The Ron Desantis team calls on Florida lobbyists not to reset rep. Byron Donalds for the governor

Tallahasee, Fla.-Florida Governor Ron Desantis' political operation calls to state lobbyists and asks them not to support Rep. Byon Donalds, R-Fla. Its 2026 offer for governors has already laid more than 3 million US dollars, a large part of which comes from President Donald Trump's donors.

According to seven people who were familiar with the efforts to speak freely the anonymity, there are attempts to contain potential contributions from mainly lobbyists in Tallahassee into the Donalds campaign.

The congress member in the southwest of Florida announced his Trump-supported offer for governor last month, but it remains to be the prospect that Desantis' Ms. Casey would also jump into the race that would set up a GOP primary school in heavyweight and continue the long-term political proxy war between Trump and Desantis.

“They become much more aggressive when this thing progresses,” said an experienced Republican lobbyist who received one of the calls. “There are no threats or something direct, but occur.

When Florida is in his state legislative meeting for three weeks, the calls are a time when the same lobbyists desire not to support Donalds in order to sign the governor for her clients in legislative regulations.

“There is a tension among many because they try to use the border – signaled that they are with Donalds, how many will become without the anger of Desantis,” said another long -time Republican lobbyist Florida.

“A term that we hear again and again is” keep your powder dry “,” said the person, as the request not to donate to Donalds, is framed.

Both Desantis and Taryn Fenske, one of his best political employees, have announced according to one of the sources. Fenske did not give back any request that requested a comment.

Casey Desantis has not yet said if she wanted to run formally for the governor in 2026, but her husband has increasingly acted her as an important part of the success of his government, and she did nothing to publicly put down the idea of ​​a campaign when reporters asked.

“When you get on the street, take it,” she said last month, lending a cryptic turn of the baseball legend -yogi berra.

NBC News reported last month that Casey seriously thought about a run to replace her husband. A spokeswoman for Desantis' Political Operation did not give back any request that requested a comment.

In the past, Desantis has rely on a pressure campaign by the Tallahasee lobbyist to finance his political ambitions. During the Presidential Competition in 2024, his former chief of staff James Uthmeier, who is now the Attorney General – organized an extremely unusual agreement to obtain contributions to the Desantis' campaign of lobbyists.

This time, no employees financed by taxpayers are involved in the efforts.

Although followers of both sides of the potential GOP primary school aggressively attacked the other candidates on social media, no side of the others has not really addressed themselves. When asked, Donalds praised the work that Desantis did as governor.

Donalds quickly accumulated a war of war of $ 3.1 million, which, according to public records, was set by $ 1.2 million from his federal congress account and some remarkable donors from Trump's donation files. Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein contributed 1 million US dollars; Clive Fields, a health manager based in Texas, who was a desantis donor in the 2024 presidential pre-election before the support of Trump, donated $ 500,000. And Deborah Magowan, the widow of the former owner of the Giants in San Francisco, Peter Magowan, fought $ 150,000.

In addition, Donalds continues to have a separate federal super -PAC called Sunshine State Future Fund, which, according to records on campaign financing, was relatively resting, but did not have to disclose any contributions this year.

The electoral law in Florida allows the federal super-PACs in general to transfer money for the state candidates to transfer political committees, which means that there is a covert opportunity to give Donalds without the contribution becoming public. The next quarterly submission of Super Pac is only on April 15th.

A political committee at the state level associated with Desantis' political operation has $ 2.1 million in cash, according to the state campaign financing records.

Donalds and Desantis were once close political allies, but they had a failure when Donalds Trump supported in the Republican presidential code in 2024.

Desantis has so far publicly framed his wife's potential offer to replace him as a way to maintain and build her family heritage in the state's villa.

“She is someone who, I think, the Darm fortitude and the commitment to conservative principles,” Desantis told his wife in the last month. “Everything we have achieved would be able to go to the next stage.”