Ron DeSantis coy on future political plans, warns 2026 will be tough for GOP

Ron DeSantis isn’t committing to making another run for the presidency, saying he’s “got to run through the tape” and cautioning that it would make little sense to plan too concretely in such a dynamic environment.

“Doing things nationally, all this other stuff; you know, who knows? Things change so fast in this day and age. Two months ago seems like a lifetime ago. Think of all the new things we’re talking about right now with what’s going on in the world and everything just in the last two months. And so who knows how all this stuff evolves?”

DeSantis is an afterthought in most presidential polling these days, with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio the only Republicans getting consistent traction.

Yet he warns that the mid-term elections will be tough for his party.

“I think the way the winds are blowing currently, I don’t think it’s insurmountable, but I do think it’s a challenge,” DeSantis said.

As he has before, he suggested the GOP has accomplished little legislatively despite controlling both houses of Congress since the second election of Donald Trump.

“Politics is cyclical. Politics is, what have you done for me lately? Politics is anytime you rest on your laurels, something can happen very quickly. So I think the midterms nationally, there’s obviously headwinds, you’ve got to figure out ways to overcome it as Republicans. If I were advising people in Congress, I would say, well, one way you can maybe change the narrative is actually get off your rear ends and do something for a change because they’re not doing very much,” he said.

As he has before, he fretted that future candidates may not have the gumption to carry on his record of conservative reform, and that voters won’t reward them.

“You’ve got some of these people in (the Republican Party) who … want to stop what we’ve done, and they want to kind of go back to the way things used to be or go in a different direction. And I think those candidates are going to have much more trouble being able to win primaries and general elections,” DeSantis predicted.

DeSantis made the comments Wednesday at West Palm Beach’s DeSantis Family Chapel.