Florida Gov. By the beginning of January, Ron DeSantis, who claimed his company has already begun vetting some potential candidates, will continue to do so over the coming days, said he is likely to make a choice on Marco Rubio’s U.S. Senate seat.
Rubio, a Miami local, is likely to withdraw before Trump takes office on January 20 because President-elect Donald Trump chose him as his nominee for U.S. secretary of state next week.
DeSantis stated that his company has already sparked” a lot of interest” from a number of potential candidates, but he did not specify who might be in the Senate. Also, a handful of finalists have been formally floated among state and national Republicans in recent days, including Trump’s daughter-in-law, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.
Another possible candidates include DeSantis ‘ chief of staff James Uthmeier, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, retiring Florida House Speaker Paul Renner, and former state House Speaker Jose Oliva.
” Florida deserves a Senator who will help President Trump deliver on his election mandate, be strong on immigration and border security, take on the entrenched bureaucracy and administrative state, reverse the nation’s fiscal decline, be animated by conservative principles, and has a proven record of results” , , DeSantis said in a post on X.
DeSantis has the authority to appoint a temporary replacement by appointing a replacement for the seats until the next often scheduled general election is held in 2026 under Florida law. In order to be eligible for a full expression, the appointee would need to get once in 2028.
Lara Trump, the wife of Trump’s subsequent son Eric, has perhaps the most outspoken help from the president-elect’s friends. U. S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida , formally backed her , for the job last year, echoing another staunch Trump supporters in Congress, like U. S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna.
Lara Trump has said that she’s open to taking Rubio’s seat if she’s asked to do so but that she has n’t yet heard from DeSantis.
” If I were tapped for this, serving my house state, then, of Florida, it’s a great pride and a great obligation, naturally, but I would like to be able to go forward and do more”, Lara Trump, a North Carolina local,  , told Fox Business ‘ Maria Bartiromo in an interview last year. Lara and Eric Trump now live in Jupiter, Florida.
Uthmeier, who is the governor’s chief of staff and was DeSantis ‘ presidential campaign manager, is also a name that has been floated. He has not yet made a public admission to his interest in the position, but he is viewed primarily as a candidate who would be more in line with DeSantis ‘ world than Trump.
___
© 2024 Miami Herald
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.