It's tempting for those of us who were Ron DeSantis acolytes to engage in an "I told you so" binging party, but that is pointless and counterproductive. 

Many people are doing it anyway, because that is how people roll. When things go bad, finger-pointing begins, and the people who can do it always do, rightly or not. 

The truth is that we can't really judge counterfactuals, and all Republicans should be pleased with some things Trump did and disappointed with others. We have no idea what the election would look like if DeSantis had won in 2024, and it doesn't matter now anyway. Trump is president, and you dance with the one who brought you. 

However, the 2028 election IS something we can affect, and until last night everybody was talking about an epic battle between J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, but after last night a third name has resurfaced: Ron DeSantis. 

I didn't just make that up because he was my favorite in 2024. The chatter isn't just on X, either. People are putting their money where their mouth is, for whatever that is worth these days.

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In the betting markets, J.D. Vance's numbers dropped, and Marco's have remained stable today, but Ron DeSantis jumped from nowhere to 15 percent in just a few hours. A man who had been counted out, and I think rightly so, is now suddenly back in the mix as people wonder whether an association with Trump will be a positive or a negative in 2028. 

As Texas and a number of Red states turned blue, Florida remained a beacon of Red, and people rightly attribute that to DeSantis' record. 

🚨 WOW. Gov. Ron DeSantis is GOING OFF right now post-blue tsunami:

"I see the ad, 'so and so voted against releasing the Epstein Files.' I'm like, that's a bad vote. We ran as Republicans saying we need to do that. And you have people in Congress voting against release when the Attorney General said she had all the all this horrific stuff on her desk and that people are gonna be held accountable?!"

"It's untenable when you have people going in trading stocks! I've never traded stocks since I've been in elected office. How do you have no investment acumen, and then all of a sudden get elected to Congress, and then you're outperforming Warren Buffett?"

"I saw how they were running and it was a rejection of what was going on in DC."

I am SO thankful Florida held the line. We avoided some of the MOST horrendous US House wipeouts (still losing some) and our statewide remained red. The legislature is still red

2028 is our only next chance to make a dent in this.

Everybody is pointing fingers, also rightly, at J.D. Vance's analysis of the election, and taking sides on whether he is right or wrong. The same is true of DeSantis, who has not been shy about sharing his views on why Republicans lost. 

Governor DeSantis SLAMS Trump for taking us to war in Iran and gaslighting voters!

“He obviously ran saying he wasn't going to do a middle east war and they did. 

So we had some of our voters who've checked out because they're like I didn't want any more middle east wars and now we're doing it And what's happened is it's kind of an open-ended conflict and it's having a direct impact on people's finances. Gas is higher. It hurts people, working class people and it's higher because of this conflict. That's just a fact. If you can't admit that to voters then  you're gaslighting them and they're not going to listen to you on other things.”

Both DeSantis and Vance attribute the loss to the war in Iran, but it's unclear whether they are drawing the same lessons from it. Vance is pointing the finger at Israel as the problem; DeSantis is pointing the finger at Trump. DeSantis doesn't have the same longstanding hostility to Israel as Vance, and that makes a big difference. 

One of the main reasons why DeSantis stands out to many of us is that he always focuses on the end goal and executes competently. He is not averse to taking ideological stands, but he always leads with competence first, and by doing the basics well he earns trust on the peripheral issues, or at the very least people who disagree with him are willing to give him slack. 

Governor DeSantis BLASTS Kristi Noem for bungling mass deportations and turning it into a shit show for her own glory.

DeSantis BLASTS Congressmen like Byron Donalds for making millions on the stock market.

DeSantis BLASTS Alina Habba for getting a $10 million government contract and securing a presidential pardon for her boyfriend.

“If the people in office don't display some civic virtue about public service as a sacrifice. It's not to use the public office for private gain. 

I declined the pension in Congress. I declined the health care. I didn't trade the stocks.

And I believe in congressional term limits. I mean, imagine if you went to the American people and actually tried to get that done. That's not right or left. That's something that a lot of people realize.. These guys work for themselves. They should be working for you.”

I see a lot of people I follow, many of whom were lining up on Team Rubio, at least tentatively, taking a hard look at DeSantis again and thinking, "hmmm."

I share the same feelings as all these people, with one caution: the day after an election in which you got thrashed is not the right time to set your opinions in stone. It's not too early for the players to make their cases, although Rubio is in no great position to do so given that he is an appointee, but it's too early for any of us to get too set on one narrative or another. 

We should drop our priors and reevaluate. I liked DeSantis before, I like him now, and I will like him in a year. But whether he is the best candidate in 2028 is still an open question. 

One thing is clear: we are going to spend too much time pointing fingers and not enough time poking through the data in the coming months. Trump folks will insist that we lost because of squishes; Trump skeptics will blame him for everything. Vance folks will blame Israel. Everybody will argue too much from their priors and not enough on the evidence. 

That's just the way politics is, for better or worse.