DeSantis enters presidential race, where does that leave Palm Beach County politicos?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has launched his presidential bid, and Palm Beach County politicos, many who live only miles from former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, have mixed feelings about it. Most aren't ready to commit, and some don't plan to.

Those who have committed to DeSantis so far are local legislators, state Reps. Peggy Gossett-Seidman and Mike Caruso. U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, who represents the northern part of the county, was one of Trump's earliest endorsements. The rest of the county's local leaders are undecided, or staying out of it.

DeSantis' official announcement has been a long time coming, since his rise on the national stage through his "culture wars," telling people that Florida stayed open during the pandemic and touring for his recent memoir. According to many polls, he's the top contender for a Republican primary against Trump.

Palm Beach County GOP leaders taking a wait-and-see approach

But DeSantis now being officially in the race puts local Republican leadership in a precarious position to be as neutral as possible between the two candidates, said Joe Budd, founder of the Club 45 fan club that renamed itself Club 47. For now, Budd anticipates that the party will be divided until the primary is done, and then it will unite for the chosen candidate.

"A lot of people love both DeSantis and Trump. It's going to be a heavyweight battle," Budd said. "We're going to favor DeSantis or Trump over the rest of the field, that will be the bottom line."

For now, the local Republican party is also staying out of the fight, said Kevin Neal, the local party's interim chair. The local party organizes volunteers and fundraising for local candidates and helps with campaigning for Republican general election candidates. Neal said it goes against the county party's rules to back a candidate before a primary.

"If Trump, DeSantis or another Republican wins the primary in Florida, we the Palm Beach County REC will support the winner and make sure they will win in Florida," Neal said.

Jorge Garrido, founder of the Hispanic Vote of Palm Beach County, said that the local GOP will be divided between the candidates, but having two Florida Republicans in the race makes Florida much more important.

Garrido said that Trump has solid support from his base and that he may be the most popular with the Hispanic community, but it's "Trump's race to lose" if another candidate successfully acquires more support from on-the-fence Republicans and traditional conservative voters. He's still mixed on who to support. While admitting that DeSantis is a strong contender, he questions his lack of foreign policy experience.

"There's so much happening that things will change ...," Garrido said. "When the primaries begin, I think it will be Trump and DeSantis, one and two. I don't think the other candidates have a chance, but I think Trump is the guy to beat."

Some said they feared a DeSantis-vs.-Trump competition, knowing that it could become "messy," said Willy Guardiola, who has organized Trump roadside rallies for years.

Guardiola said that DeSantis should have waited until 2028 and backed up Trump in 2024, but he's not taking a side now. He said he's focused on supporting the most "pro-life" candidate, and he was happy with DeSantis signing a six-week abortion ban and had a problem with Trump saying that it was "too harsh."

"I'm stuck in the middle waiting to see how it plays out," Guardiola said. "Bottom line is that I'm not a happy camper right now with these two phenomenal candidates right now running against each other."

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Could DeSantis see a boost in the polls after officially entering the race?

DeSantis has been charting high in national polls for a Republican primary, sometimes bypassing Trump but more recently trailing him. Polling this far out of a race may not be too reliable, but it does represent name recognition, said Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political science professor and pollster.

With his Wednesday announcement on Twitter, DeSantis may see an uptick in the polls since he's getting a lot of media coverage, Wagner said.

While multiple candidates from the same state have faced each other before in presidential primaries (U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio was a candidate in 2016; former governor Jeb Bush dropped out during the primaries), Trump and DeSantis also could be battling for Palm Beach GOP donors.

"I think with the former president already being in the race, I think Palm Beach County was already going to be a pretty significant player in the presidential campaign," Wagner said. "It's one of the major fundraising stops for both parties."

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Will recent legislative session help DeSantis outside Florida?

While Florida Republicans had massive conservative victories from the most recent legislative session, including a six-week abortion ban and permitless carry legislation on guns, those policies may be tough to swallow for on-the-fence Republicans and independent voters. That's why DeSantis' blueprint of making Florida fit for the rest of the country could be a mistake, said Nikki Fried, Florida's former agriculture commissioner who lost a Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2020 to Charlie Crist and is now the chair of the Florida Democratic Party. She said Florida Democrats are using the policies to highlight "Florida extremism that now plagues our state."

"We're going to make sure that Floridians know that as (DeSantis) has taken these extreme policies to the country on the backs of Floridians, Florida is suffering," Fried said. She cited the state's property insurance and housing affordability crisis as examples, and also said that DeSantis' controversial anti-immigration measure, requiring most employers to use E-Verify to verify immigration status, would "cripple our economy" and bring a huge hit to the state's construction industry.

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DeSantis has prepped for a presidential run, and Palm Beach County is critical to it

As DeSantis' popularity has grown the past few years, he's gotten attention from GOP donors, particularly in South Florida.

The governor frequently holds donor retreats in the South Florida area, particularly in Palm Beach and Miami. In February, he held a three-day donor retreat at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, with about 150 people attending. It included policy discussions and remarks by the governor.

In March, DeSantis went on the road to tout his book "The Courage to be Free," a memoir that explored how Florida can be a blueprint for "America's revival." He also made stops in early primary states Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

That same week, DeSantis kickstarted a conservative policy group's Palm Beach retreat at the Breakers. He spoke to the GOP donors of the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group, about how he turned Florida into the "nation's leading red state." Trump was not invited to the retreat, held just down the road from Mar-a-Lago, and instead spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland.

DeSantis had continually pointed to his successes in leading a political shift in Palm Beach County in the midterm elections, since he won with 51.2% of the vote in a traditionally blue county against Democrat Crist.

On top of that, DeSantis already has a donor presence in Palm Beach County that has contributed to his fundraising. He has the support of Republican megadonor and billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who has a place on Palm Beach. In February, DeSantis also got $2 million from Christopher and Jude Reyes, who reside in West Palm Beach and own Reyes Holdings, the world's largest distributor of Coca-Cola bottling and the McDonald's supply chain.

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Trump versus DeSantis, Florida lawmaker endorsements

The DeSantis and Trump feud already began before DeSantis even announced his run. Just last week, 99 Florida lawmakers were listed as endorsing DeSantis, per a list released by Never Back Down, the main super PAC backing DeSantis for 2024.

But Trump has acquired support from most of Florida's congressional delegation aside from U.S. Rep. Laurel Lee, who was Florida's past secretary of state and appointed by DeSantis.

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Palm Beach County state legislators Caruso, Gossett-Seidman and Sen. Gayle Harrell were all included in the list of Republican state legislators supporting DeSantis. Caruso, a Republican who represents the district home to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, called DeSantis a "strong leader for the state of Florida," and he said that he'd want to see that leadership extend to Washington, D.C.

"I've enjoyed serving under him for the last four years," Caruso said. "I think he's done an outstanding job. I think that he is a strong leader and has worked well with the Legislature, to make Florida a free state that is thriving and is leading the nation."

Stephany Matat is a politics reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY-Florida network. Reach her at smatat@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County politicos divided after DeSantis presidential announcement