The warm-up campaign

Soon after winning reelection in November, the governor turned to building his national profile. He began traveling the country to visit with Republican activists, dine with donors, speak at events and promote a new book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”

Some of his travel was paid for by Friends of Ron DeSantis, a Florida political committee that supported his campaign for governor and reports its donors. The committee had more than $80 million on hand as recently as last month — money that is expected to be transferred to a federal super PAC supporting his presidential run.

Since November, that committee has received 17 contributions for political travel from nine donors. They include Maximo Alvarez, an oil and gas distributor, and Morteza Hosseini, a Florida homebuilder who has frequently lent his plane to the governor and has become a close ally.

But trips paid for by the nonprofit group, And To The Republic, do not appear in state records.

The group is registered as a social welfare organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the federal tax code, meaning its primary activity cannot be related to political campaigns.

Other prospective and official presidential candidates also have relationships to similar organizations, often called dark money groups because they are not required to disclose their donors.

The nonprofit’s founder, Sachs, said it was formed to promote “state policy solutions that are setting the agenda for the country” and described DeSantis as one of the first elected officials to “partner” with the group. Another of those officials, Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, has appeared at the group’s events in her home state — alongside DeSantis.

Other trips arranged by the group include the Feb. 20 stops outside Philadelphia and Chicago and the return trip to Tallahassee, on which DeSantis flew on a plane registered to a company run by Charles Whittall, an Orlando developer. Whittall, who gave $25,000 to DeSantis’ political committee in 2021, said that he uses a leasing company to rent out his aircraft, and that he did not provide it as a political contribution.

In March, he traveled to the Atlanta area on a plane owned by an entity connected to Waffle House, the Georgia-based restaurant chain. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Other potential DeSantis rivals have made headlines for their use of private jets. Both as South Carolina governor and as ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley faced criticism for flying on private planes owned by wealthy South Carolinians.

In 2020, Associated Press reported that donors gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in private air travel to Donald Trump’s fundraising committee. The donors included Ben Pogue, a Texas businessman whose father later received a presidential pardon.

Still, Trump — who owns his own plane — has repeatedly sought to draw attention to DeSantis’ travel, claiming the private planes were effectively campaign contributions and “Ron DeSantis is a full-time candidate for president.”