Two days out from the crucial midterm elections in the US, Donald Trump will host an all-out MAGA rally in Miami, Florida.
However, one key Republican isn't on the guest list.
The 45th president is planning to campaign alongside Republican senator Marco Rubio — who already has Mr Trump's endorsement — to "get out the vote" two days before the elections.
However, with Senator Rubio leading his opponent in polls by an average of 7 percentage points, it seems likely Mr Trump's event is less about lending support and more about sending a message to another high-profile Floridian.
And that is Governor Ron DeSantis, who is notably missing from the announcement.
Unless the two men sort things out quickly, Mr DeSantis could find himself in the awkward position of having nowhere to be on Sunday evening, less than 48 hours before polls open.
The rest of the state's Republican apparatus is expected to flock to the Miami-Dade County fairgrounds for the event.
This snub is the latest and most overt sign of the simmering tensions between the former president and the man who could replace him if he is chosen by the party as its 2024 presidential candidate.
DeSantis — an Ivy League graduate who is sometimes called "Trump with a brain" by political commentators — could offer Trumpism without Mr Trump.
And, for certain factions of the Republican party, he offers conservative leadership without drama and legal woes.
How a political bromance soured
A lot has changed since the 2018 midterm elections when Mr Trump came out swinging for Mr DeSantis, whose chances of winning the Republican primary for governor without the then-president's endorsement were next to none.
"He came to me," Donald Trump told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman in an interview for her new book, Confidence Man.
"He said, 'I'd love your endorsement.'"
Mr Trump told Haberman he was initially sceptical that Mr DeSantis, who was trailing badly in the polls, could win.
However, Mr DeSantis convinced him the endorsement would turn things around.
At the time, the little-known congressman had come to Mr Trump's attention through regular appearances on Fox News.
He also appreciated Mr DeSantis's vocal criticism of the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.
"Congressman Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader, Yale and then Harvard Law, who would make a GREAT Governor of Florida. He loves our Country and is a true FIGHTER!" Mr Trump tweeted in December 2017.
Solidifying the bond, Mr DeSantis released a deferential campaign video, paying homage to his party's leader.
"People say Ron is all Trump, but he is so much more," Mr DeSantis's wife, Casey, said in the tongue-in-cheek video.
Mr DeSantis is shown reading Mr Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, to his baby son and building "the wall" in fake Lego blocks with his daughter.
Fast forward to 2022 and Mr DeSantis is no longer playing a daggy dad and Trump devotee.
In a recent ad, he fashioned himself as "Top Gov", an action hero in the mould of Tom Cruise.
Dressed as a fighter pilot, Mr DeSantis's Maverick-style character delivers instructions for "taking on the corporate media".
The spoof video includes real-life clips of the governor dressing down journalists.
"It's wrong. It's a fake narrative," he says.
"It's why people don't trust people like you, because you peddle false narratives."
Mr DeSantis has further fuelled speculation that he is distancing himself from Mr Trump — and eyeing a 2024 bid — by not seeking his former mentor's endorsement during his re-election campaign.
However, cutting the cord completely is risky, according to experts.
"Trump [brought] DeSantis into existence, and now DeSantis appears ungrateful," said Mac Stipanovich, a Florida-based political strategist who broke ranks with the Republican Party during the Trump administration.
"[Mr DeSantis] appears to be a potential competitor. And Trump, who has got a very thin skin, is resentful of it."
DeSantis versus 'woke' America
Visceral distrust of mainstream media is just one hallmark of Ron DeSantis's first term.
He soon positioned himself as a strongman, willing to change laws to suit his agenda and sweep aside his detractors.
In March, he brought in his signature "Parental Rights in Education" bill, which critics have dubbed "Don't Say Gay", arguing it further marginalises LGBTI students.
The law bans instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten to year 3 and has placed Florida at the forefront of the national culture wars.
Fiery clashes between its supporters and opponents are now part and parcel of school board meetings.
At a recent meeting in Orlando, a teacher who spoke up against the "parental rights" bill was escorted from the room by police and security guards for going over her time limit amid wild cheers from her supporters.
Florida's board of education then signed off on a motion that means teachers who are found to be violating the law now risk losing their licences.
"We're talking about five-, six-, seven-year-old children, and somehow there is a group of people that want to talk to them and teach them about sexual orientation," said Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, who spoke in favour of the amendment.
"The least interesting thing about a five-year-old should be their sexual orientation.
"Ron DeSantis is a dad of three. And he and his wife have stood very firm in standing with parents, so we're thankful for him."
When the Disney corporation — after facing public criticism for its initial silence — spoke out against the "Don't Say Gay" bill, the governor did not hesitate in taking punitive action.
He quickly introduced a bill revoking Disney's special tax and self-governing status and now refers to the company, which employs roughly 80,000 theme park workers in Florida, as a "woke corporation from California".
"He has strong, authoritarian tendencies," Mr Stipanovich said.
While Mr Trump propelled Mr DeSantis into office, it was the pandemic that caused his profile and popularity to soar.
When COVID-19 hit in early 2020, the governor initially followed the advice to lock down and mask up.
However, he soon changed his tune.
By the middle of the year, he had ordered schools to reopen, even as case numbers peaked and hundreds of Floridians died each day.
He eschewed mandates and took legal action against anyone who objected.
The Special Olympics was forced to drop requirements for its athletes to be vaccinated in the face of a threatened $US27.5 million ($42 million) fine for contravening a new law penalising businesses that introduced vaccine mandates.
MR DeSantis courted voters on the far-right by calling for the White House's top medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, to be jailed.
"Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac," he said.
Trumpism without Trump
At a recent campaign event — held in a manufacturing warehouse in Tampa — Mr DeSantis strode onto the stage to the strains of his country music campaign song Sweet Florida.
Echoing Mr Trump, he tossed a few baseball caps into the audience.
"Hello Tampa Bay," he cried to enthusiastic applause from the crowd of several hundred, before delivering a half-hour address on his accomplishments as governor of "the free state of Florida", as he is fond of calling it.
Mr DeSantis's core message is that he saved jobs and helped families by standing up to the federal government in Washington and keeping the state open for business during the pandemic.
"We said, 'Not here, not on our watch," he claimed.
"There's a lot of stuff that they would love to impose in Florida that I just happen to represent the roadblock for."
In person, Mr DeSantis is more commanding than on screen.
He speaks without notes, but he is not a natural performer, according to Mr Stipanovich.
"He has mastered the Trump rhetoric. He's even copied some of his mannerisms," Mr Stipanovich said.
"But he lacks almost — the word almost curdles in my mouth — he lacks Trump's 'charm'."
The veteran strategist described the former president as an "instinctive politician", implying Mr DeSantis's persona was more cultivated.
"[Mr Trump] can meet you and he knows what will please you," Mr Stipanovich said.
"He knows what your weaknesses are. He can sense it.
"Politics is not a science, it's an art … and DeSantis is more of a scientist and an engineer."
While Mr DeSantis's public speaking has improved, Mr Stipanovich said, he remained "stiff" and "awkward" at times.
"I would compare him to Trump only in his appeal to right-wing populism and his willingness to engage in performative politics in order to stoke outrage and fear, so that that fear can then be exploited."
A 'political stunt' bigger than Texas
Mr DeSantis is making waves outside of Florida too, most notably by upstaging another Republican governor, Texas's Greg Abbott, on immigration policy.
For months, Mr Abbott has been having migrants bussed from the Texan border to Democrat-led cities on the east coast.
Mr DeSantis took things up a notch, flying 50 mainly Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Florida, and then onto Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, an affluent island where the Obamas and Kennedys have vacationed.
"I was very outraged by the governor's actions," said Samuel Vilchez Santiago, an Orlando-based migrants' rights advocate.
Mr Santiago is the state director of the American Business Immigration Coalition.
He labelled the move a "political stunt" intended to signal to potential voters ahead of 2024 that Mr DeSantis was willing to take radical action on the border.
"Clearly, there's a crisis at the border that needs fixing but we need real solutions," Mr Santiago said.
"We don't need political stunts."
John Evans — who fundraises for Mr DeSantis and was appointed by the governor to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority — applauded the manoeuvre.
"I thought that was brilliant," he said.
"It sends a message to all the snoots up there — the snooty kazoos, as we call them down here, down south, who are to the left — to say, 'Hey, look, we got a major problem with the border. Wake up.'"
DeSantis's 'secret weapon'
The son of a nurse and an installer of TV ratings boxes, Mr DeSantis's upbringing in Dunedin, Florida, was modest.
However, he was accepted into Yale, where he captained the varsity baseball team.
Then came Harvard Law School and a stint in the navy, which took him to Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
Before running for governor in 2018, Mr DeSantis was a three-term but low-profile congressman and a founding member of the far-right Freedom Caucus.
Now 44, he is married to a former television presenter, with whom he has three young children.
Mr Evans described Casey DeSantis as her husband's "greatest asset".
"He's the kid who grew up right here in Florida, working his tail off, paying his own way through school," Ms DeSantis says in a campaign ad, in which she appears cross-legged on a sofa.
The short video builds to her talking about being diagnosed with cancer in 2021 and "facing the battle for my life".
Choking back tears, she says Mr DeSantis "was the dad who took care of my children when I couldn't".
"He was there to pick me off of the ground when I literally could not stand.
"That," she says, her voice breaking, "is who Ron DeSantis is."
"She's his secret weapon," Mr Evans said.
Is DeSantis 2024 on the cards?
In their only televised election debate ahead of next week's election, Mr DeSantis's Democratic challenger, Charlie Crist, pushed him on whether he would commit to another full term in office.
A presidential bid would see him resign from his post only halfway through if he wins another term.
Mr DeSantis, whose national ambitions are an open secret, dodged the question.
"I know Charlie is interested in talking about 2024 and [US President] Joe Biden, but I just want to make things very, very clear," he said.
"The only worn-out old donkey I'm looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist."
The governor could be waiting to see if Mr Trump announces his candidacy or becomes too much of a political liability if he is indicted by the Department of Justice over the events of January 6 or the Mar-a-Lago document saga.
Polls suggest Mr DeSantis is, by far, the most popular choice among Republicans to run after the former president, with one recent survey suggesting he could be edging ahead.
According to Ipsos, 72 per cent of Republican respondents said they thought Mr DeSantis should have an influence over the future of the party, compared to 64 per cent for Mr Trump.
Mr Stipanovich, who has moved in Floridian political circles for decades, says Mr DeSantis is biding his time.
"I think he will basically just keep doing what he's been doing," he said.
"He will continue to stage these right-wing performances that have not very much to do with substantive policy, but everything to do with appealing to the Republican base, and then he will wait and see what happens with Trump."
Fundraiser Mr Evans is not so sure Mr DeSantis would not try a run against his former mentor.
"I don't know," he said. "It's all very mercurial right now."
