President Trump’s support for Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis helps the tea-party conservative outflank the right wing of GOP front-runner Adam Putnam. | AP Photo Trump endorses DeSantis for governor via Twitter

TALLAHASSEE — President Donald Trump shook up the race for Florida governor on Friday by giving what amounts to an endorsement of Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis despite White House denials that the president would get involved with the race.

Trump’s support for DeSantis helps the tea-party conservative outflank the right wing of GOP front-runner Adam Putnam, who is Florida's agriculture commissioner. Putnam is sitting on a $15 million heap of campaign cash.


“Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!” tweeted Trump on Friday afternoon after watching a Fox News clip of the congressman.

DeSantis’ team had been hoping for Trump’s endorsement ever since he and his fellow congressman, Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), flew on Air Force One with the president to and from Pensacola earlier this month for a campaign-style stop where Trump endorsed Alabama's Roy Moore for Senate.

On the flight, Trump told DeSantis, “You’re my guy,” and promised to help him, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. The sources said that, when DeSantis asked Trump to get casino magnate Steve Wynn to help with fundraising, Trump said it would be no problem, and led DeSantis to believe he would tweet an endorsement the following day.

So, last week when POLITICO called the White House about the promised tweet, an official said “no commitment was made” and that Trump only called DeSantis “a great guy.”

DeSantis has been expected for months to enter Florida’s governor’s race, which was rocked Wednesday by the resignation of former state Senate budget chair Jack Latvala in a sex-for-votes and sexual harassment scandal.

A political committee has already been set up to house contributions from traditional DeSantis donors. Along with raising money from past donors, it has inked monthly retainers with prominent consulting and fundraising firms.

The committee, Fund for Florida’s Future, is led by Erika Alba, a Jacksonville attorney who has done political work for DeSantis in the past. That includes running a super PAC that supported DeSantis’ failed 2016 Senate bid. That federal super PAC, Fighting for Florida's Future, has already given $300,000 to the state-level political committee.

Overall, the committee has so far raised $2.1 million, including a huge $500,000 from Frederick Sontag, who founded a private equity firm in DeSantis' hometown of Ponte Vedra Beach. Sontag gave that same amount in 2016 to the pro-DeSantis super PAC.

Last month, the committee also signed a monthly retainer agreement with Macadamia Strategies, a Washington-based consulting and strategy firm. It now also has an “initial fee and monthly retainer” with HMB Strategies, a Tallahassee-based fundraising firm used by, among others, state Senate President Joe Negron.

The endorsement of DeSantis comes after Putnam attempted to both brand himself as closely aligned with the president and to fill his campaign’s email list with Trump supporters. In its formative stages, Putnam’s campaign funded a digital strategy with a very pro-Trump message. His Twitter account regularly churned out messages asking people to sign up if they “Stand with President Trump.”

But Putnam, who has already raised nearly $20 million, has been viewed as a moderate Republican, one of who has made a career of politics. So the turn to courting anti-establishment Trump was viewed as calculating by longtime Florida political observers.

“Adam Putnam just did a spit take,” said one GOP operative just after Trump’s tweet.

Trump’s endorsement has increased speculation that Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran might run for Florida Attorney General instead of making a gubernatorial bid.

Trump tweeted the endorsement only minutes after landing at the Palm Beach International Airport at 1:34 p.m. on his way to Christmas break at his exclusive Mar-a-Lago club. Just before the plane landed, Fox news had been featuring a segment with DeSantis, according to a White House press pool report.