Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been long considered the main challenger to former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.[0] Recent polls have shown DeSantis with a growing lead over Trump, including a poll from Echelon Insights, a GOP polling firm, which showed DeSantis trouncing Trump by 15 points after only leading by 2 points in January.[1] A Fox News poll also had Republican primary voters favoring DeSantis over Trump 43% to 28%.[2]
DeSantis has recently been making moves to show he can engage at the national level, but he has yet to confirm his bid for the White House. In his new book, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” DeSantis rails against the “legacy media” and “fake news media” and brands them as the “pretorian guard of the nation’s failed ruling class” and the “enemy of the American People” respectively.[3]
DeSantis, who attended Yale University in the late ’90s and early 2000s, wrote of his experience in the second chapter of the book, titled “For God, For Country, and For Yale,” that he experienced “strident leftism” at Yale that “represented a wholesale rejection of the basic principles that constitutes the foundation of the American experiment.”[4]
The Florida Governor gave a rare in-depth media interview to British newspaper The Times on Wednesday about his potential presidential run. During the interview he praised Trump for “enhancing my name recognition” and stopped short of announcing a presidential run, though seemed open to one.
DeSantis will travel this weekend to California, where he’ll appear at the Reagan Library and also deliver a speech at a fundraiser for the Orange County Republican Party.[5] With the possibility of a presidential bid looming, it will be interesting to see if DeSantis is able to capitalize on the growing support he has been receiving and launch a successful campaign for the White House.
0. “Ron DeSantis ‘Will Destroy Our Democracy,’ Says Fascism Expert” Newsweek, 27 Feb. 2023, https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-fascist-ruth-ben-ghiat-1784017
1. “DeSantis readies de facto presidential campaign with national book tour” Axios, 28 Feb. 2023, https://www.axios.com/2023/02/28/desantis-campaign-launch-book-tour
2. “Can Ron DeSantis beat Donald Trump in GOP’s 2024 race? No.” USA TODAY, 2 Mar. 2023, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/03/02/trump-beat-desantis-2024-republican-primary-poll/11377639002
3. “The Courage to be Free review: Ron DeSantis bows and scrapes to Trump” The Guardian, 26 Feb. 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/26/the-courage-to-be-free-review-ron-desantis-trump
4. “Ron DeSantis calls Yale degree ‘scarlet letter’ in GOP politics” New Haven Register, 2 Mar. 2023, https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/ron-desantis-book-yale-courage-to-be-free-florida-17816058.php
5. “DeSantis cannonballs into America’s deep blue states for war on ‘woke’ ahead of 2024” The Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/03/desantis-blue-states-california-newsom/
