Florida’s Secretary of State is the latest Republican voice to express enthusiasm about a potential Ron DeSantis run for President.
Cord Byrd, appointed to the position by DeSantis earlier this year, says the “Nation’s Governor” has “plenty of time” before any such run would have to begin.
“When I travel around the country and the state, people call him the Nation’s Governor. He’s going to continue to do great things for Florida and be an example to the nation,” Byrd told Fox News’ Harris Faulkner on Thursday.
“As he said yesterday, everybody needs to chill out. There’s still plenty of time for 2024 and we’re getting ready for the Legislative Session here in Florida and he’s going to continue to be a great Governor.”
Byrd’s use of the colloquialism “chill out” is no accident, as DeSantis used the same phrase in a Wednesday press conference where he knocked down questions about a so-called Republican “civil war.”
“We just finished this election. People just need to chill out a little bit on some of this stuff,” DeSantis said in Matlacha, noting Florida was a “bright spot” compared to a “substandard performance” elsewhere on Election Day.
“It’s been a long election. We’ve got the Georgia runoff. But for me, it’s like, ‘OK, what more do we need to do to continue to make Florida lead the way?’”
The questions for DeSantis and political allies will no doubt recur in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s launch of his 2024 campaign Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago, an event that had some added urgency given recent polls showing Trump losing to DeSantis in a series of hypothetical Primary contests.
Expect DeSantis to continue to stake out the high road.
“I think some of this stuff gets overdone in some of the media,” DeSantis told a friendly questioner in Fort Walton Beach Tuesday, even as he offered a contrast between Florida and GOP performance elsewhere in the country there too.
“At the end of the day, I would tell people to check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night. The fact of the matter is it was the greatest Republican victory in the state of Florida.”
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