Joe Gruters
Joseph Ryan Gruters is an American politician and accountant who has served as the 67th chairman of the Republican National Committee since 2025. He has been a member of the Florida Senate since 2018 and formerly the treasurer of the RNC. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2016 to 2018 and was the chair of the Florida Republican Party from 2019 to 2023. He became chair of the national party during the summer meeting of the party on August 22, 2025.
Early life and education
Gruters was born on July 6, 1977, in Tampa, Florida. Gruters graduated from Cardinal Mooney High School in Sarasota. He received a BS degree from Florida State University and an MBA degree from the University of South Florida.Political career
Early political activities
Gruters lost his first two elections and worked behind the scenes on several more losing campaigns. He joined Vern Buchanan’s original successful 2006 campaign for Congress. Gruters subsequently was chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota for ten years, longer than any of his predecessors.Gruters advanced politically as an early supporter of Rick Scott during his successful 2010 campaign for governor of Florida. That support earned Gruters an appointment by the governor to the Florida State University board of trustees. In 2015, he became vice chairman of the Republican Party of Florida and had strong political backers when he ran for a Florida House of Representatives seat in 2016. Gruters also is one of Donald Trump's closest political allies in Florida. An early Trump supporter, Gruters was Florida co-chairman of Trump's 2016 campaign. Gruters forged a relationship with Donald Trump in 2012 after Republican leaders snubbed the New York celebrity at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, that also would advance him. Trump accepted an invitation from Gruters to speak in Sarasota the night before the convention. Gruters arranged for Trump to be declared "Statesman of the year" several times at Republican political functions in Sarasota. In 2023, Gruters was appointed by Trump to manage the funds in a tax-exempt nonprofit that allows dark money donors to Trump to remain anonymous to both the public and to the IRS under Section 527 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, the Patriot Legal Defense Fund that is described as Trump's legal defense expense fund. On April 17, 2025, the president announced that he appointed Gruters to the latest version of the White House Homeland Security Council and a local Florida publication noted the continuing financial dividends Gruters reaps from his relationship to the president.
Florida party chair
Gruters was elected to a two-year term as chairman of the Republican Party of Florida on January 11, 2019, at the party's annual meeting in Orlando, winning a two-year term. He defeated Bob Starr of Charlotte County and succeeded state Representative Blaise Ingoglia. Gruters passed out red "Keep Florida Great" hats ahead of the vote and declared that his "singular focus over the next two years" was winning reelection for Trump in 2020. Gruters's easy election coincides with more internal unity among the Florida Republican Party, which had been divided after a Jim Greer scandal and had suffered internal fractures during Governor Rick Scott's terms, when Scott withdrew financial and organization support for the party after Ingoglia had defeated Scott's preferred candidate. Although President Trump nominated Gruters to the Amtrak board of directors, subject to confirmation by the United States Senate, the confirmation was neither confirmed nor rejected, but was sent back to the president.Gruters unanimously won a second two-year term as RPOF chairman in 2021.
Florida party voter registration surge
Because relocation of many Republican voters from other states among the growing state population the gradual narrowing of the gap between Democrats and Republicans in Florida began to speed up and in two years, Florida Republicans had overtaken Democrats in voter registration. Florida voter registration numbers had risen to approximately 5.15 million registered Republicans compared to 4.47 million Democrats – translating into a GOP lead of more than 680,000 registered voters more than the Democrats. Data further showed that the emphasis on Republican voter registration was resulting in a 2022 registration advantage that was growing by roughly 30,000 voters every month.When Gruters took over the RPOF in 2019, Democrats held a 225,000 voter registration advantage, according to the Florida Division of Elections.
During his four-year chairmanship of the Republican Party of Florida, Gruters made voter registration a party priority. With funding help from Governor Ron DeSantis, the number of registered Republican voters surged in Florida during his tenure, This increase in voter registrations for the party and an associated get-out-the-vote campaign resulted in record wins for Florida Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, including DeSantis at the top of the ticket winning 62 of Florida's 67 counties. The election also saw Republicans winning a super majority in both the Florida House and Senate.
Florida saw substantial electoral victories for the party in both the 2020 presidential election and in the 2022 midterms. President Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden 51.36 percent vs. Biden 47.86 percent, a 3.36 percent margin, greatly expanding his narrow 2016 Florida victory margin. In 2022, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis defeated Democrat Charlie Crist 59.4 percent to 40 percent, a 19.4 point margin, while Republican Senator Marco Rubio defeated Democrat Val Demings 57.7 percent to 41.3 percent, a 16.4 point margin. The Florida GOP also flipped four U.S. House seats in the midterms. In the same time frame, the Republican Party won super majorities in the Florida Senate and in the Florida House.
Florida legislature
In 2016, Gruters won election to the Florida House of Representatives from the 73rd District, which includes Eastern Manatee County and Northeastern Sarasota County. In 2018, he won election to the Florida Senate representing the 23rd District, consisting of Sarasota County and part of Charlotte County. Gruters was endorsed in 2018 by the Florida Chamber of Commerce. In 2022, he won re-election to the Florida Senate.Gruters introduced three environmental bills in December 2018, ahead of the legislative session to address red tide and other issues: one bill would restore septic inspection regulations that had been lifted during the Great Recession and another would fine polluters for sewage spills.
In the wake of a fatal shooting at a SAN Diego, California synagogue in 2019, the Florida Senate unanimously passed a bill by Gruters to combat anti-Semitism, including by requiring schools to deal with anti-Semitic behavior the same way they do racial discrimination.
Gruters was a driving force behind Florida's 2019 law that forces local and state law enforcement to honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,, detainers and prohibits local government from implementing "sanctuary" policies. The controversial bill passed the Florida Senate 22-18, and was signed into law by Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.
Gruters sponsored Senate Bill 796, requiring electric utilities to adopt long-term plans for burying electric lines as a protective measure against hurricanes; the Senate voted 39-1 in favor of the bill.
Gruters filed a bill to ban abortions 20 weeks after fertilization.
Gruters sponsored Senate Bill 230, a piece of legislation that would reinstate Florida's controversial quest to identify purported noncitizen voters. The legislation would require the supervisor of elections in each Florida county to enter into a local agreement with court officials to obtain a list of jurors who have self-identified as non-citizens. That list would then be compared to the registered voter rolls and the non-citizen names would be purged from voter rolls. Prior efforts to purge the voters in Florida have been botched, with lists of purported "noncitizens" containing some U.S. citizens. The president of the League of Women Voters of Florida called Gruters' piece of legislation "most likely a politically motivated proposal".
Gruters also proposed legislation that would ban smoking at public beaches statewide. Convicted violators would be fined up to $25 or sentenced to ten hours of public service.
In 2019, he introduced the Florida Inclusive Workforce Act to ban employment discrimination against LGBT people. This was a scaled-back version of the legislation; unlike the anti-discrimination bill Gruters had previously supported, it would not extend the anti-discrimination provisions in housing and public accommodations. The omissions were opposed by the LGBT rights group Equality Florida; Gruters defended the bill's incrementalist approach, saying it would maximize the chances of passage.
After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Donald Trump refused to concede while making false claims of fraud, Gruters pushed for legislation in the Florida legislature that would restrict voting rights in the state. In 2021, Gruters called for cancelling all existing mail-in ballot requests, saying they would be "devastating" for Republicans up for re-election in 2022.
He sponsored Bill HJR 31 and guided it through the Florida legislature so that it would be a constitutional amendment proposal presented to the voters on the 2024 ballot as amendment 1. The proposal intended to do away with an existing state constitutional requirement that school board candidates run in non-partisan races, without party labels. During the discussion on the Senate floor, Gruters tried to assure opponents of the politicalization of school board races that the proposed amendment was a move toward "transparency". The proposed amendment was defeated on November 8, 2024.