President Donald Trump publicly supported the republican offer of the representative Byron Donalds by the governor of Florida in 2026.
Donalds has not yet announced, but NBC News reported last month that he is telling donors that he will apply for the seat, who is being unoccupied by Republican Ron Desantis, who is limited to term.
Donalds is among the greatest supporters of the Trump Congress, and Trump’s support was expected to support, even if the public support show came before what many anticipated.
“Be good byron, I’ve seen it tested at the most difficult most difficult levels, and it’s a total winner!” Trump published in Truth Social on Thursday. “As governor, Byron would have a great voice and work in close collaboration with me to advance our first United States agenda.”
While no important candidate has been formally presented to run for the governor in 2026, both Donalds and Casey Desantis have been seen as potential favorites of the Republican Party. Casey Desantis, Florida’s first lady, earlier this month, said she was considering a career, a perspective that was openly discussed in an event of donors in Palm Beach County, as NBC News reported.
Trump’s support is a great victory for Donalds. Trump won Florida for 13 percentage points, lives in the state and is widely seen as the most powerful influence on the republican policy of the State.
In recent days, Desantis himself has been making calls, even lobbyists with customers with customers with headquarters in Tallahassee before his administration, about his wife’s potential for the governor, two people familiar with conversations He told NBC News.
“I was beginning to make calls about this,” said a donor who spoke with Desantis directly. “I don’t know if that changed the Byron timeline at all, but the sitting governor was beginning to make calls, it seems to have really made this race.”
The Desantis office did not return a request for comments.
Desantis had been looking for a candidate to support in 2026, something that the most current probable field, except for his wife’s entrance, did not offer.
He and Donalds have disagreed after Donalds backed Trump in the 2024 presidential primaries, and the State Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, another rumored candidate, has fought with Desantis for a series of problems, immigration more recently.
It is not clear how Trump’s support will affect Casey Desantis’s thinking process in the execution in 2026, but some see it as something that could be repeated in the race.
“She will have to process things and go through the stages of pain, but ultimately they will decide that she is not going to run,” said a veteran lobbyist of the Florida Republican Party. “Trump has just won this state by 15 points and desantis in a national election. They know that their brand cannot take another loss against Trump. ”
Beyond Trump’s explicit support, Donalds earlier this week announced a list of supporters of the Republican Heavyweight Party, the names that Trump expanded in Truth Social. The list included the mega donor from southern Florida, Max Álvarez, the lobbyist Brian Ballard, who has close links with Trump and Desantis, the secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent, the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, and the billionaire of Tech, David Sacks, among others.
Trump also included a survey that showed Donalds with a dominant advantage in a hypothetical career 2026.
Some in Trump’s orbit continue to see Casey Desantis through the lens of a rivalry for a long time between Trump and Desantis. Trump supported the first offer of Governor of Desantis in 2018, which gave him a great impulse, but some defenders of Trump saw Desantis run for president in 2024 as a betrayal.
