Is he even running though?
I'd be willing to put significant amounts of money on that.
Look at it this way:
1) There is a large pro-DeSantis PAC out there that has been lining up donors and staff people for months, and continue to do it right up through today.
2) Trump is a vindictive SOB, and his campaign has announced that nobody who does any work for DeSantis will ever be hired in his organization. That means that all those people would be hung completely out to dry if DeSantis doesn't run.
3) Despite 1) and 2), DeSantis clearly has not told any of those organizations, through back channels or otherwise, that he is not running. Nor has he apparently even told them that they should wait for an announcement from him before making a commitment. If he then chooses not to run, there likely would be a lot of lingering bad feelings towards him for leaving all those people and donors hung out to dry. What would be his motivation for that?
4) He just spent a bunch of time on a trip in some of the early primary states. Why would he be doing that if he isn't running?
5). There are all sorts of reports of DeSantises people contacting members of Florida's congressional delegation and asking them not to endorse Trump. There is no reason for them to be doing that unless DeSantis plans to run himself.
6). There is no event or action that has occurred recently that would justify him changing his mind and choosing not to run. Quite the opposite - specifically, other potential Republican candidates like Youngkin and Pompeo, who may have diluted some of the anti-Trump vote, have announced that they will not be running.
I literally cannot think of a single action DeSantis has taken that is consistent with someone who is not running. Conversely, he's taking a bunch of actions that are completely consistent with someone who is running. People wondering why he has not yet announced need to only look at the Florida legislative calendar to see the reason that has been evident since last year. The end of the Florida legislative session, which is on May 5. Is the perfect trigger for making his announcement.
The arguments I've read for him deciding not to run - that Trump is vindictive, that it will divide the Republican Party, that Trump will do anything he can to destroy DeSantis, etc., - are things that were just as obvious last year. If those things were sufficient to dissuade DeSantis from running, why wouldn't he have just made it clear last year that he was not running, and saving himself from all the attacks and vitriol from Trump and his supporters that he has had to endure?
The only logical reason for him to have put up with all that crap for the last five months is that
he is planning to run.
