Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis sidestepped a Friday question about whether she will run to succeed her husband as governor, telling onlookers at a conservative conference: "We'll see."
Gov. Ron DeSantis and the First Lady spoke with conservative magazine National Review's senior political correspondent, Jim Geraghty, where they fielded a slew of Florida-related questions on Friday. This included a gubernatorial inquiry, which follows a strengthening storm of speculation that First Lady DeSantis will challenge Trump-endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds to succeed her husband in 2026.
But the First Lady, as she's done for the past month, declined to answer the question directly.
"Not a lot of people have a backbone like [Gov. DeSantis]," she told Geraghty, before launching into effusive praise over her husband's conservatism and dedication to the state. "It's the long-winded answer of saying, 'We'll see.'"
The governor jumped in, retelling a story centering on Rush Limbaugh, a conservative firebrand commentator who passed away in 2021, and his support of Casey DeSantis.
"She was just raging against the machine, and [Limbaugh] turned to me at the end and he's like, 'She should be governor after that!'" DeSantis said, discussing a 2019 event where Limbaugh met the First Lady. "I've delivered the most conservative results and I think I'd say she would be as conservative or more conservative than me."
The DeSantises attended the biennial Ideas Summit hosted by the National Review Institute, a conservative non-profit, in Maryland on Friday. They called it their "fireside chat" on social media, where the two took center stage alongside Geraghty, where they fielded questions ranging from immigration to Disney to crime.
The two have long avoided direct responses to whether or not Casey DeSantis will challenge Rep. Donalds, who was urged to run by Donald Trump last month, instead delivering cryptic Yogi Berra quotes. Despite the evasive answers, insiders have reported that the DeSantises have been calling Republican donors and lobbyists asking them not to back Donalds.
The GOP primary will take place in August 2026.
