Trump Plays Kingmaker Over Florida’s House Delegation

MIAMI — President-elect Donald Trump has raided Florida’s political leadership for top roles in his administration. Now he’s shaping Florida’s congressional delegation in his own image.

Trump over the last few days endorsed Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Republican state Sen. Randy Fine for the House, both before either man made a congressional run official. The endorsements are widely considered to be the coveted golden ticket to getting elected in Districts 1 and 6, respectively, given their deep-red electoral makeup.

“If someone wants to run against the president-elect of the United States, who is the first Republican since 2004 to win the popular vote, good luck — I’ve seen the ending to this movie,” said Miami Commissioner Kevin Cabrera, who was Trump’s Florida state director for his 2020 presidential campaign.

Trump won Florida by 13 points this month and has been picking politicians from his adopted home state to fill out his Cabinet. His butting into the race early is expected to all but anoint two new House members and ensure the picks will be loyal to his agenda.

It also sets up a potential collision course with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump in the 2024 GOP primary. DeSantis himself won Florida by 19 points two years ago, and this election cycle he defeated amendments on abortion and pot legalization — the latter of which Trump supported.

DeSantis has already been tasked with appointing a new senator given that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is expected to be confirmed easily as the next secretary of State. Lately, DeSantis has come under increasing pressure from MAGA world to pick Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump, who co-chaired the Republican National Committee, but DeSantis has said he’s interviewing multiple people for the job and is likely to announce a decision in January.

Spokespeople for the governor did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s endorsement of Fine was expected given how the then-state representative’s support marked a turning point in the Republican presidential primary.

Fine had initially endorsed DeSantis but then, a couple of weeks after Hamas’ attack on Israel, he penned a scathing op-ed in the Washington Times that accused the governor of not doing enough to fight antisemitism in Florida. As part of the piece, Fine flipped to Trump, and several other state lawmakers soon followed.

Fine would run in House District 6 to replace Rep. Mike Waltz, who Trump tapped to be national security adviser, while Patronis would run in House District 1, which was former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s seat before he resigned to be considered for attorney general but ultimately withdrew.

For Patronis, the question of Trump’s endorsement was more open ended. Patronis stayed neutral in the Republican presidential primary until DeSantis dropped out and also has made several overtures to Trump and his supporters in his current job. In January, for instance, he tried to endorse a plan to have the state pay $5 million toward Trump’s legal bills — though DeSantis quickly shut it down.

Patronis indicated on Monday that he would run, and doing so would likely take him out of the running for governor in 2026, another race where Trump has shown keen interest in playing kingmaker.

The primary for both races is Jan. 28, and the general election is April 1. The moves by Trump have already led to a dizzying flurry of activity for Florida Republicans with predictions that more could possibly be in store. “There may be more pieces of this puzzle we don’t see yet,” said one senior Florida Republican official who was granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing intrigue.

Before Trump made his favorite known, other Republicans who wanted to run for Gaetz’s seat were jockeying for Trump’s attention through calling people they knew on the campaign or getting endorsements from Trump allies. At least eight had announced they’d planned to jump in.

Fighter pilot Jeff Witt, for instance, made his run official on Monday by going on Trump-favorite Fox News and got the immediate backing of Students for Trump. The campaign for state Rep. Joel Rudman put out a release on Friday that highlighted how supportive he was of Trump’s agenda. State Rep. Michelle Salzman, who filed her candidacy last week but withdrew Monday, made it clear for days that she would not stand in the way of any candidate Trump wanted.

“Politics is an ever-changing chessboard,” she said in a text after Trump endorsed Patronis. “Our first priority as elected officials should be our constituents. If we put them first, we all win! Jimmy has been endorsed by the leader of our party and that should be enough for us to get behind him.”

Like most members of the Florida Legislature, Salzman and Rudman had endorsed DeSantis during the GOP presidential primary.

Should Patronis make a run official, then DeSantis would get to select his replacement for CFO. He could appoint someone as a caretaker for the job. But at least eight Tallahassee insiders that includes operatives, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations, have floated state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, a DeSantis loyalist. Ingoglia recently acknowledged to POLITICO that he was “seriously considering” running for the seat anyway in 2026.

Appointing someone like Ingoglia would help line up a challenge in 2026 to state Sen. Joe Gruters (R-Sarasota), who has already filed to run for the position and has the Trump endorsement — but is a longtime DeSantis foe.

Gruters stated he wasn’t going anywhere, whether appointed to the job of CFO or elected to it in 2026. Gaetz chimed in over social media Monday, saying he too was behind Gruters.

Jamie Miller, a GOP political strategist for Gruters, predicted that Trump’s endorsement would carry the most weight in the 2026 CFO contest regardless of who enters the race. If the governor were to ask him for advice he would tell him to practice “the politics of addition” by appointing Gruters to CFO.

“Gov. DeSantis has to figure out his path past 2026, and in some ways that’s going to be in the shadow of Donald Trump,” he said. “I would suggest he pick up the phone and call the president and work together with him on it.”

Gary Fineout contributed to this report from Tallahassee, Florida.