Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is anticipated by many to announce his candidacy for president within the coming weeks or months. Speaking right here on the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas on Nov. 19, 2022.

Wade Vandervort/AFP through Getty Images

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, is anticipated by many to announce his candidacy for president within the coming weeks or months. Speaking right here on the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas on Nov. 19, 2022.

Wade Vandervort/AFP through Getty Images

MIAMI — He hasn’t but entered the competition for the Republican presidential nomination, besides, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is likely one of the main candidates. In polls of doable nominees, he rivals and typically surpasses former President Donald Trump. DeSantis has simply launched a brand new book that highlights his pugnacious fashion and hardline stance on points starting from training to public well being.

During his first term as Florida governor, he grew to become well-known nationally via his frequent appearances on Fox News taking a hardline conservative place on points starting from training to public well being.

November’s election was disappointing for Republicans in lots of states. But not in Florida, the place Gov. DeSantis received reelection by practically 20 factors. At his victory celebration, supporters cheered as he pledged to proceed his marketing campaign towards concepts, insurance policies and legal guidelines he derides as “woke.”

“We fight the woke in the schools, he said. “We combat the woke within the firms. We won’t ever, ever give up to the woke mob. Florida is the place woke goes to die!”

‘Florida is where woke goes to die’

As governor, DeSantis has waded forcefully into the culture wars. In his first term, following national demonstrations around the police killing of George Floyd, he signed a law criminalizing even some peaceable protests. Later, his “Stop Woke Act” restricted what faculties and companies can say about race. A “Parental Rights in Education Act,” dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by opponents, limits how teachers discuss sexual orientation and gender identity.

He’s taken goal at packages selling diversity, equity and inclusion within the faculties. He’s signed a legislation banning abortions after 15 weeks. And he pushed via new Congressional maps that eradicated two African American voting districts. Many of those measures at the moment are held up by authorized challenges within the courts.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has turn into a well-liked Republican speaker throughout the nation. He spoke to law enforcement officials about defending legislation and order on Feb. 20, 2023 in New York City.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has turn into a well-liked Republican speaker throughout the nation. He spoke to law enforcement officials about defending legislation and order on Feb. 20, 2023 in New York City.

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It’s a unique DeSantis than the one David Jolly bought to know when each served as U.S. House members in Washington. Jolly, a former Republican Congressman from the Tampa space, says DeSantis was a part of the House Freedom Caucus, a bunch targeted on slicing authorities spending. “At the time,” Jolly says, “I described them as the shutdown caucus.”

DeSantis and different members used government shutdowns to push for coverage modifications and spending reductions, even transferring unsuccessfully to depose John Boehner as House speaker. Jolly says essentially the most spectacular factor about DeSantis had been the connections he made as a freshman Congressman with a number of the nation’s prime Republican donors. Jolly says, “It’s always been a question to me: how he did it. And I believe it was just the commitment to fundraising and the raw political hunger of moving beyond the House.”

DeSantis, a Yale and Harvard educated lawyer who served within the Navy, spent three phrases in Congress earlier than working for governor. His frequent appearances on Fox News drew the eye of President Trump who endorsed him. DeSantis embraced the endorsement and ran a now-famous advert narrated by his spouse as he reads to his youngsters from Trump’s guide, Art of the Deal.

Moving from Congress to the Florida Governor’s Mansion

In 2018, he was narrowly elected governor, defeating Democrat Andrew Gillum by lower than a half percentage point. Two years later, after Trump was defeated, DeSantis hardly ever talked about the previous president’s title anymore and refused to affix the refrain of supporters who falsely maintained the election was stolen.

Jolly says DeSantis used Trump to construct his title recognition however after being elected, he moved on. Jolly compares DeSantis to Hall of Fame hockey participant Wayne Gretzky who famously stated, “I skate to where the puck is going.” Jolly says of DeSantis, “He saw it was going to be Donald Trump’s party and he skated to Donald Trump very quickly.”

DeSantis’ rise to nationwide prominence bought a lift with the arrival of the COVID pandemic. In the primary months, he largely adopted steering from the Trump White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He shut down Florida’s beaches, bars and nightclubs. Schools had been closed.

President Donald Trump stands with GOP Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis through the president’s Make America Great Again Rally on the Florida State Fair Grounds Expo Hall on July 31, 2018 in Tampa.

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President Donald Trump stands with GOP Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis through the president’s Make America Great Again Rally on the Florida State Fair Grounds Expo Hall on July 31, 2018 in Tampa.

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Boosting nationwide prominence throughout COVID

When the vaccine grew to become obtainable, he championed it in virtually day by day information conferences and in a reside broadcast the place a 94-year-old World War Two veteran obtained his shot on Fox News.

But shortly after that look, in February 2021, DeSantis’ method to COVID started to vary. He’d already ordered all faculties reopened for in-class instruction. He quickly signed legal guidelines banning facemask and vaccine mandates by companies and authorities.

Republican Aaron Bean served in Florida’s Senate below DeSantis and is now a member of Congress. He has nothing however reward for a way the governor responded to the pandemic. “He went against the grain,” Bean says. “You can’t say Florida now without saying the ‘Free State of Florida’ because Governor DeSantis has led the way.”

With his hiring of a brand new surgeon normal, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, DeSantis accomplished his transition from vaccine proponent to vaccine skeptic. He endorsed suggestions by Ladapo that wholesome youngsters below 18 not be vaccinated. Ladapo and DeSantis have additionally stated males age 18 to 39 should not obtain the mRNA vaccine. Nationally-recognized public health experts say that suggestion is flawed and primarily based on a defective evaluation.

Bill Hanage, an affiliate professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health says DeSantis politicized the general public well being disaster. His insurance policies, Hanage believes, led to a rise of deaths in Florida from COVID. “If you compare it with California, New York, Massachusetts and the United Kingdom,” Hanage says Florida is “the only one to have more deaths since vaccines were available, than before. The only one of them.”

In analyzing knowledge compiled by John Hopkins University, Hanage discovered that in Florida, 60% of the whole deaths occurred after vaccines had been obtainable. In the opposite locations, the variety of deaths after vaccines grew to become obtainable are 40% of the whole or much less.

DeSantis dismisses the criticism, saying Florida voters checked out his report on COVID in November and gave him a powerful vote of confidence. “Not only did we win re-election,” he boasts, “we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican Governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida.” That’s true, for those who pass over the Reconstruction era.

Jumping into native points

As governor, DeSantis has prolonged his authority past state businesses and legal guidelines into native issues—exerting management over school boards, county health policies, even companies that maintain drag shows. To the delight of supporters, he is fast to assault any who problem him, from the media to the state’s largest employers. After Disney’s CEO stated he’d work to overturn a legislation, DeSantis signed a invoice ending Disney World’s self-governing status in Florida.

With his efforts to regulate even native insurance policies, he is left behind the dedication to restricted authorities he as soon as had as a member of the Freedom Caucus. Former Congressman David Jolly says, it is a lesson he took from Donald Trump. Jolly says, “What Donald Trump brought to the party was to really crush that orthodoxy of small government and instead say the ends justify the means. And so, whatever it takes to achieve conservative results.”

It would not matter if it takes massive authorities, Jolly says. To DeSantis, it would not even matter if courts have stated it is unconstitutional.

Last 12 months, with an eye fixed to federal legislation and Florida’s structure, lawmakers drew up new maps for the state’s 28 Congressional districts. DeSantis did not just like the outcome and demanded lawmakers draw new maps that ended up eliminating two districts that favored Black voters.

“I was completely dumbfounded, blind-sided”

Democratic state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, an African American lawmaker from Orlando, says, “I was completely dumbfounded, blind-sided.” It was the primary time anybody may recall a governor in Florida taking management of redistricting.

Republican legislative leaders pushed via the governor’s maps and so they had been instantly challenged in court docket as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. But the maps remained in place for November’s election, and helped Florida Republicans choose up 4 further seats in Congress.

Thompson says DeSantis’ motivation in concentrating on black voters is evident. “I think he has an interest in making sure that only certain individuals vote. And that those people are people who are supportive of his agenda,” she says. “And then making it difficult for anyone who does not support his agenda, making it difficult for them to vote.”

DeSantis would not shrink back from battles involving race. He’s banned Critical Race Theory from the colleges despite the fact that it is a topic not present in Kindergarten via 12^th grade curricula. He additionally drew nationwide headlines when his training commissioner stated he’d prohibit using an AP African American studies course in Florida.

Congressman Aaron Bean says these insurance policies aren’t supposed to focus on teams, however as an alternative arise for conservative rules. Bean would not anticipate DeSantis to melt his hardline stance in a marketing campaign for president. “I believe that should he go to the next level, which I think he will,” Bean says, “he will push forward an America-first agenda, a common-sense agenda, a freedom agenda.”

There are plenty of questions surrounding a DeSantis run for the presidency. Among them, how will he deal with intense scrutiny from the media and assaults from different candidates, notably Donald Trump? DeSantis hasn’t responded to repeated interview requests from NPR. Up to now, he is principally prevented interviews with mainstream media, preferring as an alternative pleasant appearances on Fox News and different conservative shops.

David Jolly says, for DeSantis, there is a extra elementary query. His practically 20-point win in Florida got here in a mid-term election by which many of the nation turned away from the Republican get together and most of the conservative insurance policies DeSantis has promoted. Jolly says, “The test for Ron DeSantis will be, is he really that skilled and that good of an evangelist to convince the country to follow the direction he took Florida?”

DeSantis’ supporters have a slogan, “Make America Florida.” Next 12 months, voters throughout the nation might get an opportunity to determine if that is one thing that they need.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with his spouse Casey and youngsters Madison, Mason and Mamie, waves to the group throughout a midterm election night time watch get together on Nov. 8, 2022.

Giorgio Viera/AFP through Getty Images

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Giorgio Viera/AFP through Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with his spouse Casey and youngsters Madison, Mason and Mamie, waves to the group throughout a midterm election night time watch get together on Nov. 8, 2022.

Giorgio Viera/AFP through Getty Images