Even if the pineapple were on the Dole?
OK, I'll be Sirius. Putnam took over Charles Canady's seat in the House over 20 years ago when Canady decided to term limit himself. (Full disclosure: Canady went on to marry one of my students, and later awarded my son as an 8th grade essay contest winner on an essay about the Constitution.)
The one time I met Putnam we discussed some of what then-Speaker Gingrich wanted to accomplish in the House, and he impressed me as a traditional conservative but also a consummate politician, so it wouldn't surprise me that Putnam has been spending the last generation or so preparing himself for this moment. DeSantis will have to have a Trump-like disruptive quality in order to kick Putnam out of the race, and there are very few people who have that quality.
Moreover, the Dem opponent could well be John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan ("for the people") fame, and he'll get a chunk of votes on name recognition alone, since he's been advertising himself on FL television and radio for decades, and also is the face of medical marijuana, which will garner him votes from the low-information crowd who otherwise wouldn't care about the race.
Lord help us if Morgan should win, which I don’t think he really has a chance of doing. He did spend millions of his own money on the marijuana initiative, so he may get some of the doper vote, but he’s just too unlikable, even on TV and radio. I don’t know a lot about Putnam other than is an eternal State government bureaucrat. I’ll be looking into him, though.