Former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is viewed as his most likely political challenger, planned competing campaign events.
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Different times in 2020: President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida appeared together at a pandemic event then in Belleair, Fla.
Former President Donald J. Trump’s final run of midterm campaign rallies includes stops in Ohio and Pennsylvania, both key Senate battlegrounds. But a third event in Florida, where Republicans are heavily favored, will instead highlight the party’s political tensions as it looks to the 2024 presidential election.
A Trump rally in Miami on Sunday was scheduled to support Senator Marco Rubio, who is seeking a third term. But while polls show Mr. Rubio as a strong favorite, the rally has instead focused attention on Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is holding an event of his own elsewhere in the state on the same day. Mr. DeSantis is widely viewed as the leading Republican alternative to Mr. Trump in the party’s bid to recapture the White House.
Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have both downplayed suggestions of any rivalry between them, but the two men have struggled to play nicely in recent weeks. And the comparisons will be unavoidable on Sunday when they are scheduled to hold competing campaign rallies in their home state.
Mr. DeSantis, who is seeking a second term as governor, recently refused to say whether he would serve all four years if re-elected — even though Mr. Trump is widely expected to announce another White House campaign soon.
The former president, meanwhile, was noncommittal when asked during a South Florida golf tournament last week if he would campaign with Mr. DeSantis.
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
- A Pivotal Test in Pennsylvania: A battle for blue-collar white voters is raging in President Biden’s birthplace, where Democrats have the furthest to fall and the most to gain.
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- Biden’s Agenda at Risk: If Republicans capture one or both chambers of Congress, the president’s opportunities on several issues will shrink. Here are some major areas where the two sides would clash.
- Ohio Senate Race: Polls show Representative Tim Ryan competing within the margin of error against his G.O.P. opponent, J.D. Vance. Mr. Ryan said the race would be “the upset of the night,” but there is still a cold reality tilting against Democrats.
“He’s a nice man,” the former president said as he signed autographs. Pressed later in an interview with The New York Times on whether he would welcome the governor to the rally, Mr. Trump referred to his endorsement of Mr. DeSantis in 2018, which helped him win the primary. “Look, I got him elected,” Mr. Trump said. “I was the one who got him elected.”
Mr. Trump’s private discussions about politics after the midterms have often turned to Mr. DeSantis, whom he has mocked as overweight and insincere-sounding, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
There is also no potential primary rival who looms as large for Mr. Trump’s advisers as Mr. DeSantis does, given how many donors have made contributions to the Florida governor’s re-election effort at a time when Mr. Trump’s own fund-raising for his political committees has struggled.
ImageBumper stickers supporting both politicians in January. More recently, Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have been arguing over support for a Senate candidate in Colorado.Credit…Jill Colvin/Associated Press
Mr. Trump’s rally is scheduled for the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition. Before announcing the event, Mr. Trump’s team notified the Republican Party of Florida about the event and extended an invitation to all of the party’s officeholders.
But after the Trump rally was announced, Mr. DeSantis, who is a favorite to win a second term next week, instead sent a save-the-date to fellow Republicans for his own event, about 250 miles away near Tampa. The DeSantis campaign has not officially announced the rally, but it has booked the event hall at the Sun City Center, a community for older adults, according to people familiar with the planning.
The dueling rallies come in the wake of a phone call Mr. DeSantis recorded to build support for Joe O’Dea, the Republican Senate candidate in Colorado. “I’ve watched Joe from a distance,” Mr. DeSantis said in the call. “And I’m impressed.”
The call would have been unremarkable, except that it followed a public lashing of Mr. O’Dea by the former president, who was unhappy that the Colorado Republican said he didn’t want Mr. Trump to run again for the White House.
Mr. O’Dea also criticized Mr. Trump for saying he would pardon supporters who had been convicted in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “I wouldn’t give pardons to anybody that’s violent,” Mr. O’Dea said Sept. 18 on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We need to hold people accountable. That should never happen again.”
Mr. Trump slammed Mr. O’Dea a few weeks later, saying the criticism would cost him votes from Trump backers. “MAGA doesn’t Vote for stupid people with big mouths,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social.
But Mr. Trump’s warning didn’t deter Mr. DeSantis, whom the former president targeted for supporting Mr. O’Dea.
“A BIG MISTAKE!,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post on Oct. 23.
Three days later, Mr. Trump posted video of the talk show host Megyn Kelly saying she thought Mr. DeSantis had no chance to topple the former president in a hypothetical presidential primary.
“I AGREE!” Mr. Trump added.
Alan Blinder contributed reporting from Doral, Fla.
Source: nytimes.com
