GOP Governors Gear Up
With Trump’s 2024 campaign uncertain, Texas’s Greg Abbott and Florida’s Ron Desantis have their own White House ambitions
Texas’ Abbott and Florida’s Desantis Position Themselves for the White House
When Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced plans for a crowdfunded Texas border wall to be jump-started with a $250 million infusion from the state budget, it was clear that he was taking aim at a perceived weakness by the Biden administration on immigration.
But to many Republicans and political observers, the latest salvo in Abbott’s gubernatorial reelection campaign was also an unmistakable public signal that with uncertainty surrounding another Trump run, Abbott has presidential aspirations of his own.
The moves thus far have involved beefing up the team around the governor, but with an eye on early primary contests. Abbott’s team members reached out to at least one Republican strategist in Iowa to consult on the governor’s race from afar, with the idea being that they would then have someone already in place in Iowa in the future, Newsweek has learned. The operative declined a request to confirm the outreach because they weren’t “interested in helping the media.”
Andrew Hemming, the former rapid response director for the Trump administration and director of research for the 2016 Trump campaign, also moved to Texas and has been consulting on the reelection campaign, a move which Republican operatives followed with interest.
“That to me makes it clear he’s gearing up for a presidential run,” Bryan Lanza, a former Trump campaign official told Newsweek. “Andy doesn’t need to work, he could consult the campaign from afar, but he literally moved to Texas.”
On the topic of Iowa outreach, Lanza said “Abbott’s folks are reaching out to people he knows.”
In addition to the wall announcement, Abbott last week called a special session of the Texas legislature slated for July 8 to again push for a restrictive voting law that Democrats temporarily delayed by walking out last month.
Abbott’s focus on pushing through his priorities, and those of the former president, has reminded those in his party of the influence the governor of Texas, who stewards one of the largest economies in the world and thus has always had an outsize influence on the Republican Party.
“Whoever is the governor of Texas is always going to be a front-runner,” said Artemio Muniz, the chair of the Texas Federation of Hispanic Republicans. He argued that Abbott has stepped in where Democrats have left a vacuum through Biden policies and Vice President Kamala Harris’ delay in visiting the border.
Abbott’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment. John Wittman, his former communications director, told Newsweek possible presidential ambitions are “a question that really only Greg Abbott can answer.”
Still, Wittman sketched the importance of Abbott’s role nationally within the party.
“He’s governor of the largest Republican state in the union and governor of the state with the longest border, more than Arizona and California,” Wittman told Newsweek. “Texas has always been a leader, and Abbott is showing that.”
Many previews of the 2024 Republican landscape have included a dif
ferent governor as a front-runner, however, with Florida’s Ron Desantis gleefully engaging in hot-button culture war issues such as what universities are teaching and an “anti-riot” law, which increases law enforcement’s ability to crack down on protests.
Desantis recently signed a law that would survey state colleges and universities annually on the “extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented” and whether faculty, students and staff “feel free to express their beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom,” according to the legislation.
Such moves, including the passing of Florida’s own law to limit voting, have thrilled many conservatives and chilled Democrats worried about an ascension of Desantis to national prominence.
“The only thing standing between Ron Desantis and the GOP nomination in 2024 is Donald Trump,” Florida-based Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi told Newsweek, “but first he has to win re-election in Florida.”
“If he loses he could be knocked out of the presidential sweepstakes,” Amandi said. “But if he wins it could add rocket fuel to his front-runner status.”
A Trump ally who has visited with the former president at Mar-a-lago since the election said Desantis is a front-runner, and that while Abbott has made “good moves lately” he was “terrible” during the pandemic lockdown, likening him to Democratic governors who “didn’t have the guts of Desantis” to open up their states.
“Right now it’s Trump or Desantis as far as I can tell,” the source said, adding that “a lot can change, but I don’t think there’s one other viable candidate.”
If Trump decides to run himself, that could lead others with bright futures to look to avoid getting bloodied. A Politico article on June 28 quoted a GOP consultant close to Desantis who said the governor is “very wary” of eliciting the former president’s rage.
“I don’t see Desantis getting in if Trump’s running,” the source who has spoken with Trump told Newsweek. “He’s a young guy, there’s no reason to make all those problems for himself and make enemies.”
As for Abbott, he’s clashed with President Biden on COVID-19 policy. When Texas and Mississippi ended mask mandates in March, Biden called it “Neanderthal thinking.”
Lanza called Abbott a “Tier 1” candidate in a strong position to run because of the donor money available in Texas and his leadership.
Still, Lanza remembers his own dreams of being in line to be a senior member of Georgia governor George Allen’s presidential team in 2005. Allen was briefly the odds-on favorite for the GOP nomination in 2008.
“I caution the Abbotts and Desantises of the world to not look too far down the football field, of having presidential ambitions and watching them get derailed,” he said.
“I caution the Abbotts and Desantises of the world to not look too far down the football field.”