The condition of the prediction clearly occurred, but the forecasted consequence did not.

1. Condition was met:

   • Ron DeSantis won re‑election as Florida governor in 2022 in a landslide, taking about 59.4% to 40.0% over Charlie Crist, a margin of roughly 19.4 points, the largest for a Republican governor in modern Florida history. (en.wikipedia.org) This satisfies Sacks’s “wins re‑election in 2022 by a strong margin” condition.

2. What actually happened to 2024 GOP frontrunner status:

   • After the midterms, Donald Trump announced his 2024 candidacy and was “considered an early frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.” (en.wikipedia.org)
   • While DeSantis was initially viewed as the main challenger and even had more favorable polling numbers than Trump by the end of 2022, Trump quickly re‑established and widened a dominant lead; by July 2023 FiveThirtyEight’s national GOP primary average had Trump at 52% and DeSantis at 15%. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • FiveThirtyEight’s launch analysis of its GOP primary polling average in April 2023 explicitly stated that the averages implied Trump was favored to win the nomination, with Trump at about 49% to DeSantis’s 26%. (fivethirtyeight.com)
   • Media and institutional language consistently referred to Trump, not DeSantis, as the “frontrunner” during the primary season; for example, coverage of DeSantis suspending his campaign in January 2024 describes him endorsing “frontrunner Donald Trump” for the GOP nomination. (news.wjct.org)
   • DeSantis ultimately suspended his 2024 campaign on January 21, 2024 and endorsed Trump, finishing with only nine delegates, confirming that he never displaced Trump as the de facto leader of the race. (en.wikipedia.org)

3. Why this makes the prediction wrong, not just early or ambiguous:

   • Sacks’s claim was conditional but specific: if DeSantis won big in 2022, he would “become the putative frontrunner for 2024.” The condition (big win) happened, but DeSantis never became the commonly-recognized or data-backed frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination.
   • He was widely seen as the top alternative and “future of the party” — e.g., the New York Post’s “DeFuture” cover and reporting that his win made him a potential GOP frontrunner (theguardian.com) — but the polling averages, party behavior, and press framing all treated Trump as the frontrunner throughout the key period.

Because the trigger condition occurred but DeSantis never actually became the de facto or “putative” frontrunner in practice, the prediction is best classified as wrong.