When then-President Donald Trump endorsed then-Rep. Ron DeSantis for governor of Florida in 2018 over a team of Republican rivals, it proved to be one of the most consequential endorsements of his political career.

After winning a razor-thin election that year, DeSantis went on to win reelection in a landslide four years later. At the same time, the Republican Party in the state was fundamentally transformed. Trump carried the state by a healthy 3-point margin in 2020, and after 2022, the Democratic Party was shut out of state government, relegated to a meager number of state representatives and senators amid a GOP supermajority.