Mother Florida

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois (1860). Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon of California (1968). Hubert H. Humphrey (1968) and Eugene Mccarthy (1972) of Minnesota. John Lindsay and Shirley Chisholm of New York (1972). Pete Dupont and Joe Biden of Delaware (1988). Paul Simon and Jesse Jackson of Illinois (1988). Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio of Florida (2016). Kirsten Gillibrand and Bill de Blasio of New York (2020).

And now Donald J. Trump, Ron Desantis and maybe Rick Scott and Marco Rubio of Florida — presidential candidates from the same state at the same time. Florida, modern mother of presidents. It’s no Virginia, with eight presidents — and four of the first five chief executives. Not exactly Ohio either, with seven. Massachusetts had four, with two unsuccessful nominees in the 21st century alone.

But Florida — which never has sent a president to Washington — has a resident former president and a pack of ambitious presidential candidates. Trump is firmly ensconced here, and Desantis definitely is girding for a campaign. The Florida governor is one of the few Republicans who have not foresworn a campaign if Trump decides to run in 2024 — despite Trump’s taunts Desantis owes his career to his endorsement four years ago.

This potential intrastate struggle shines a bright light on the coming of age of Florida as a vital political state.

For decades, the Sunshine State was a political backwater. A century ago, it had fewer than oneseventh the electoral votes of New York, a state it recently surpassed to become the third biggest prize in a general election. Nebraska had more power in the 1924 election than did Florida.

In those days, nobody cared about Florida politics. Hardly anyone campaigned here. It didn’t much matter; it voted Democratic in every election but one from 1880 (when it went for Winfield Scott Hancock) to 1948 (when it sided with Harry Truman). Its only importance in national politics was as the staging ground for the marauding of Andrew Jackson (attacking the Seminoles); as the place where Franklin Delano Roosevelt was almost assassinated (in a 1933 attack just before Inauguration Day); and where presidents (including Warren G. Harding, FDR, Truman, John F. Kennedy, Nixon and George H.W. Bush) sought relaxation and fishing.

In the Truman years, his Key West cottage was known as the Little White House. After Kennedy defeated Nixon in 1960, the victor flew south from Palm Beach to meet the vanquished, and amid rumors the defeated candidate might win a role in his rival’s administration, they met at the Key Biscayne Hotel. That position never materialized, but their session was cordial.

Now Florida is a different sort of political staging ground. In this century, it’s been a vital part of presidential politics, its electoral votes often swinging a political contest (as it did in 2000 for George W. Bush) or providing an important election night signal of the country’s direction (as it did for Trump in 2016). Since 2008, Florida has voted Democratic twice and Republican twice.

The New Deal-era Federal Writers Project guide to the state characterized Florida as “at once a pageant of extravagance and a land of pastoral simplicity, a flood-lighted stage of frivolity and a behind-the-scenes struggle for existence.”

Now the behind-the-scenes struggle for existence occurs in the old bridal suite of Mar-alago Trump, operating as a modern ward heeler, transformed into a Republican power center.

There, in a mansion built a century ago by Marjorie Merriweather Post, the former president is attempting to be a kingmaker in races — secretary of state, governor, senator — across the country. Candidates come beseeching Trump for his endorsement. Some win it, others return home empty-handed. The first test of the value of his endorsement comes in about 10 days, when in the Ohio GOP Senate primary, the Trump-endorsed candidate, J.D. Vance, faces former state Treasurer Josh Mandel and investment banker Mike Gibbons.

Desantis once was one of those supplicants. No longer. The governor is respectful of Trump but at the same time is trying to remain independent of him, regarding him the way Georges Clemenceau of France regarded Prince Bismarck: “a dangerous enemy but perhaps a more dangerous friend.” He wants maximum latitude to make his own decision about a presidential race rather than to respond to the former president’s moods, inclinations and plans. It’s a difficult maneuver, a bit like encountering an angry alligator in a Florida swamp: Don’t play dead, but get out of the way.

]Trump today is mostly a man of talk, Desantis a man of action. The governor is appealing to the Trump base with his defiance of mask and vaccine mandates, his support of Don’t Say Gay legislation and his signature, just this month, on legislation banning abortion after 15 weeks. On Monday, he praised the rejection of 54 math textbooks for including banned social topics. The next day he took on Disney’s special status in Florida.

In a conventional era, he would be set up to inherit the base created by a formidable figure, like Truman did from FDR in 1948 and George H.W. Bush did from Reagan in 1988. But this is an unusual time in the American passage, and Trump as the lion in winter still covets a national roar.

Florida is, at the very least, the mother of potential presidential candidates. Florida has voted for the winner in 21 of the 24 elections since 1928. Who emerges as a force in Florida could travel a long road outside the state.