Topline
Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has raised over $218 million in his reelection campaign, according to campaign financial disclosures filed Friday, seen by the Financial Times, shattering an all-time gubernatorial fundraising record and further suggesting a likely 2024 presidential run.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has raised $218 million in his reelection bid, the Financial Times … [+]
Key Facts
DeSantis’ $218 million breaks former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman’s fundraising total of $176 million in her failed 2010 California gubernatorial bid, and Illinois’ billionaire Gov. JB Pritzker’s $176 million raised in 2018.
That’s more than 12 times more than his Democratic challenger, former Florida Rep. Charlie Crist has raised, which as of Friday was $17 million, according to the campaign finance website FollowTheMoney.
DeSantis had planned to raise $200 million in his campaign, nearly four times the $58 million he raised during the 2018 campaign, a source close to DeSantis told CNN in July, with any leftover money from the gubernatorial campaign allocated to a super PAC, which does not impose a cap on contributions.
DeSantis has dodged questions about a potential 2024 presidential campaign, which could put him on a primary path against former President Donald Trump.
Trump still has not committed to running, but told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday he would have “no prohibition against running” even if he is indicted in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into classified documents he took to his Florida home at Mar-a-Lago.
Key Background
DeSantis was elected in 2018 on a pro-Trump platform, and came into the national spotlight for his denouncing of Covid-19 mask mandates, a hard line on immigration and repeated interviews on Fox News. Tensions between DeSantis and Trump have grown in recent months, however, as the Florida governor refuses to say whether he’ll run for president, and after Trump called out his response to rising Covid-19 cases last winter, when the state became the epicenter of the omicron outbreak. In April, DeSantis told the podcast “Ruthless” he regretted not speaking “much louder” against Trump’s calls for pandemic-related lockdowns. Polls have been mixed on Republicans’ preferences in a hypothetical 2024 match between DeSantis and Trump. A YouGov hypothetical poll released last month showed DeSantis down one point to Biden (36% to 35%), while Biden, who has said he still plans to run, is leading Trump by three points (39% to 36%). Some 55% of Republican voters in a July Emerson College poll said they would support Trump as the GOP nominee in 2024, over DeSantis (20%) and former Vice President Mike Pence (5%). A University of New Hampshire poll released in June, however, showed 39% of Republicans want DeSantis to run over Trump (37%).
Tangent
The Florida governor made headlines Wednesday when he took credit for two planes carrying 50 Venezuelan migrants to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, off Cape Cod, as part of a wider Republican initiative to ship undocumented immigrants from the Mexican border to “sanctuary” communities in blue states. Airport officials told Forbes they had no notice there would be migrants on the charter planes, which made several refueling stops on their path from San Antonio, Texas, including one in Crestview, Florida, according to the flight tracking FlightAware. DeSantis had appropriated $12 million from Florida’s budget to ship migrants north, including to President Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware.
Further Reading
Rep. Crist Resigns Before Face-Off With DeSantis: Key Loss For Democratic House (Forbes)
DeSantis Raises Over $100 Million For Reelection—Will It Fund A 2024 Presidential Bid? (Forbes)
Ron DeSantis breaks fundraising record for US governor’s campaign (Financial Times)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2022/09/16/desantis-breaks-fundraising-record-will-it-fund-a-2024-presidential-run/