Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said a replacement for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, likely won’t be named until early January.
The move gives DeSantis time to consider a broader range of candidates.
“We have already received strong interest from several possible candidates, and we continue to gather names of additional candidates and conduct preliminary vetting,” DeSantis posted on X. “More extensive vetting and candidate interviews will be conducted over the next few weeks, with a selection likely made by the beginning of January.”
Trump won’t take office until Jan. 20 and the timing of Rubio’s confirmation by the Senate is unknown.
Rubio isn’t up for reelection in the Senate until 2028. Under state and federal law, DeSantis can name his replacement for two years, when a special election will be held for the remaining two years of Rubio’s term.
Initial candidates for the spot had included DeSantis loyalists, such as Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, former Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva and DeSantis’ chief of staff James Uthmeier.
But Uthmeier now is looking at the vacant Congressional District 1 seat in the Panhandle, following Matt Gaetz’s resignation, a source familiar with the matter told the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida.
Trump tapped Gaetz for U.S. Attorney General. Despite some doubts about whether Gaetz, who has had an antagonistic relationship with centrist Republicans, would be confirmed, the seat is already open because Gaetz resigned from Congress last week, days before the release of a possibly damaging report from a House Ethics investigation.
Another name closer to Trump also has been floated – Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. She is the wife of Trump’s son Eric and lives in Palm Beach County. She has served as Republican National Committee co-chair but grew up in North Carolina.
The governor often has taken plenty of time to review candidates’ records and conduct interviews before making important appointments.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance, he left Florida Supreme Court seats open past deadlines in state law – which he was able to ignore because of the pandemic state of emergency – before filling them.
“Florida deserves a Senator who will help President Trump deliver on his election mandate, be strong on immigration and border security, take on the entrenched bureaucracy and administrative state, reverse the nation’s fiscal decline, be animated by conservative principles, and has a proven record of results,” DeSantis wrote in his post.
The appointments of Rubio, Gaetz and another member of Florida’s congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz, who was selected to be National Security Advisor, have scrambled Sunshine State politics and may lead to a domino effect as politicians push to fill the open seats.
DeSantis must call special elections to fill the seats vacated by Gaetz and Waltz and has said he will do so as soon as possible.
Republicans hold a slim majority in the U.S. House and quickly filling those seats, which lean heavily to the GOP, will help advance Trump’s legislative agenda early in his term.
Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.
