2028 anymore,” he said.
Does DeSantis Have A Chance?
While Vance remains the frontrunner, the odds of DeSantis becoming the 2028 nominee have surged on prediction markets in recent days.
As of Friday, he has an 18 percent chance on Kalshi, up from less than 4 percent on Monday, while Vance has a 34 percent chance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a 23 percent chance.
DeSantis’ odds have also risen on Polymarket, where he currently has a 13 percent chance of becoming the 2028 nominee, up from about 4 percent on Monday. Vance remains the frontrunner on the platform, with a 39 percent chance, and Rubio has a 19 percent chance.
Florida remaining a Republican bastion while other red states were unable to avoid the blue wave could boost DeSantis' standing should he make another run for the White House.
However, it remains to be seen if he could boost a more formidable bid after his last presidential campaign ended in early 2024 after he lost the Iowa caucuses by 30 percentage points to Trump.
A 2028 run comes with fresh baggage that could weigh him down, with opponents likely to bring up his administration’s misappropriation of taxpayer money. A Florida grand jury in August found his administration had "misappropriated" $10 million in taxpayer money it diverted to a charity connected to DeSantis' wife, though it declined to file criminal charges due to a lack of evidence indicating who specifically was responsible. DeSantis has said no laws were broken.
DeSantis’ critique of Trump and Republicans could also “ruffle feathers” within the Republican party elite, Panagopoulos told Newsweek.
“He appears to be patting himself on the back and trying to position himself as a GOP heir apparent, but his criticisms are likely to ruffle feathers within the Republican party elite and invite response and rebuke,” he said.
"It may be perceived as unsportsmanlike conduct, kicking the party when it's down. He also risks putting a target on his back by jumping ahead of the pack too soon, but there are some early mover advantages to consider. It's a tricky calculus.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Gray R. Thomas
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