How relevant will DeSantis, Youngkin and other 2028 hopefuls be outside of the Trump administration?

During a busy week in the nation’s capital, away from the action, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis he had no trouble keeping his name in the political spotlight.

“This is a time for action. And a time for Washington, D.C., to deliver results for the American people. No more excuses for Republicans,” the two-term conservative governor and candidate for the 2024 Republican presidency while naming Florida. Attorney General Ashley Moody will succeed Senator Marco Rubio in the Senate.

two days before President-elect Trump gave a shout-out to his once-bitter GOP primary rival after the governor called for a special state legislative session to implement Trump’s long-awaited immigration crackdown.

“Thanks Ron, hopefully other governors will follow!” the president-elect said in a social media post.

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Because of the national profile he’s built over the past four years, the governor of one of the nation’s biggest states will likely continue to make headlines as he takes the lead on some of the nation’s most consequential issues.

The focus should help DeSantis if he ends up throwing a second straight GOP presidential nomination run in 2028, a race in which future Vice President JD Vance will be considered the clear favorite as the perceived America First and MAGA heir apparent to Trump.

“He’s got to do what he did in 2022, which is pick good fights. And he’s shown a lot of ability to pick good fights with the left both in Florida and nationally,” said Republican strategist David Kochel of DeSantis.

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“I think he’s going to be in demand to come and do things in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina,” said Kochel, a veteran of numerous GOP presidential campaignshe predicted, pointing to the three key early voting states in the Republican presidential primary.

“It wouldn’t change much from how he ran in the lead-up to his 2024 campaign. The problem was that he basically ran against an incumbent president. He didn’t have the wrong playbook. He had the wrong cycle.”

While the initial moves in the 2028 White House race will likely begin in the coming months, including some early state visits, most Americans won’t pay close attention until after the 2026 legislature, when the next presidential campaign formally begins. . And that’s when DeSantis will wrap up his second and final four-year term leading Florida, allowing him to focus 100 percent on a White House run if that’s in the cards.

But what about another high-profile Republican governor who likely has national ambitions in 2028?

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Virginia’s Constitution does not allow sitting governors to run for a second consecutive term, so Governor Glenn Youngkin will be out of the office in Richmond in a year.

Compared to DeSantis, who also enjoys large Republican majorities in his state legislature, which will allow him to continue enacting a conservative agenda, Virginia is a purple state where Democrats have a slight advantage in the legislature.

“It might be a little more difficult for Youngkin, a little more difficult for him to find ways to stay in the news” after he steps down within a year, Kochel suggested.

But Younkin predicted, “You’re going to see a lot of me.”

“We’ve had a very aggressive agenda for governor in the last 14 months,” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital in November. “But part of that agenda that I have is making sure we have (Lt. Gov.) Winsome Sears as our next governor. (Virginia Attorney General) Jason Miyares is back as attorney general and a super lieutenant governor that we’re going to choose. in our primaries”.

Youngkin, who galvanized Republicans nationwide in 2021 as a first-time candidate from the party’s business wing, edged out former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe to become the first GOP nominee in a dozen of years to win a gubernatorial election in the single change. A state that had been trending toward the Democrats for the previous decade. He could also end up in the Trump administration after his term in Richmond within a year.

“I told the president when I called him and told him that I wanted to finish my term that I would be available to help him at any time while I was governor and after,” Youngkin told Fox News Digital, referring to a call what did he do held with Trump right after the November election.

But if he doesn’t enter the Trump administration, another avenue for Youngkin to stay in the spotlight in 2026 would be to criss-cross the country on behalf of fellow Republicans running in the midterm elections. It’s a role Youngkin previously played in 2022, helping fellow Republican governors and gubernatorial candidates.

“He’s got to do the blocking and the gerrymandering, go state by state, help a lot of candidates, raise a lot of money for them. Get a bunch of governors elected,” Kochel suggested. “That’s the playbook for him.”

what’s up Nikki Haley, former two-term Republican governor of South Carolina and former US ambassador to the UN in the first Trump administration, who was the last challenger to face Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary?

Out of office and shut out of Trump’s world while still dealing with the president-elect’s social media fallout, Haley’s ability to command attention should she seek the presidency again may be a more difficult escalation within ‘a match once again kneeling for the first. and future president.

Haley has a weekly national radio show on Sirius XM, where she noted a few weeks ago, “I had no interest in being in (Trump’s) cabinet.”

But a lot can happen in the two years until the next White House race officially begins. There could be some buyer’s remorse among voters if the new administration fails to enact some of its goals.

“While JD Vance starts out as the presumptive favorite right now, there’s a million miles to go between now and then,” veteran Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News.

And Kochel added that for some Republicans mulling a presidential bid in 2028, “I think a little bit of strategic distance is not a bad idea. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen over the next two years.”

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But holding statewide office, whether as governor or senator, doesn’t guarantee favorable coverage.

“Having a day job cuts both ways. It gives you a platform, a megaphone, and the ability to make news whenever you want. But it also comes with the responsibilities of governing or legislating or being part of governing bodies, whether it’s Congress. or the state you run, where things can go wrong and end up at your door and become political baggage,” Reed noted.

Reed warned that “history is littered with those incumbents who ran and won for a second term only to have political baggage at home turn into political headaches on the campaign trail.”