ORLANDO, Fla. – Will Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis run for President again in 2028?
He could, said longtime UCF History Professor and News 6 Political Analyst Dr. Jim Clark, but must learn from his failed 2024 bid.
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“He still has millions of dollars in his account and so he still could afford to travel around the country, he still could afford to make speeches,” Dr. Clark said.
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And DeSantis would have to capitalize on his next - and last - two years in the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee and the national attention it brings.
But will he?
“Here’s a man who in a year has gone from someone that people thought would be moving into the White House to a lame duck governor,” Dr. Clark said. “Because he cannot succeed himself as governor, there doesn’t seem to be any office in Florida [for DeSantis], if he ran for Senate he’d have to take on Marco Rubio which is no easy chore.”
DeSantis announced his run for President in May of 2023 on the social media platform X.
The announcement was glitchy and haunted the DeSantis campaign, yet the Florida governor chose the same platform to announce he was suspending his campaign Sunday afternoon.
“Just last week he admitted that he had made a mistake in dealing with the media, he had focused entirely on Fox News and conservative media and had shut out the mainstream until late in his campaign,” Dr. Clark said. “And last week he said that was a mistake.”
DeSantis will be distracted by mounting lawsuits, Clark said.
“He’s got a bunch of them in higher education, drag queens, to State Attorneys including the Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell,” Dr. Clark said. “And of course the biggie: Disney. So that’s going to occupy a lot of his time and a lot of State taxpayer money.”
Public records show of the 242 days DeSantis campaigned for president, he spent 102 days out of state. Dr. Clark said that did not hurt the Florida economy.
“We continue to grow, people are moving here as they have of the last 50 years and there’s no sign that that’s slowing down,” Dr. Clark said.
But neither DeSantis nor his legislature have been able to tame skyrocketing property insurance rates.
“I think he’s going to need to address that,” Dr. Clark said.” There have been two special sessions that were supposed to address this which did not address it. Insurance rates keep going up and up and up. It’s going to be interesting to see if the legislature can somehow come to grips with this.”'
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