After Donald Trump announced that Republican Sen. Marco Rubio would be his choice to serve as the next secretary of state, speculation swirled as to whom Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would appoint to fill the Senate vacancy, assuming that Rubio is confirmed.
We didn’t have to wait too long for an answer. NBC News reported:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed state Attorney General Ashley Moody to the U.S. Senate, setting her up to fill the seat of Sen. Marco Rubio, whom President-elect Donald Trump tapped to be secretary of state. … Moody is a close ally of DeSantis, who has served as his chief legal bulldog on a host of high-profile political fights with the Biden administration.
It didn’t take long for some in Democratic circles to denounce the selection. American Bridge 21st Century, a super PAC aligned with Democratic politics, issued a press release highlighting Moody’s record as a staunch opponent of abortion rights who’s also fought to tear down the Affordable Care Act.
What’s more, when several Republican state attorneys general asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the results of the 2020 election and keep Trump in power despite his defeat, Moody was part of the undemocratic effort.
Those hoping for moderation, in other words, should probably lower their expectations.
Moody, meanwhile, won’t have a lot of time to get settled in before having to worry about her electoral future: Moody will serve in the Senate until next year, when she’ll have to run in a special election.
Complicating matters further, if she prevails in the 2026 election cycle, Moody will then have to run for re-election again in 2028, in the hopes of winning a full six-year term of her own.
In case that weren’t quite enough, there are primary considerations to keep in mind. It was just last week, for example, when Republican Rep. Cory Mills confirmed that he intends to run for Rubio’s Senate seat next year no matter who DeSantis picked.
“You can probably guarantee my hat is going to be thrown in the ring for 2026,” the two-term, far-right congressman told reporters at a state GOP meeting. A Politico report noted soon after, “The move by Mills to seek the Senate seat means that DeSantis’ pick will not be guaranteed an easy path to re-election and may be a sign that the vacancy could spark a highly competitive and potentially expensive contest in the nation’s third-largest state.” Finally, as the dust settles on the governor’s announcement, spare a thought for former Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump. Not long after Donald Trump won a second term and announced plans to nominate Rubio, his daughter-in-law made no effort to hide her interest in filling the Senate vacancy. The Wall Street Journal reported in early December that the president-elect had become an “advocate” for Lara Trump and spoke directly to DeSantis about the idea. A couple of weeks later, shortly before Christmas, she withdrew from consideration. The incoming president will have to settle for a partisan ally instead of a literal member of his family as the Sunshine State’s junior senator for the next two years.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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