Next week Donald Trump will start doing what he does best: hold raucous rallies to support Republicans in four important states. Over five days, he’ll stump for Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Sen. Marco Rubio in Florida, and JD Vance in Ohio.

He’ll also head to the Midwest to rally the troops in Iowa for Gov. Kim Reynolds and Sen. Chuck Grassley.

But there’s one name that’s not on Trump’s queue: FL Gov. Ron DeSantis. The things that make you go hmm.

Why is Trump Snubbing DeSantis?

Maybe it’s because in his race for re-election as Florida governor, DeSantis is far ahead of his challenger Charlie Crist. After all, the latest RCP average gives DeSantis a whopping 11 point lead over Crist. So Trump doesn’t need to rally for the governor, right?

Then again, the RCP average also gives Marco Rubio an impressive 7+ lead over his challenger Val Demings. Clearly Rubio isn’t in dire need of Trump’s firepower, either.

So why does Marco get the love and not Ron? Moreover, DeSantis’s name is not even on the announcement of the November 6 rally for Rubio, either, which reads:

“President Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, hosts a ‘Get Out the Vote Rally’ in support of endorsed candidate and special guest Senator Marco Rubio in Florida, where his 2022 endorsement record is currently undefeated, 19-0.”

There’s nothing to see here, said a Trump adviser. “This is an event President Trump is holding as part of a series of stops he is making for Republican Senate candidates,” said the unnamed individual.

Oh really? Then why is he stumping for Gov. Reynolds in Iowa and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania? They’re not Senate candidates.

Not only that, but Team DeSantis said they were blindsided by a rally announcement they knew nothing about. Plus, if DeSantis holds his own campaign event on that Sunday, it won’t get the attention that the Rubio rally will. And Trump knows it, too.

One close associate of DeSantis said the snub was “an elbow to Ron’s throat.” Another GOP consultant close to the governor said:

“You’ve got the Sunday before Election Day totally hijacked by Trump parachuting in on Trump Force One taking up the whole day. No Republican could go to a DeSantis event that day. None. And DeSantis won’t be here? This is big.”

This is simply another example of Trump’s petty, narcissistic behavior.

Rift Growing Between DJT and DeSantis

The reason why Ron DeSantis isn’t feeling the Trump love is because the former president sees the Florida governor as a threat to his political future. Which, of course, would mean losing another chance for the presidency in 2024.

Showing a jaw-dropping lack of self-awareness, Donald Trump has called Ron DeSantis “whiny” and “fat” (has he looked in a mirror lately?) during interviews with Maggie Haberman.

For his part, DeSantis declined to ask Trump for his re-election endorsement. Then again, when you look at DeSantis’s poll numbers, he certainly doesn’t need it.

As we’ve seen repeatedly, if a Republican refuses to kowtow to Trump, he will make that politician pay. So now he’s giving DeSantis the shiv in the run-up to the midterms.

It was probably a smart move on DeSantis’s part not to ask for Trump’s endorsement. And it may be just as well that DJT won’t be rallying for him in Florida, either. Otherwise he may have received the Blake Masters treatment.

A new episode of Fox Nation’s Tucker Carlson Originals, called The Candidate: Blake Masters, has footage of Trump advising Masters, running for Senate in Arizona, to deny the 2020 election results. He also tells him to be like Kari Lake, who’s running for AZ governor:

“It’s the one-yard line. If you want to get across the line, you need to be stronger on that one thing … lot of complaints about that.”

“Look at Kari, Kari is winning with very little money and if they say, ‘How is your family?’ she says, ‘The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft, you gonna lose that base.”

Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis has refused to bang on about the 2020 election, instead saying he’s concentrating elsewhere:

“Why are they constantly beating this dead horse? Yes, we understand that, that was a year and a half ago. Let’s focus on things that are concerning American people today, and helping us get through this period here today.”

DeSantis is Trump’s Biggest Threat

Ron DeSantis is looming a bit too large in DJT world, where the egocentric former president thinks he’s the rightful heir to the Republican nomination in 2024. Followed up, of course, by another four years in the White House.

But a new ABC News/IPSOS poll now shows that 72 percent of registered Republicans say that DeSantis should have a great deal of influence on the direction of the party. Donald Trump came in at 64 percent. Not only that, but the poll also showed that Republicans believe Sen. Ted Cruz should have just about as much influence as DJT, coming in at 63 percent.

Plus, DeSantis holds a decisive lead in the money hunt, and commands a war chest that’s millions of dollars more than Trump’s. And in a hypothetical matchup between DeSantis and Joe Biden, DeSantis fares better than Trump, basically tying with Biden.

Plus the New York Times now hates DeSantis more. So there’s that, too.

Other prominent Republicans are speaking out against Trump, too, and they’re not named Liz Cheney or Adam Kinzinger. (As far as I’m concerned, they’re traitors to the GOP, throwing in instead with progressive Democrats. I have no use for them.)

But others like former Vice President Mike Pence, former House Speaker Paul Ryan, and former FL Gov. Jeb Bush have indicated they want someone else on the 2024 ballot. Plus, Joe O’Dea, the Senate candidate from Colorado, agrees:

“I don’t think Donald Trump should run again. I’m going to actively campaign against Donald Trump and make sure that we have got four or five really great Republicans right now. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, they could run and serve for eight years.”

Trump and his most ardent supporters sneer and call them RINOs — his favorite epithet for Republicans who don’t give him the fealty he thinks he deserves.

Credit: Brand X Studio/used by permission.

But none of these Republicans are as big a threat to the petulant, egotistical former president as Ron DeSantis. Trump knows it, too, and would rather undermine a fellow Republican in the crucial week prior to the midterms than to give him support. Who’s the RINO here?

Featured image: Trump White House Archives/flickr/cropped/public domain.