Lara Trump is resigning from the RNC. Will DeSantis appoint her to the Senate?
MIAMI — Lara Trump’s resignation as co-chair of the Republican National Committee is fueling speculation about her next move in politics — including a potential appointment to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s seat should he step down to become secretary of state.
Allies of Donald Trump have lobbied publicly and privately for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to tap the president-elect’s daughter-in-law for the Senate seat, and Lara Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in the appointment. In an interview with the Associated Press published Sunday, Lara Trump said that filling Rubio’s seat is something she “would seriously consider.”
“If I’m being completely transparent, I don’t know exactly what that would look like,” she said. “And I certainly want to get all of the information possible if that is something that’s real for me. But yeah, I would 100% consider it.”
Lara Trump’s resignation from the RNC, which she has co-led with Michael Whatley since March, offered perhaps the clearest sign yet that she plans to seriously pursue the Senate seat. While DeSantis hasn’t publicly indicated whom he might choose, he has already begun vetting potential appointees and is expected to make a decision by early January.
Several high-profile Florida Republicans are seen as likely contenders for the job, including DeSantis’ Chief of Staff James Uthmeier and state Attorney General Ashley Moody.
Unlike Uthmeier and Moody, however, Lara Trump is a relative newcomer to the world of Florida politics. She and her husband Eric Trump moved to Florida just three years ago. She was elected in March to serve as the co-chair of the RNC, where she played a key role in the GOP’s successful effort to retake the White House and capture control of the Senate, while maintaining a narrow majority in the House.
Those victories, she said, factored into her decision to step down from the party’s leadership.
“With that big win, I kind of feel like my time is up,” Lara Trump told the AP. “What I intended to do has been done.”
State Rep. Alex Rizo, the outgoing Miami-Dade Republican Party chairman, said that Lara Trump’s work at the RNC since March makes her a top-tier pick to succeed Rubio in the Senate, and argued that her resignation from the RNC “is an indicator that she is very serious” about winning the appointment.
“We have a lot of people that could represent Florida very, very well and step in after Sen. Rubio,” Rizo said. “But I gotta tell you, after the role that she played at the RNC, she certainly impressed enough people to earn her a spot on that list.”
Trump’s transition team did not respond to the Miami Herald’s request for comment on Lara Trump’s resignation and whether she should be tapped to fill Rubio’s Senate seat.
A spokesperson for DeSantis’ office pointed to a Nov. 18 post by the governor on X, in which he said that he had already begun vetting potential Senate appointees and would likely make a decision on Rubio’s replacement by early January.
