(FiveNation.com)- Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has already been mentioned as a strong candidate for president in 2024.
Now, a recent ruling from the Federal Election Commission could sway him even more to throw his hat in the ring.
Just last month, three commissioners with the FEC said they didn’t find any evidence that Republican Representative Byron Donalds broke the law that intends to prevent money that’s raised for a state elections campaign away from federal elections.
That decision could have a monumental impact on DeSantis, who has raised a ton of money for his gubernatorial re-election campaign that he could have at his disposal for a potential run for president in two years.
Recently, lawyer Brett Kappel spoke with CNN about this topic, saying:
“Every time the FEC deadlocks on one of these innovative financial structures, it’s a big neon sign saying, ‘Do this! You can get away with it!'”
People who run for political office in Florida prefer to raise money through political committees that are registered with the state. That’s because, just like super PACs, these state-registered committees have no limits imposed on them on how much they’re able to receive in donations from one entity.
Just last week, Florida Politics reported that DeSantis has received in excess of $3.6 million just through the middle of June through both his political committee and campaign accounts. That brought the total amount of money at his disposal to more than $114 million.
Since that total is a lot more than any of his Democratic challengers have at their disposal, it’s likely he’s going to have a lot of that money left over. The sheer fact that he’s been raising so much money in a race that likely won’t take a lot of money for him to win has caused many people to believe that DeSantis has much higher political aspirations.
In fact, one of the people who is involved in fundraising for Republicans in Florida said that DeSantis could raise $200 million during this election cycle. Yet, he won’t even need half of that amount for his efforts to get re-elected.
While DeSantis was initially well behind former President Donald Trump in polls forecasting who the GOP nominee would be in 2024, he’s started to close the gap in recent months. Neither Trump nor DeSantis have officially announced their candidacy for president yet, but both are widely expected to do so at some point in the future.
In preparation for that, CNN cited sources who said that DeSantis’ campaign team has begun to investigate how they might be able to take funds they have raised for the governor’s re-election campaign and spend it in a federal election campaign.
One source told CNN that, “It can be done.” And another source said:
“I think that’s totally the plan. It would be ludicrous of anyone to try to dissuade you that it’s not what’s happening.”
Through the end of May, Trump’s Save America PAC has raised $106 million, giving him a potentially large war chest as well for his potential election campaign.
