Op-Ed: DeSantis Says He Won’t Run with Trump – But Should He?

Could Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis share the 2024 Republican presidential ticket? Would they? And are their chances better together than apart?

DeSantis indicated yesterday that he would not join Trump: “I don’t think so. I’m not a No. 2 guy,” he told the Wisconsin Right Now podcast.

But DeSantis is not the first candidate running in the shadow of a presumed nominee to make such a statement. “Kamala Harris used humor to swat aside the chatter about her becoming Joe Biden’s running mate: Maybe it should be the other way around, she said [in May 2019], given Biden’s experience in the No. 2 job,” Politico noted once upon a time.

Donors might be leery of cutting checks to anyone they perceive as an eventual vice presidential candidate. Only the DeSantis campaign knows whether or to what extent this has become an issue for him. But if the past is prologue, it remains too early to rule anything out.

Trump may serve only one more presidential term. So, if he wins re-election with DeSantis as his vice president, DeSantis would be the top Republican candidate in just four years, presumably with Trump’s full support.

Otherwise, DeSantis would damage his brand head-to-head against Trump, who, politically speaking, publicly waterboarded Jeb Bush, Florida’s last governor-turned-presidential candidate who opposed him.

As it stands, Trump remains the clear leader of both the Republican primary and the party itself. His campaign raised over $35 million last quarter, about 75 percent more than the $20 million DeSantis raised. (Super PACs for each candidate have raised and spent much more.)

DeSantis, for his part, won Florida in 2022 by a record 19.4 points. He also won Miami-Dade County by 11.3 points, an “unthinkable” loss for the Democrats in one of their historic strongholds. DeSantis thus showed deeper inroads with African-Americans and Latinos than Trump did in 2020.

Such are the assets Trump and DeSantis each has that the other needs to (re)take the White House.

Trump, for example, needs a running mate who appeals to voters he would otherwise miss. Republicans come to mind who served in Trump’s administration and whom he holds dear — John Ratcliffe, Ben Carson, Michael Flynn — but none have won a statewide election or held a top executive position.

DeSantis is also a relative outsider, perceived as unbeholden to and largely uncompromised by the D.C. establishment.

Simply put, DeSantis is the most appealing and viable of Trump’s possible choices. And Florida, where DeSantis remains the very popular governor, has 29 Electoral College votes, more than a tenth of the 270 required to win.

DeSantis, in turn, needs Trump’s Republican majority if he is ever to have a serious shot at the presidency. Opposing Trump in 2024 hurts that goal. In contrast, four years of networking and learning on the job as vice president would be an asset. George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon were both elected president after serving as vice president.

An argument is also to be made in the GOP’s must-win anti-establishment circles that Trump is now wiser to “the swamp” than could be expected of anyone new to the office. Trump has the benefit of experience while DeSantis would be more susceptible to the kind of political maneuvering that vexed Trump his entire term. Everyone likely expects that on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump, with many scores to settle, would clean house much more deeply than would DeSantis.

But DeSantis, 44, has at least one other advantage Trump lacks at age 77: the option to wait to enable a later, stronger presidential bid.

On the one hand, a man older than DeSantis found his relative youth a liability against a strong, 73-year-old Republican with stage experience. When questioned about his age and perceived lack of acuity compared to Democratic nominee Walter Mondale, Ronald Reagan famously responded: “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

As a vice presidential candidate, however, DeSantis’ youthfulness would complement Trump’s age and provide a clear line of succession beneficial to the GOP.

But could the two run and work together? Each has jabbed the other.

Trump has referred to his rival as “Ron DeSanctimonious” and said he needs a “personality transplant.” DeSantis has seemingly compared his governorship to Trump’s White House: “We don’t have palace intrigue. We don’t have any drama. It’s just execution every single day.”

Neither has pledged to support the other if the other wins the nomination.

But such spats often get resolved. Trump derisively nicknamed, then reconciled with, a few politicians. And Trump and DeSantis would not be the first to butt heads and then run together. In 2020, then-presidential contender Kamala Harris confronted Joe Biden on segregation, then became Biden’s running mate.

Ultimately, the Trump and DeSantis campaigns will decide this issue. Surely it is on their radars. The question is not merely whether they should run together but, if they do, when to announce it.

Separate campaigns offer early advantages to court wider voting blocs and test more policy positions. But waiting risks escalating friendly fire past the point where primary supporters accept an opponent-turned-running mate.

What should Trump and DeSantis do, and when should they do it?

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