Joe Gruters

Joseph Ryan Gruters (born June 7, 1977) is an American politician and accountant who has served as a member of the Florida Senate since 2018 and as treasurer of the Republican National Committee since 2025. 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.

Early life and education

Gruters was born on July 6, 1977, in Tampa, Florida. He received a BS degree from Florida State University and an MBA degree from the University of South Florida.

Political career

Campaign activities and rise to influence

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 gained political influence as an early supporter of Rick Scott during his successful 2010 campaign for governor of Florida. Gruters' support earned him a high-profile appointment to the Florida State University board of trustees. He became vice chairman of the Republican Party of Florida in 2015, and had strong political backers when he ran for the Florida House of Representatives' seat in 2016.

Trump supporter

Gruters 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. Trump accepted an invitation from Gruters to invite him 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.

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 the Governor Rick Scott's terms, when Scott withdrew financial and organization support for the party after Ingoglia had defeated Scott's preferred candidate. President Trump nominated Gruters to the Amtrak board of directors, subject to confirmation by the United States Senate, however, the confirmation was neither confirmed nor rejected and sent back to the president without appointment.

Gruters unanimously won a second two-year term as RPOF Chairman in 2021.

In 2023, Trump appointed Gruters to manage the funds in his legal defense expense fund, Patriot Legal Defense Fund, a tax-exempt nonprofit that allows dark money donors to remain anonymous to both the public and the IRS under Section 527 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. In media coverage broadcast on several television channels, Gruters was visible in the front row of supporters throughout the Republican presidential nomination convention in 2024, often shaking large support signs for Trump.

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 dividends Gruters reaps from his relationship to the president.

Florida Republican voter registration surge

During Gruters' four-year chairmanship of the Republican Party of Florida, he made voter registration a priority. With funding help from Governor Ron DeSantis, the number of registered Republican voters surged in Florida during his tenure. When Gruters took over the RPOF in 2019, Democrats held a 225,000 voter registration advantage, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

By that time, because relocations of many Republican voters from other states among the growing 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.

This voter registration advantage and 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 (which included the normally Democratic Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.) The election also saw Republicans winning a supermajority in both the Florida House and Senate.

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, from 2016. 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 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 (S.B. 198) that forces local and state law enforcement to honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers and prohibits local government from implementing "sanctuary" policies (which no Florida government had adopted). The controversial bill passed the Florida Senate 22-18,Elizabeth Koh
Gov. DeSantis signs 'sanctuary cities' ban into law. There aren't any in Florida.
''Miami Herald''/''Tampa Bay Times'' Tallahassee Bureau (June 14, 2019). 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. 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."

While in the House, Gruters co-sponsored the Florida Competitive Workforce Act to amend the 1992 Florida Civil Rights Act, the state's anti-discrimination law, to include protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.Zac Anderson
Gruters files LGBTQ anti-discrimination bill, but some say it falls short
''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'' (January 24, 2021).

Gruters also proposed legislation that would ban smoking at public beaches statewide. Violators would be fined up to $25 or given up 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 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. If if it had been approved by voters, it would do away with an existing state constitutional requirement that schoolboard 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.

Republican National Committee

On January 17, 2025, after receiving the endorsement of President Donald Trump, Gruters was elected treasurer of the Republican National Committee, succeeding KC Crosbie.

International notoriety in 2025

Craig Pittman, a popular Florida commentator and humorist, wrote about the unusual attention to such a local U.S. politician as Gruters by a British tabloid with the highest circulation of paid newspapers in UK, Daily Mail, when on April 1, 2025 it featured an article on Gruters that was written by Katelyn Caralle, their senior political reporter covering "White House insiders". Her article was about the responses of GOP officials to the revelation of Gruters following a large number of OnlyFans models and dating accounts on the internet.

Personal life

Gruters is a Certified Public Accountant. His professional occupations include being a member of Robinson, Gruters & Roberts PA CPA LLC in Venice, Florida. and being the manager of the Patriot Legal Defense Fund.

Gruters lives in Sarasota County. He is married to Sydney Gruters and they have three children. She was appointed to a position as executive director of the New College Foundation at New College of Florida during the controversial takeover of the state honors college by Governor DeSantis.Ogles, Jacob,
Sydney Gruters to lead New College Foundation
', Florida Politics, March 23, 2023

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruters, Joe
1977 births
2020 United States presidential electors
Florida State University alumni
Living people
Politicians from Sarasota, Florida
Republican Party members of the Florida House of Representatives
State political party chairs of Florida
University of South Florida alumni
21st-century members of the Florida Legislature
2024 United States presidential electors