Largely ignored by Congress, DeSantis woos state lawmakers to help lift his campaign

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has the formal backing of five U.S. representatives, one governor, and exactly zero U.S. senators — a grand total of six endorsements from the nation’s top elected officials.

He’s also won the support of at least 259 state lawmakers.

The discrepancy is no accident.

As he tries to build support for his GOP primary campaign, DeSantis and his political team have undertaken a calculated and sustained effort to court the endorsement of state lawmakers, hopeful that politicians with little national profile but close ties to grassroots voters can best bolster the Florida governor’s candidacy.

The strategy — one that top campaign officials say is suited to DeSantis’ background and strengths as a politician — has yielded tangible results, particularly in key early states, and especially in comparison with his lack of support from better-known federal officials who have flocked to Donald Trump’s campaign.

To DeSantis officials, these state lawmakers serve as a rebuttal to the perception they’re losing the endorsement battle to Trump — and offer an important group of allies to help appeal to rank-and-file Republican voters across the country.

“These folks are people who are closest to our voters day to day,” said Sam Cooper, the DeSantis campaign’s political director. “So you talk about a presidential campaign and the scale at which we operate, we can’t talk to everybody. So you go out and get these lawmakers, they’re not congressmen, they’re not senators. They’re going to local Chamber meetings, they’re going to county fairs. That’s a way for us to reach our folks.”

Asked about the criticism over losing out on endorsements, including the vast majority of U.S representatives from Florida, Cooper scoffed.

“We’ve got the workers and the movers and shakers in these states,” Cooper added. “We’re running against Washington, not to be a part of Washington. So if that’s the biggest knock on us, we’ll take that all day long.”

The latest round of state-lawmaker endorsements came Wednesday, when the DeSantis campaign announced the support of 18 legislators from North Carolina. That followed an announcement last week of endorsements from 15 South Carolina state legislators.

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ENDORSEMENTS

In statements announcing their support, lawmakers offer a standard rationale for their endorsement, saying they think DeSantis is an impressive leader and represents the best choice for president.

In interviews, however, many of them offer a more detailed explanation, citing the governor’s electoral track record, his campaign’s diligent outreach efforts, even the presence of DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis.

They also cite his record in Florida — one many of them are familiar with as state-based policy makers themselves — and the governor’s own understanding of the issues as reasons for their support, arguing they share a vision for conservative governance that they don’t necessarily see from DeSantis’ Republican rivals.

“We need somebody who isn’t just one tweet away from the next topic,” said Iowa Senate President Amy Sinclair. “He knows what he’s talking about. He has a deep understanding of the things he’s working on.”

Sinclair was one of 37 Iowa state GOP lawmakers to endorse DeSantis in May, more than one-third of all the state’s 98 total Republican state legislators. The Senate president said she was “absolutely shocked” so many of the state’s GOP members were ready to back the governor, especially at such an early juncture of the race.

DeSantis has still struggled to rack up endorsements compared to Trump, whom the governor trails by significant margins in polls of the 2024 GOP primary. According to an 2024 endorsement tracker from FiveThirtyEight.com, Trump has the formal support of 10 U.S. senators, two governors, and dozens of members of the U.S. House, in addition to his own plethora of state House endorsements.

The former president undercut DeSantis in April, when most of Florida’s GOP congressional delegation backed Trump in the governor’s backyard. In interviews, some of those U.S representatives cited their personal relationship with Trump as a reason for their support of him, comments that underscored concerns within the Republican Party that DeSantis hadn’t done enough personal outreach with fellow GOP officials.

But even before he officially launched his campaign in May, DeSantis and his political aides have made a concerted effort to show a personal touch to state lawmakers. In interviews, many of them said they had received at least one phone call from the governor to talk, been asked to greet him ahead of stops on the campaign trail, or been invited to attend small gatherings with him.

DeSantis also made a point of visiting state capitals this year, including in Des Moines, Atlanta and Harrisburg, often visiting the Capitol buildings to meet with lawmakers. During one such meeting, in Atlanta in March, DeSantis and his wife met with Georgia lawmakers in the Capitol for two hours, according to GOP Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch.

About 25 to 35 GOP members attended, Gooch said, a number that impressed him given that the state’s legislative session had just ended and most lawmakers normally can’t wait to leave town.

“He really just opened up and was very sincere and genuine,” said Gooch, who noted that DeSantis didn’t need notes or the help of an aide to talk policy with them. “And I think everyone in the room left there somewhat surprised he was so easy to approach.”

Gooch has not endorsed DeSantis’ presidential campaign, saying in an interview that he was mindful that the state’s sitting governor, Brian Kemp, might enter the presidential race at a later time. But he was not the only GOP lawmaker who said DeSantis’ reputation for aloofness and curtness was belied by their own experience.

“We had heard this legend of Ron DeSantis and what an impersonal kind of a--hole he is,” said Jason Osborne, the GOP House Majority Leader in New Hampshire. “He’s awkward around people, doesn’t know how to talk, etc …

“So he shows up, gives a great speech, lots of standing ovations, and hangs out and talks to the crowd for an hour,” Osborne continued. “And everyone says, ‘Hey, what a cool dude.’”

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KINDRED SPIRITS

Osborne, who backed Rand Paul’s presidential campaign in 2016, is one of 50 New Hampshire legislators who have backed DeSantis. (The number is high in part because New Hampshire has 424 state lawmakers total, the most of any state.)

Osborne said about 20 to 30 Republicans met with the governor in May, a group the majority leader described as “fanboys and girls” of the way DeSantis managed the state during the coronavirus pandemic.

Among many of the state lawmakers who endorsed him, DeSantis’ response to the pandemic was the first time they learned about the governor, impressed with what they saw as a principled fight against many public health experts and federal officials.

When DeSantis meets with state lawmakers now, they say, the governor often tries to win them over not with offers of friendship or personal anecdotes but deep dives on key policies, offering advice about how to approach different issues and relating the discussion to what he did as governor — an approach lawmakers said was relatable to the challenges they themselves face in their own elected positions.

“He had real answers, real nuts and bolts solutions to real problems that we’re facing every day,” said Bill Gustoff, a GOP lawmaker from Iowa who endorsed DeSantis after the governor visited Des Moines in March. “And he had a blueprint for how to take that to the nation.”

DeSantis campaign officials say they recognized early on that the governor was good at talking public policy, liked to do so, and would naturally find an audience of kindred spirits with state lawmakers engaged in their own legislative fights. According to Cooper, the campaign’s political director, simply telling DeSantis that a certain lawmaker sits on a health care committee can prompt a 30- to 45-minute discussion between the lawmaker and governor on that topic alone.

“He is happy sitting and talking to state lawmakers about public policy in their states,” Cooper said. “He really enjoys it and is good at it.”

In June, DeSantis participated in a call with 100 or so state lawmakers who were members of the State Freedom Caucus Network, a group modeled after the Freedom Caucus DeSantis helped found in the U.S. Congress. Lawmakers quizzed him on a range of policy subjects, according to a source listening to the call, with the governor impressing many of them with a pledge to use executive authority as president to fire any member of the federal bureaucracy whom he thought was not doing his or her job.

The governor’s interest in talking policy comes across, to say the least.

“I get the sense that’s literally the only thing he likes to do,” Osborne. “Or if he doesn’t, I don’t know where he finds the time to do anything else.”

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ELECTIONS

Osborne said he also backed DeSantis because he thought the governor was best positioned to help the GOP win in next November’s elections, citing his nearly 20-point re-election win in Florida last year.

Other lawmakers said Casey DeSantis, a regular presence on the campaign trail, also encouraged their support.

“A lot of it is the fact that his wife is a strong voice,” said Ashley Trantham, a GOP state lawmaker from South Carolina. “And I feel like she’s going to be a strong first lady, and be more effective than President Trump’s wife, not to discount anything she did. But I just believe Casey is just going to be able to hit the ground running and demand the respect that position deserves.”

How much support from state lawmakers – or any endorsement from a politician – can ultimately move the needle with voters is a matter of debate. DeSantis, for his part, hasn’t been shy about touting their endorsements on the campaign trail: When he began his campaign in Iowa in May, DeSantis was often introduced at events by a state lawmaker, signaling to the audience that he had local support. At a press conference with reporters near Des Moines, he was also flanked by more than a dozen of them.

Sinclair, who said she is only volunteering to help the governor, said she plans to let people in her own political circles know which candidate she is backing.

“As a state lawmaker,” Sinclair said, “seeing him do that in his state, I want that for my nation as well.”