DeSantis warns Byron Donald about missing votes. He missed a lot in 2018.

With several strokes on the keyboard, President Donald Trump overthrew Florida politics.

Early in the governor’s cycle, he supported the younger, relatively vague lawmakers and raced in his favor. The candidate almost immediately turned to the campaign, raised money and missed several votes in Congress, but he fell into political ambitions.

The year was 2018. The candidate was Ron Desantis.

If any of them sound familiar, that’s because history seems to be repeating itself.

Last week, Trump invited Senator Byron Donald to announce he would run for governor. The 46-year-old Naples Regional Representative – a young political figure – has already begun calling for a major Republican fundraiser. He will start a full-scale campaign in the coming months.

At this stage of their careers, it is not difficult to find similarities between DeSantis and Donald. Pre-Trump approval, both men were relatively unknown third term US representatives. Like Desantis in 2018, Donald won Trump’s support by appearing as one of the most vocal agents in the media.

However, Desantis doesn’t seem to enjoy the similarities. Instead of supporting Trump’s governor’s choice, he appears to be trying to play Kingmaker, or Queenmaker. His preferred 2026 candidate appears to be his wife, Casey.

Donald? DeSantis says you should stick to your work.

“Donald Trump has just taken office. I hope these lawmakers will focus on enacting his agenda. They haven’t done much yet,” DeSantis said at a Tampa press conference last week. “We have a very narrow majority, so I think we are trying to campaign elsewhere and missed those votes.

Desantis may be talking from experience. During the crucial month of his first governor’s run in 2018, he missed dozens of Congress votes. From July to September of that year, he was in the 98th percentile of all US representatives regarding lack of votes, according to the non-profit Govtrack. That means he was one of Washington’s most absent lawmakers during that stretch. (Desantis resigned from Congress in September 2018.)

Max Goodman, a longtime Republican political consultant in Florida, said the lack of votes would be natural while running for a higher office.

“Find one of the lawmakers running for statewide or national offices who won’t miss some votes!” he wrote in a text message.

The situation in Washington during DeSantis’ first governor’s campaign is different from today’s circumstances. During Desantis’ final semester, Republicans held 235 seats in Democrats’ 193. Today they have the advantage of four seats. As Desantis pointed out, Donald’s vote is pretty important.

In February, Donald made the news that he missed the two votes he cast, along with his real-time appearance on a political program with Bill Maher. According to Punchbowl News, Donald could vote from nearly 2,700 miles away to violate ethics rules.

Still, the governor’s criticism of Donald is impressive given the similarities between the two Trump subterrestrials. DeSantis said Donald should not precede his political ambitions in his office, but DeSantis began his run for the president less than a year after the Floridian elected him for his second term as governor.

Politically, the most important thing that the two men have in common is Trump’s approval. Just as DeSantis was in early 2018, Donald is pretty unknown to Florida voters. A February poll by the University of North Florida Public Opinion Institute found that two of the three voters had never heard of Donald.

Trump’s support is likely to change that for Donald – like DeSantis.

However, DeSantis appears to hope that Trump’s early support will not determine the governor’s race in 2026. On Tuesday’s X-Post, the governor noticed that Casey DeSantis had recently played golf with Trump.

“Casey and @Realdonaldtrump had no issues winning the match…” Desantis posted on X.