Might Gov. Ron DeSantis not run for president after all?

The machinery of a national presidential campaign is all in place for Gov. Ron DeSantis, with his committee raising tons of cash and a book tour taking him across the U.S.A.

While his bid for the White House was once an almost foregone conclusion, some troubling signs for DeSantis over the past few months have led an increasing number of political experts to wonder if he won’t seek the White House after all.

“I never thought it made sense, and still don’t, for him to [take on] Trump,” said Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee consultant and anti-Trump Republican-turned-independent. “[If] he loses the nomination, he’s damaged goods, perhaps beyond repair.”

In the past month alone, DeSantis’ poll numbers against former President Trump have slipped even in Florida, and he’s been criticized for his stand on Ukraine and fight with Disney. U.S. Rep. Cory Mills of Central Florida and three other Florida GOP House members have endorsed Trump over the man whose controversial congressional redistricting maps largely secured them their jobs.

Trump’s reelection campaign has been repeatedly attacking him for spending Florida taxpayers’ money on “globetrotting” and demanding that he resign and announce his run. Of late, Trump urged the Republican Florida governor he called a “young man” to be patient and wait his turn.

“And Trump is right,” Stipanovich said. “DeSantis would finish his second term in 2026, and he could just come right out of that into a presidential campaign [in 2028] without missing a beat. And that is clearly, to me, the percentage play.”

David Jolly, a former GOP congressman from St. Petersburg and founder of the Forward Party, agreed that DeSantis was facing harsher headwinds than expected. But, he said, 2024 might still be DeSantis’ best chance to become president.

“In politics, timing is everything,” Jolly said. “And even though he’s trailing Trump, he’s got one of the hottest hands in American politics right now. … I think he has to make a run at it.”

The suggestion that DeSantis might not enter the race seemed extremely unlikely just a few months ago when many political pundits assumed the governor would cap a productive legislative session by making his big announcement sometime in the late spring or early summer.

But instead, DeSantis has drawn largely negative national headlines for controversial bills to ban drag shows and a six-week abortion ban, schools pulling books on Anne Frank and Roberto Clemente and textbooks rewriting the story of Rosa Parks.

And what once was his go-to applause line, his taking on the “woke” Disney corporation, turned to embarrassment as the company apparently outmaneuvered his appointees to take control of Walt Disney World’s future development.

The bad press DeSantis has faced includes headlines such as, “Is DeSantis ready for prime time?”, “Is DeSantis flaming out already?”, and “What happens if DeSantis takes a pass on 2024?”

‘[It’s] apparent how flawed DeSantis was as a national candidate, and that is becoming more apparent with each passing day,” Stipanovich said. “… DeSantis is obviously unlikable. And the more he’s front and center, I suspect the less likable he’ll be.”

Trump’s lead over DeSantis in national polls has only grown since Trump’s March 30 indictment by a Manhattan grand jury.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released earlier this month showed Trump with 57% to DeSantis’ 31% among GOP voters in a one-on-one race. In a poll including other candidates, Trump led DeSantis 52% to 21%.

A national polling average unveiled Wednesday by the website FiveThirtyEight has Trump ahead of DeSantis 49% to 26%.

Most concerning for DeSantis, however, are polls showing a close race in Florida.

A Mason-Dixon poll released last week gave DeSantis a 44% to 39% lead over the former president among registered Republican voters in a GOP primary matchup. But a Victory Insights poll on Monday showed DeSantis trailing Trump in the state, 35% to 43%.

Potential challengers to DeSantis in the anti-Trump lane are also lining up, with U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, announcing an exploratory committee on Wednesday. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy have already announced their candidacies.

Jolly said DeSantis was able to take advantage of Trump’s relative absence from the political scene after leaving the White House. But those days are over.

“In a Trump vacuum for a year, DeSantis was able to climb the polling ladder,” he said. “… [But] when Trump decided to turn up his efforts, six or eight weeks ago, you saw the Trump effect within the party is somewhat permanent. So I think that’s where the [possible] counsel to DeSantis is, that there may not be a way to overtake Trump.”

DeSantis is also quickly losing the support of Florida Republican members of Congress, including some who benefited from DeSantis’ redistricting maps.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, was the first to endorse Trump for president in 2024, followed by freshman U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-St. Petersburg. Last week, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples, endorsed Trump as well.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-New Smyrna Beach, was the latest to back the former president, telling Time magazine, “right now the person that we need to be unifying behind is President Trump.”

At the same time, Trump has continued attacking DeSantis while also seemingly giving him an opening to opt out of a presidential bid.

His campaign has been repeatedly criticizing DeSantis for his national book tour, calling it “a month-long, taxpayer-funded presidential campaign schedule paid for by Florida taxpayers” and filing a federal complaint.

The Trump camp argued Monday that DeSantis’ campaign-in-all-but-name was violating Florida’s “resign-to-run” law, which states an officeholder must submit their resignation in order to run for another office.

“Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to campaign full-time for president, during the Florida legislative session, while collecting a salary and having the taxpayers pick up the costs for his travel and security,” said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.

But Trump also attempted reasoning with DeSantis, “a young man who is not doing well against me in the polls, to put it mildly,” he wrote on his social media site on Monday.

If DeSantis runs, Trump wrote, “he will lose the cherished and massive MAGA vote, and never be able to successfully run for office again. If he remains Governor, which is what Florida voters assumed, it would be a whole different story…”

J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said while DeSantis is struggling somewhat now, that could easily change.

“The primaries are going to be very much a state-by-state thing,” Coleman said. “… If we get to a situation where Trump ends up underwhelming in his first few primaries, then I can see that media narrative shift, and quickly.”

Jolly said all the signs still point to a DeSantis run, including outside committees stocking up on hires, a pro-DeSantis political committee raising $30 million in March and his travel expanding overseas to Japan.

“But if all the smart people in Republican circles say DeSantis should wait?” Jolly said. “He could take a pass and be the leader of a political committee and draw a salary from that for a very long time. … He can then see how ‘28 looks, but also be able to make some money for his family. So you know that has to be a pressure that’s building on him.”

No matter what he decides, Stipanovich said, DeSantis now sees the cold reality of a possible run against Trump.

“When it was all theoretical, people were rubbing their hands with glee,” Stipanovich said. “It seemed so inviting. And then it got real, and it turned out to be not such a fun ride after all.”