Fresh off a failed nomination for U.S. Attorney General and following the release of a scathing House ethics report detailing years of heavy drug use and a pension for “regularly” hiring prostitutes, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has floated his name for the next governor of Florida.

“I am starting to think about running for governor” in 2026, he told the Tampa Bay Times.

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The declaration came days after new members were sworn into Congress, where Gaetz was a divisive and self-promoting representative from Florida’s panhandle. He served four terms in the safely Republican district and won a fifth in November before resigning after Donald Trump nominated him for U.S. Attorney General.

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Gaetz had hoped to avoid the release of the House Ethics Committee report – which also accuses him of statutory rape of a 17-year-old girl – with his resignation, but committee members voted to make the report public anyway. Gaetz has denied the allegations.

The Justice Department investigated Gaetz for sex trafficking before deciding not to charge him in 2023.

The far-right MAGA provocateur said he would pray in the coming months about whether to seek the governorship. Current Florida governor and failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R) is termed out after his second win in 2022.

“I have a compelling vision for the state,” Gaetz said. “I understand how to fix the insurance problem, and it’s not to hand the keys to the state over to the insurance industry. If I run, I would be the most pro-consumer candidate on the Republican side.”

Gaetz calls himself an economic populist and favors cannabis legalization.

Of the litany of allegations directed at him, Gaetz said, “Those lies have been told about me for years,” he said. “They’ve never affected my ability to win elections.”

Gaetz recently picked up a hosting gig on the One America News network, giving the rhetorical bomb-throwing provocateur a regular, if diminished, platform to “own the libs.”

One of his latest taunts earned the ire of out Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI), who blasted Gaetz for promoting the idea that trans people are responsible for the school shootings epidemic.

Responding in December to a statement from President Joe Biden calling for Congress to enact gun safety laws in the wake of so many shootings, Gaetz posted on X, “What about trans control instead?”

Pocan reposted Gaetz’s attack, adding, “To all the idiots who claimed the shooter was trans with no information whatsoever to believe that, f**k off,” Pocan wrote. “Your ignorance speaks volumes. Your hate is consuming your brains (or what’s left of them).”

Florida has been plagued by multiple mass shootings, including the Parkland massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, which killed 17 students and staff. A former student, Nikolas Cruz, pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life in prison in 2022.

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