Ron DeSantis is still the governor of Florida for well over a year, but the question of who will replace him in the purple-turned-red state is already one of the biggest political questions for the Republican Party in 2025.
Now, a scandal involving the state’s Medicaid payments could upend the political career of one GOP rising star before she even announces her campaign.
Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady and a former local newscaster, has long been one of the names floated as a possible successor to her husband. The speculation about her own political ambitions grew after she won a “2023 Stateswoman of the Year” award from the Sarasota County Republican Party, an award that other ladder-climbing politicians have sought in the past — including the current governor.
She has denied any plans to seek political office but remains the obvious favorite among her husband’s most vocal supporters in the state.
On X, the first lady’s supporters (many of whom supported her husband in the 2024 primary) frequently trash not only Republicans in the Florida legislature who defy the governor, but the Trump administration, too. Wounds from last year’s Republican presidential primary remain raw, and some fans of the third-place contender in his home state have no issue with picking apart the chaos and dysfunction reported in the second Trump presidency.
This war is not one-sided, however, and the president struck a blow early this year.
In February, Trump backed Congressman Byron Donalds, floated occasionally as a contender for House leadership and a favorite of MAGA Republicans. The Naples-based representative began his campaign for governor with Trump’s endorsement this winter — and has scared off most would-be challenges with the president’s support. Casey DeSantis’s supporters have naturally launched an all-out social media assault.
Now, a growing scandal over a court settlement involving state Medicaid funds could force Casey DeSantis’ would-be voters to back Donalds by tanking her run before it even begins.
Hope Florida, a nonprofit organization run by the first lady, was the recipient of $10 million resulting from that settlement, finalized last fall. The settlement, $67 in total, was hammered out after state officials accused the Centene Corporation of overcharging the state for prescription drugs covered by Medicaid.
Though Hope Florida is a group that coordinates welfare organizations and does not provide healthcare services, the settlement agreement directed Centene to make the donation in 2024 — which it did, to the Hope Florida Foundation. The Foundation, a separate organization, promotes the work of Casey DeSantis’s organization while also supporting the state’s Department of Children and Families.
But that money never made it back to helping taxpayers in any form. Instead, it was funneled by the Hope Florida Foundation to two political action committees (PACs), which then, according to Alex Andrade, a state Republican lawmaker investigating the money, donated the exact same sum to a third PAC controlled by Ron DeSantis’ former chief of staff James Uthmeier. That final PAC would go on to battle a ballot initiative aimed at legalizing marijuana in the state last fall.
The convoluted chain of money transfers were “probably illegal,” according to state Representative Alex Andrade, a Republican whose district includes Escambia and Santa Rosa. He grilled top officials from the agency overseeing the state’s Medicaid funding, the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), at a hearing in the legislature earlier in April.
Earlier this month the governor repeated a denial that any wrongdoing had occurred, while laying blame for question-raising story on Democrats, the media, and especially opponents of his wife’s potential bid in the upcoming primary. A conservative culture warrior, DeSantis has leaned heavily on GOP mistrust of established media outlets in his state, like the Miami Herald, as he seeks to paint the numerous Republicans raising concerns about the foundation as liberal operatives.
“Some people feel threatened by the first lady. Let’s just be clear about that,” said the governor in early April at a press conference in Sweetwater. “[I]f you’re looking at 2026 and you’ve got some horse [in the race], you don’t want her anywhere near that.”
The governor also held to the defense that the $10 million allocated in the settlement was not tied to Medicaid prescription drug overcharging. DeSantis called it a “cherry on top,” while the AHCA’s counsel would go on in his own letter to claim the $10 million covered “other” damages and was meant to incentivize a settlement.
That explanation took a serious blow on Tuesday. Local media outlets in Florida including the Herald and the Tampa Bay Times reported on a three-year-old draft of the settlement agreement identifying the full $67 million total as over-billed Medicaid charges.
Andrade, in an interview with The Hill on Tuesday, blasted the first lady as “incompetent” with Hope Florida’s finances.
“The fact that AHCA knew they were steering $10 million in Medicaid funds to this foundation is a serious issue,” Republican state Representative Alex Andrade told The Hill.
He added of Uthmeier, now the state’s attorney general (after a DeSantis appointment): “It’s just galling. It’s shocking to me that he was that sloppy and that brazen to do what he did with that money.”
There are plenty of questions remaining as the legislature’s investigation into Hope Florida continues, including how much knowledge Casey DeSantis had of Hope Florida Foundation’s dealings — given that she was not listed as an officer on the nonprofit, as first flagged by the investigation.
But one thing is certain: she and her husband are trading insults with the same Republicans she’ll need to win over if she does enter the governor’s race next year. That includes Florida state House Speaker Daniel Perez, who endorsed DeSantis for president in 2024 but now says that the settlement agreement involving his wife’s charity as one that “could be illegal.”
The governor learned the consequences of not making sufficient allies in his home state last year.
The 2024 primary was a Trump landslide made no harder by the fact that many Floridian members of Congress endorsed the former-and-current president over DeSantis. Should the governor’s mud-slinging continue, Florida could be in for an encore.
Source: independent.co.uk
