{"id":232333,"date":"2026-04-15T05:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/232333\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:51:12","slug":"byron-donalds-says-ron-desantis-wanted-him-to-chair-florida-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/232333\/","title":{"rendered":"Byron Donalds says Ron DeSantis wanted him to chair Florida GOP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A gubernatorial endorsement didn&#8217;t help way back when.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Gubernatorial candidate\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/byrondonalds.com\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Byron Donalds<\/a> hasn\u2019t gotten <a href=\"http:\/\/RonDeSantis.com\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Ron DeSantis<\/a> to endorse him yet, but the current Congressman described a time when the Governor wanted him for a job he was unable to secure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">During an interview with podcaster\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mJvfh1VG9ig\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Katie Miller<\/a>, the Naples Republican described the \u201chumbling\u201d experience of DeSantis wanting him to helm the Republican Party of Florida, which did not come to pass.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWhen Governor DeSantis was elected back in 2018, we had a conversation and he asked if I\u2019d be interested in becoming state party Chairman of Florida,\u201d Donalds said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cAnd I said, okay, I think that\u2019s something I could definitely do to help the party and help him to be successful. And I had to run in my local county to become the Chairman of the local executive committee in order to be eligible to be voted on to become party Chair for the state of Florida. I lost the election.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ultimately, Sen.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnc.org\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Joe Gruters<\/a>, who chairs the Republican National Committee, became state Chair from 2019 to 2023, replacing the now-DeSantis-appointed CFO Blaise Ingoglia. Like Donalds, Gruters is a Trump loyalist.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cflpublicaffairs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external noreferrer nofollow\" data-wpel-link=\"external\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-680168 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CFPA-Digital-Ad-Sunburn-728x90-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Donalds said that his relationship with DeSantis was \u201cfrayed\u201d last April, given that the Congressman endorsed Trump for President over DeSantis.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For his part, DeSantis has questioned Donalds\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/721224-trump-donalds-desantis-casey-byron-ron\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">ideological purity<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cYou got a guy like Byron Donalds, he just hasn\u2019t been a part of any of the victories that we\u2019ve had here over the Left over these last years. He\u2019s just not been a part of it,\u201d DeSantis said in February of last year.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">DeSantis hasn\u2019t endorsed anyone in the race for Governor. Donalds is the prohibitive front-runner at this point, way ahead in polls and fundraising. First Lady\u00a0Casey DeSantis had teased a run, but time is running out to launch, especially against a Trump-backed candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A gubernatorial endorsement didn&#8217;t help way back when. Gubernatorial candidate\u00a0Byron Donalds hasn\u2019t gotten Ron DeSantis to endorse him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[445,28,30,29,103925,57601,412],"class_list":{"0":"post-232333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-byron-donalds","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-katie-miller","13":"tag-republican-party-of-florida-rpof","14":"tag-ron-desantis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}