Far from united behind him in 2016, the state’s Republicans have coalesced in hopes of retaking the state for the president in 2020

Back in October of 2015 when Joe Gruters threw his support behind then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and began working on his campaign, the Sarasota Republican was a lonely figure among Florida’s GOP leaders.

“I was a rare breed,” Gruters, a state senator who took over as chairman of the Florida GOP earlier this year, said recently in recounting his decision to join the Trump team early on.

Trump’s support among Florida’s GOP elite was almost nonexistent back then. Many were backing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush or U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for president.

Even after Trump won the GOP nomination for president, it took time for some Florida GOP leaders to come around. Some heartily embraced the future president, but others offered lukewarm support. A few kept their distance entirely.

Former U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, a Republican who represented a sprawling district that includes southern Sarasota County, issued a press release denouncing Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape came out and said he would not vote for him, citing Trump’s comments on the tape about using his celebrity to grab women by the genitals.

But Trump won the presidency and now commands strong support among both grassroots Republicans in Florida and the state’s elected GOP leadership. That was evident last week when Trump came to Orlando to kick off his reelection campaign.

The days when few Florida GOP leaders could be found at Trump rallies are long gone. Now they are eager to appear publicly with the president. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott both joined Trump in Orlando, as did Rubio and a slew of GOP congressmen and state lawmakers.

Trump gave shoutouts to everyone from Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis to U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho. Trump praised DeSantis multiple times, including for signing a bill banning so-called sanctuary cities.

“Thank you governor Ron for ending that ... disaster,” Trump said.

The event was yet another example of how Trump has reshaped the GOP — including in Florida — in his own image.

Rubio once called Trump a “con artist” but is now fully behind the president.

“It’s vital that we need to come together and show President Trump we’re all in for 2020,” Rubio said in a fundraising email last week.

Rubio’s appearance at the Trump rally last week attracted some attention, with some political observers — including one of Rubio’s former campaign advisers — noting how much animosity there was between the two men during the 2016 campaign. Trump mocked “Little Marco” and Rubio returned fire, calling Trump a “lunatic” and lobbing a range of other insults at him.

Max Boot, who worked on Rubio’s presidential campaign as an unpaid foreign policy adviser, wrote in a Washington Post column it was jarring to see Rubio turn into Trump’s “fan-boy.”

A lot of tough things are said during primary campaigns, but Rubio was particularly aggressive and seemed to have genuine concerns about Trump’s fitness for office.

Regardless, Rubio has been inching closer to the president for some time now and has worked closely with him on issues such as the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Rubio put out a sarcastic tweet this week in response to New York Times podcast host Michael Barbaro’s observation that it’s “Very strange, for those of (us) who covered 2016 campaign, to see Sen Marco Rubio smiling and chuckling in this audience” at Trump’s Orlando rally.

“BREAKING In an unprecedented move a Republican Senator attended a rally in his home state in support of the re-election of a Republican President,” Rubio tweeted in response.

It’s certainly not unusual to see a president’s party rally around him as he gears up for a reelection battle. But Trump is an unconventional president who has had fraught relationships with leaders in his own party.

Trump won in 2016 despite some cracks in GOP party unity. But he is expected to have a tough reelection fight, with multiple polls currently showing him trailing Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden in Florida.

It will benefit Trump to have the full force of the Florida GOP — from the top down — behind him.

“Now everybody’s coalesced around him and that’s the difference between us and the Democrats, they’re fractured with 24 candidates and we’re united behind Trump,” Gruters said.