Another day, another sign that the Republican primary for governor of Florida will soon gain another entrant. Over the past 24 hours, the Ron DeSantis for Florida political committee blasted a text message targeting Republican supervoters in Florida. The message touted comments made by President Donald Trump’s de facto endorsement of Congressman Ron DeSantis. The message read:
“President Donald Trump endorses Ron DeSantis for Governor of Florida! Watch the Fox News interview here: http://rondesantis.com/trumpdesantis-2/.”
A spokesman for DeSantis confirmed that DeSantis’s federal campaign account, Ron DeSantis for Florida, paid for the message.
“We think it’s important that Florida conservatives know who their president supports,” said Brad Herold.
Screencap of the message from DeSantis
While Herold refused to discuss how many Republicans were targeted, the message went out early Sunday afternoon from an area code assigned to Brevard County, Florida. Calling the number back yields a message indicating that “an application error has occured.”
While some might question if the tweet by President Trump could legitimately be considered an official endorsement, DeSantis doesn’t shy away from it.
“If anyone wants to pretend this isn’t an endorsement, they can call the White House,” Herold said. “I think the president has been pretty clear about who he wants to be the next governor.”
Rumors of DeSantis’s imminent entry into the gubernatorial primary have come on gone before, but this is one of the first signs that he’s not shy about spending money on targeted outreach as he lays the groundwork for a potential run.