Incoming Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters is insisting that any feud between himself and Gov. Ron DeSantis is a thing of the past.
In fact, as the Sarasota Republican forges new relationships with party leaders across the country, he suggests that the Florida Governor be a potential guest speaker for the Michigan Republican Party.
“I called the Governor’s team. I think the Governor is going to do it and I’m building bridges, because that’s what I do,” Gruters said. “I appreciate the role that the Governor has in our party.”
That’s a change from the state of relations between Gruters and DeSantis just weeks ago, when the Governor passed the state Senator over for a Chief Financial Officer appointment and assaulted his conservative credentials.
“If George Washington rose from the dead and came back and tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Will you appoint Joe Gruters CFO?’” DeSantis said. “My response would be, no.”
But that was then. Gruters has effectively walked away from the CFO race and could be seen embracing DeSantis’ choice for the role, Blaise Ingoglia, at an Orlando Republican gathering where both former Republican Party of Florida Chairs accepted awards on stage.
DeSantis, who also spoke at the event, didn’t stick around for that dinner.
But Gruters is as confident that he will repair the relationship as he is that a certain Founding Father would approve of his upcoming election as a party leader.
“From my standpoint, I’m over any disagreements,” Gruters said, “and I know George Washington would be happy that I’m serving as the chairman of the party.”
That’s an approach to party builders that those who have known Gruters for years say should be expected all around. One Tallahassee lobbyist called Gruters a party leader seeking “peace in our times,” an end to divisiveness among Republicans often exacerbated by Primary elections, but which won’t prove helpful as the party in power in Washington heads into a historically difficult Midterm Election cycle.
It’s that environment in which Gruters takes the RNC gavel on Friday, when he should win with the support of President Donald Trump and no registered opposition. In the weeks since Trump endorsed Gruters to lead the RNC, the Sarasota Republican has met with donors, party members and RNC staff across the country.
On the evening of his election as Republican National Committee Chair, Gruters is the most sought-after guest at almost every event at the party’s Summer Meeting in Atlanta. Ahead of an interview with Florida Politics, he was pulled into meetings with visiting White House figures, par for the course this week.
But as he prepares to take the reins of a national party, Gruters wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’m ready to serve,” he said. “It’s like I’ve been preparing my entire life for this moment to take up this task and to go to battle for who I think is the greatest President this country’s ever had.”
That, of course, would be Trump, who won election in November with a campaign roster dominated by Florida figures. Many of the lead people on that campaign now serve in Trump’s administration, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair.
Now, Gruters, in a sense, follows Trump to Washington as well, not in a governmental role but at the RNC. The job will require Gruters to spend up to five days a week flying around the country.
Gruters also holds a seat in the Florida Senate, a seat he still intends to fill.
“Work’s going to adjust,” he said. “My time in the Senate will adjust. Everything is adjusting.”
Gruters acknowledges his first obligation is running the party, while repeatedly stressing that his voice won’t be the biggest in GOP politics.
“Even though I’m the Chairman of the party, it’s going to be President Trump that leads us to victory,” he said. “We’re going to outperform everybody across the board in these Senate seats we’re focused on, and then as well as the House seats we’re targeting. This is the President’s organization.”
Through Thursday, it was, on paper, an organization led by North Carolina Republican Chair Michael Whatley, who gave a teary goodbye speech to RNC members at a breakfast this morning. Whatley is stepping down as Chair to run for U.S. Senate in his home state.
Following Whatley into the RNC Chair has a particular poetic rhyme. At the 2020 RNC Convention, Gruters notes it was Whatley who formally nominated Trump as the Republican nominee, but Gruters who seconded the motion. At the time, both men led state Republican parties in swing states, which Trump won that cycle, even as Democrat Joe Biden won the White House.
More recently, Gruters served as RNC Treasurer over the last seven months of Whatley’s time as Chair. Now, Gruters will pick up the gavel partway into an election cycle, much as Whatley did in 2024 when former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel stepped down so Trump loyalists could run the party once he clinched the GOP nomination.
The enthusiasm Gruters holds for his coming job feels constant. On Thursday afternoon, a shipment of red jackets showed up in his hotel room in Atlanta. He plans to give the items out to many of the RNC members on the day of the formal election.
But the Sarasota Republican doesn’t anticipate a wide-scale shake-up at the party in terms of staff.
“If you look at the RNC, we’ve got a ton of RNC staffers,” he said. He had a dinner in Atlanta on Wednesday evening with a few of them, including Brooke Remy and Brian Swensen.
With Trump building much of his campaign team — not to mention his Cabinet — with longtime Florida figures, Gruters won’t show up at the RNC offices as a stranger to many. From his short stint as RNC Treasurer, he also worked with donors who long supported Republican candidates across the country.
He does anticipate working with some of the consultants who have long worked in Florida to help with RNC efforts, but that will likely be gradual. Gruters intends to remain RNC Chair into 2028. “As we continue to expand, sure, we’ll have more opportunities to bring on more Floridians,” he said.
But what of his conservatism? Critics in Gruters’ home state have pointed at an arguably moderate record on issues like gay rights, and most often at his controversial support of a constitutional amendment last year that would have legalized recreational marijuana in Florida. The measure ultimately fell just short of a 60% threshold to pass.
That was despite Trump also endorsing the measure, something many attribute to Gruters’ influence with the Mar-a-Lago resident. Gruters stands by the position he held in November.
“Ever since I was in high school, the people (who) wanted to partake in that activity have partaken in it,” Gruters said. “Nobody (who) wants to consume marijuana has ever not been able to consume it by buying it, either now with a medical card or from the black market. My point of view, we’re better off regulating it heavily and putting up guardrails.”
He has filed legislation to restrict public smoking and supports appropriate restrictions to keep the narcotic away from children. He brushes off allegations that he adopted the view only to obtain campaign donations from Trulieve, the state’s largest medical marijuana producer.
“I appreciate all contributions I received across the board, including from Trulieve, and I personally like (Trulieve CEO) Kim Rivers, who I went to college with,” he said.
But his own political positions don’t dictate the work for the party, which he said will always remain on fundamentals like registering voters and turning out the vote.
That includes pursuing vote-by-mail ballots, a method heavily criticized by Trump but long ago mastered by Florida Republicans.
“The party supports the President in every way, but the party and the President are focused on protecting the vote,” Gruters said. “What’s of primary importance is making it as easy as possible to vote, as hard as possible to cheat, and whatever we could do to make sure that happens, we’re in line with that.”
Election integrity was a topic of concern for many of those attending the Summer Meeting in Atlanta. It’s a topic Gruters knows well, having previously chaired the RNC’s Election Integrity Committee when Ronna McDaniel led the party.
Ultimately, Gruters said he and Trump have the shared goal of simply ensuring the principle of one person, one vote.
In the short term, Gruters’ chief priority as RNC Chair will be on ensuring Republicans retain majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. He expects Trump to inspire voters to turn out in huge numbers to make sure that happens.
“The Democrats — and you don’t have to take my words, take (Democratic U.S. Sen.) Elizabeth Warren’s words — they want to impeach the President,” Gruters said. “They want to remove him from office, and they want to disrupt his agenda. They’re being obstructionist, and they’re doing it with the sole purpose of because they know that they’re wrong on the policies and that we’re right.”
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