The start of Donald Trump’s second term has been dizzying. But to Republicans in Tallahassee, a southern capital city draped in Spanish moss, it all looks familiar. The administration is full of Florida politicos. Most prominent are Mr Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles (he calls her “the most powerful woman in the world”), the secretary of state (Marco Rubio), the attorney-general (Pam Bondi) and the national security adviser (Mike Waltz). Floridians will lead the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of the Surgeon General. With them come deputies and staffers. Back in 2017 Ballard Partners, Florida’s biggest lobbying firm, set up shop in Washington. This time the Southern Group, the second-largest, is too.
There is a long tradition of presidents poaching people from their home state to run the government. Jimmy Carter brought Georgians, Ronald Reagan brought Californians and Bill Clinton brought Arkansans. But that trio began their political careers in the states whose talent they brought to Washington. Mr Trump, by contrast, is a New Yorker who only settled in the Sunshine State in 2019. What, then, draws the president to Floridians?
Ask Republicans and Democrats alike and they will tell you that Florida is the “reboot” state. Exiles from Latin American autocracies move to Miami in search of more freedoms and northerners drive down i-95 to reinvent themselves by the beach. It’s a place where the American dream flourishes and where disgraced doctors become chiropractors. Since the turn of the century only one of the state’s four governors—Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist, Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis—has been native. And although Mr DeSantis was “geographically raised in Tampa Bay”, he writes in his biography that “culturally” he was influenced more by his grandparents’ Midwestern steel town. Being an outsider who chose Florida is precisely what makes Mr Trump at home there.
Most of the president’s picks got their start around Mr Bush, who was once kingmaker in Florida politics. But it was the Tea Party movement of the late 2000s that shaped the state’s political culture. It brought Ms Bondi and Mr Rubio into politics. Many lawyers and real-estate agents who then got involved did so not for ideological reasons, but to further their careers outside of politics, says Peter Schorsch, a political commentator. That gave Tallahassee a transactional flavour, where money and politics go hand in hand. “The mentality is make the deal and get on to the next project,” Mr Schorsch explains. The Florida political brand is all about “being aspirational, bucking conventions and hustling for outcomes”, says Paul Bradshaw, the boss of the Southern Group.