All in the family? How Marco Rubio’s Senate seat could go to a DeSantis or a Trump

12 November 2024

President-elect Donald Trump may create an opening in Florida for a U.S. Senate seat, with his expected nomination of Sen. Marco Rubio to become Secretary of State.

In 2008, when Barack Obama became President-elect, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had the responsibility to fill Obama’s Senate seat. Blagojevich, later convicted of corruption, was infamously recorded saying, “I’ve got this thing, and it’s (bleeping) golden… I’m just not giving it up for (bleeping) nothing.” After serving eight years of his 14-year sentence, Blagojevich’s prison term was commuted by President Donald Trump in 2020.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who ran unsuccessfully, and, critics say, poorly, for the GOP presidential nomination, has some options, which include handing the seat to a Trump—or to a DeSantis.

Senator Rubio won re-election in 2022, and his six-year term does not end until 2028.

Should Rubio be nominated and confirmed, Gov. DeSantis would need to appoint a temporary seat holder who could choose to run in 2026 for the seat. The seat would also be up for election on schedule, in 2028.

In 2010, West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin declined to appoint himself to an open Senate seat and appointed his 36-year-old legal adviser instead. Four days later he launched a campaign to run for the seat, and won it that year.

DeSantis’s chief of staff, James Uthmeier, “could act as a caretaker in the Senate role until 2026,” CBS News reports. “This move would give DeSantis the option to run for the Senate seat himself in the 2026 special election, aligning with the end of his gubernatorial term.”

He could also appoint his Lt. Governor, Jeanette Nunez, to the seat.

Or, “DeSantis could work with Nunez to resign as governor, allowing her to ascend to the governorship and appoint him directly to the Senate seat, bypassing the need to wait until 2026.”

“There’s also speculation that DeSantis could appoint his wife, Casey DeSantis to the seat. Casey DeSantis has long been involved in state government and she enjoys wide popularity across the state.”

But there are other options.

U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) “is publicly calling for President-elect Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to be chosen to fill [the] Florida Senate seat — a sign of Trump allies potentially rallying around the pick,” Axios reports.

Lara Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, was handed another top position recently: co-chair of the Republican National Committee.

Before getting involved in politics, she was a producer for TV’s “Inside Edition,” worked on the Trump 2020 campaign, and spoke at Trump’s January 6, 2021 Save America rally that preceded the insurrection. She was also rumored to be interested in running for a U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina in 2021.

She has no experience in government.

But Talking Points Memo founder and editor Josh Marshall asks, “how much say does DeSantis even get over a replacement?”

“I think too,” he adds, “people are overlooking the distinct possibility that Rubio’s [appointment] is less about giving him [Secretary of] State than giving someone else his Senate seat.”

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