‘The epicenter of Trumplandia’
K Street lobbyists are flocking to Florida, as the nexus of power shifts from Washington to Palm Beach
By Dave Levinthal / Business Insider
As Donald Trump returns to the White House promising to obliterate business as usual in Washington, the city’s lobbyists are preparing for a seismic shift in how — and where — they do business.
“Florida is becoming the power nexus for the country,” Bill Helmich, a lobbyist and close Trump ally, tells Business Insider. “It’s where decisions will get made.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Evan Power, a lobbyist who’s serving as chair of the Florida GOP. “Florida is now the epicenter of Trumplandia,” Power says.
A dozen leading lobbyists, some of whom spoke with BI on the condition of anonymity, say that having a significant presence in Florida is now an essential part of doing business in Washington. First and foremost, that means hiring lobbyists in the state to work the hallways and links at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump and his inner circle have been charting the transition and making Cabinet picks. A presence at the resort — along with the golf courses Trump owns in West Palm Beach, Doral, and Jupiter — is now seen as a major currency in the lobbying game.
Never before, lobbyists say, has the geographic center of power shifted so dramatically with the arrival of a new administration. In many respects, they say, Palm Beach is going to be the new K Street — the headquarters of the political-influence industry — particularly since Trump no longer owns a luxury hotel blocks from the White House.
“It hasn’t been this exciting on Capitol Hill since 1994, when Republicans had their Contract with America.”
What’s more, the consensus among lobbyists is that anyone who hopes to influence Trump this time around will have to dispense with traditional lobbying conventions. “We can’t do this the same old way,” says one prominent lobbyist with ties to Trump. “Trump is such a wild card, and that gives him a lot of leverage. Cookie-cutter lobbying efforts probably won’t work like they used to.”
For Washington lobbyists, that means changing the way they talk about the world to appeal to the hardcore MAGA loyalists who have succeeded at commanding Trump’s attention and dominating his inner circle. “This is not Trump 2.0,” says Justin Sayfie, a partner at Ballard Partners, a powerhouse lobbying firm with deep Florida roots and an office down the road from Mar-a-Lago. “It’s more like Trump 5.0. This is the most anti-Washington president we’ve elected since maybe Andrew Jackson.”
When it comes to lobbying, the big winner of Trump’s first term was Ballard Partners. The firm’s success offers some lessons for lobbying firms itching to capitalize on their ties to Trump and his inner circle and establish a beachhead in Florida.
Before Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016, Ballard Partners had no presence in Washington to speak of. But its founder, Brian Ballard, had been part of Trump’s inner sanctum — first as a top fundraiser in Florida, then as part of the president-elect’s transition team. By leveraging his access to Trump, Ballard Partners was able to compete with the old white-shoe lobbying firms that have been the industry’s dominant players for decades.
In 2017, the first year of Trump’s term, Ballard added dozens of major clients, including Google, Amazon, Uber, American Airlines, Honda, the tobacco giant Reynolds American, the private-prison firm Geo Group, and the American Health Care Association. By 2020, Ballard ranked as the nation’s seventh-largest federal lobbying firm in terms of income — an astounding feat for an office that was only 3 years old. Ballard’s lobbying business in Florida, meanwhile, regularly ranks among the state’s top-earning firms, making it ideally positioned to once again be the go-to lobbying shop for corporations and special interests eager to cozy up to Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress.
Corporate clients need lobbyists who appreciate that Trump is “disrupting the status quo in Washington,” Sayfie, the Ballard lobbyist, says. “This creates a sense of both possibility — and great worry and anxiety to navigate.”
Any presidential transition poses significant challenges for corporations. Business thrives on stability; it’s hard to make plans in the middle of all the uncertainty that comes from shifting political philosophies, legislative goals, and regulatory ambitions. But lobbying insiders say Trump’s presidential transition has brought a new level of unpredictability — one that also represents a golden opportunity, for those able to capitalize on it.