he midterms left the Republican Party with both chambers of Congress in Democratic hands and a trail of losses in places that had looked safe. Florida did not join the list. Governor Ron DeSantis is still in office until early next year, and the contrast is already being used by people who want a different face for the next presidential contest. His odds on the prediction markets jumped overnight. That does not make him the favorite. It does make the conversation less automatic than it was the day before the votes were counted.
DeSantis is running in 2028….. isn’t he?
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) November 4, 2026
What the Markets and the Early Talk Show
Before the midterms, DeSantis sat in the low single digits in most national polling averages for the Republican nomination, usually around 7 or 8 percent. Vice President Vance held the clear lead, typically in the high 30s, with Secretary of State Rubio next. Within a day of the results, the betting markets moved. On one major platform his chance of winning the nomination rose from under 5 percent to the mid-to-high teens. On another it moved from roughly 4 percent to 14 percent. Those are not primary votes. They are the first price signal that some people now see a path that did not exist when the war and the gas prices were still being defended as temporary costs.
Florida Republicans held their statewide offices, including the governorship and the Senate seat. That fact is now being cited by people who want an alternative to the current ticket. DeSantis himself has described the national result as closer to a meteor strike than a normal wave. He has said it was a rebuke of the president and of a Congress that promised large changes and delivered less. He has also warned that the Senate map makes it hard for Republicans to regain a majority before 2032. Those comments put daylight between him and the people who will spend the next two years explaining the losses.
@DaysYoungkin I was on the 2024 DeSantis train, I’m on 2028s as well. The proof is in the pudding. Florida held when the vast majority of the country fell.
Give Ron two terms to Florida-up the United States.
He may be the most transformational president since Ronaldus Magnus.
— C.J.Banks 🇺🇸 (@CitizenProv46) November 5, 2026
The Limits of the Opening
National polling has not yet caught up to the market move. Vance remains the clear leader in the averages, still near 39 percent. Rubio sits in the high teens to mid-20s depending on the aggregator. DeSantis is still a distant fourth in most recent surveys. In his own state the gap is narrower. One recent Florida poll of likely Republican primary voters had Vance at roughly 31 percent, DeSantis at 26 percent, and Rubio essentially tied with him. That is better than his national standing, but it is not a lead.
He has not announced a campaign. He has said he has not planned one and that he will be a free man once his term ends in January. He has also said anyone who runs should have a purpose beyond the office itself. Those are the standard words of a politician who wants the option without the early commitment. The 2024 primary showed that early strength does not survive a long campaign once the frontrunner decides to engage. Vance is still tied to the administration that just lost, and Rubio is inside the same administration. Both carry the record of the last two years. DeSantis does not. That is the narrow advantage the midterms created.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis COMPLETELY AGREES with Vice President JD Vance that the reason Republicans got OBLITERATED in the midterms was the Iran war — and it dragging on for several months, resulting in high gas prices. “Every time they went to the gas pump, they saw the gas higher… When you gaslight people, they don’t trust you on anything else.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper: “Vice President JD Vance said this morning, ‘The reason we lost is the war.’ Do you agree that that’s one of the reasons your party lost?”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: “One of the reasons for sure, but specifically the fact that it’s dragged on, it’s kind of an open-ended conflict… Kind of the Republican mantra since Trump came on the scene was, we don’t want to get in these open-ended conflicts. And that’s what this has become, a little bit different than Iraq for sure. But I think this one was important because that had a direct effect on people’s pocketbooks. Every time they went to the gas pump, they saw the gas higher. And I’ve criticized some of our Republican congressmen and Senate candidates running around the country trying to blame the high gas prices on Biden.”
“Gas was $3 a gallon a year and a half ago, and now it’s $4, and it’s $4 because of the Iran war. So when you gaslight people, they don’t trust you on anything else. So that was definitely one issue. But it’s also the broader inflation. When our candidates say inflation is only 3.7%, it was higher, you know, four years ago. Yes, the rate is lower, but this is a cumulative effect that you’re having on prices. So you don’t get the old prices back. That’s 3.7% on top of everything else consumers have had to endure. So when they go to the grocery store, they’re reminded of that and their wages are not keeping up with the cost of living. So, yes, Iran was part of it, but specifically how that related to the cost of living for everyday Americans.”
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) November 5, 2026
What Would Have to Happen Next
A real opening requires more than a bad night for the current team. DeSantis would need to raise money, recruit staff, and build an organization that can compete in early states while Vance and Rubio still hold the institutional advantages of the last campaign. He would also need to explain, more clearly than he has so far, how his record in Florida translates to a national coalition that includes the voters who left the party over the war and the cost of living. Florida’s success at holding the line is a useful talking point. It is not yet a primary strategy.
The midterms damaged the idea that the current vice president is the automatic heir. They did not hand the nomination to the governor of Florida. They simply made the race less settled than it looked on Monday. Whether that becomes a serious contest depends on whether DeSantis decides to treat the next eighteen months as a campaign or as a farewell. The numbers have moved. The rest is still undecided.
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