The unofficial 2024 GOP primary continues to heat up, mostly featuring former President Donald Trump battling someone who hasn’t even announced his entry into the field yet. Trump recently made some rather pointed (and probably unwise) remarks about his new home state of Florida under DeSantis’ leadership, calling it “among the worst states” to live in. He also copied some attacks made by his own critics, claiming that it’s hard to raise a family or find economic opportunity in the Sunshine State. This quickly drew some criticism from conservatives as well as liberals. But the Never Back Down PAC, formed to support a potential DeSantis presidential bid, went one step further. Their spokesperson said that they will kick in some money to help pay for Trump to move to California so he can be closer to “his good buddy Gavin Newsom.” (NY Post)

A super PAC formed to boost Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid said it will chip in to help Donald Trump move to California — after the ex-president ripped his home state in a series of attacks.

“Donald Trump has so deeply disparaged the state of Florida by calling it the ‘worst state,’ we … will help him leave by offering financial assistance to help him move to his beloved California,” Chris Jankowski, CEO of the Never Back Down PAC, said Saturday in a tongue-in-cheek statement.

There, Jankowski added, Trump “can be close to his good buddy Gavin Newsom, whom he loves so intensely and gets along with so well.”

Since nearly everyone expects DeSantis to jump into the race sooner or later (though I’m not personally 100% convinced that he will),  seeing some infighting between these two is nothing unusual. This is just Trump being Trump. As far as Ron DeSantis goes, he comes off looking a bit better by remaining above the fray and letting his PAC do the mudslinging for him.

But with that said, Trump really did seem to commit an unforced error by talking Trash about Florida and DeSantis’ specific leadership actions there. He tried to walk back his comments a couple of times in the days following his remarks, but they’ll be alive on the internet forever. Calling Florida a terrible place to live at this particular moment in history could come back to bite him hard. DeSantis remains very popular in his home state and Florida appears to be thriving.

If Trump does manage to win the nomination next year (and the current polling strongly suggests that he might), some of Florida’s more moderate voters may well remember those remarks. And whether the Democratic nominee is Joe Biden or someone else, they will be sure to remind Floridians of this on a regular basis. DeSantis should be able to carry Florida easily, but it might not be a given for Donald Trump. And if you manage to lose Florida in a presidential race, the climb to 270 electoral votes suddenly becomes much steeper, perhaps impossibly so.

Keep in mind that Trump only carried Florida by 3.4 percent in 2020. Just two years later, DeSantis walloped Charlie Christ by just shy of 20 points. This doesn’t mean that DeSantis can necessarily reproduce that sort of result in the rest of the early primary states, But every Republican in the race needs to stay on Florida’s good side. And while we’re on the subject, President Trump might want to stop talking about what a great guy Gavin Newsom is. It’s conceivable that he might wind up running against him in the general election.