The Making of the President 2024: Ron DeSantis
Currently polling second in the race of the Repiblican Party's nomination for President is Ronald Dion DeSantis, the current Governor of Floria. Whereas most of the candidates in the race are senior citizens, DeSantis, wjo was born September 14, 1978, is 44 years of age. He has served as governor of Florida since 2019 as the 46th governor of the state. Previously, DeSantis represented Florida's 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018.
He was born in Jacksonville and spent his childhood in Dunedin, Florida. DeSantis graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. He is a Navy veteran, joining the United States Navy in 2004. He was promoted to lieutenant before serving as a legal advisor to SEAL Team One. DeSantis was stationed at Joint Task Force Guantanamo in 2006, and was deployed to Iraq in 2007. He returned to the U.S. about eight months later, and was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice as a Special Assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida. He held that position until his honorable discharge from the Navy in 2010.
DeSantis was elected to Congress in 2012 and was reelected in 2014 and 2016. In that time he became a founding member of the Freedom Caucus and was a supporter of President Donald Trump. DeSantis was a vocal critic of Special Council Robert Mueller's investigation into allegations of links or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He considered a run for U.S. Senate in 2016, but withdrew when incumbent senator Marco Rubio sought reelection. DeSantis won the Republican nomination for the 2018 gubernatorial election and narrowly defeated the Democratic nominee, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, in the general election by a tiny margin of less than half a percent of the vote.
As governor, DeSantis resisted many of the measures recommendedto slow the spread of COVID-19 that various other state governments implemented. These included face-mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, and vaccination requirements. During the pandemic, Florida experienced above-average economic growth. This also allowed DeSantis cut state-government spending, and this, along with federal stimulus payments and high sales-tax revenue, led to the largest budget surplus in Florida's history. He also engaged in recovery efforts after Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole. He also supported and signed the controversial Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly known as the "Don't Say Gay" law, which would prohibit discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in school classrooms from kindergarten to grade 3. The Walt Disney Company, owner of Walt Disney World in Florida, called for the law's repeal, causing DeSantis, in April 2022, to sign a bill eliminating the company's special independent district and replacing its Disney-appointed board of overseers. He also threatened during a press confrence to build a new state prison near the Disney World complex. On April 26, 2023, Disney filed suit against DeSantis and several others, accusing them of retaliating against protected speech.
DeSantis was reelected in a landslide in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election by a margin of over his opponent, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist.
DeSantis had been considered to be a potential candidate in the 2024 presidential election as early as the inauguration of President Joe Biden. He was invited to the Republican National Committee's January 2021 meeting in Amelia Island, despite supporting then-president Donald Trump at the time. In October 2022, former Florida governor Jeb Bush praised DeSantis as a potential 2024 candidate, and in February 2023, Bush once again expressed the hope that DeSantis would run, though stopping short of endorsing DeSantis. In May 2023, DeSantis spoke to the Republican Party in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal—owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp—began to publish stories critical of Trump for the January 6 Capitol attack, while portrayong DeSantis in a positive light.
In February 2023, DeSantis released a book entitled "The Courage to Be Free", in which he set out his political beliefs. He subsequently embarked on a book tour in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. In April, he visited Japan, South Korea, Israel, and the United Kingdom, in a move seen by many as an attempt to improve his credentials on foreign policy. The Florida Legislature passed an elections bill in April that removes the requirement that DeSantis must resign as the governor of Florida if he launches a presidential campaign, a bill signed into law by DeSantis hours before he was expected to announce his candidacy.
On May 23, 2023, DeSantis officially filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). On May 30, DeSantis held his first in-person event at Eternity Church in Clive, Iowa, and he subsequently appeared in other cities across Iowa, including Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Pella, and concluding his visit in Cedar Rapids. The DeSantis campaign announced that DeSantis raised a total of US$8.2 million from online donations and donations made at the Four Seasons in Miami, outpacing Donald Trump, who had raised US$9.5 million in the six weeks after he announced his campaign.
According to aggregate FiveThirtyEight polls, the margin between Trump and DeSantis increased from January 2023 to May 2023. According to the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute between May 18 to 22, DeSantis attracted 25% of Republican voters compared to Trump's 56% hold. Despite this, DeSantis holds a stronger favorability rating. The most recent aggregate polling numbers from RealClearPolitics (RCP) shows Trump with a 32.7% lead over DeSeantic (more than two to one) with Trump at 52.9% and DeSantis at 20.2%.
He was born in Jacksonville and spent his childhood in Dunedin, Florida. DeSantis graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. He is a Navy veteran, joining the United States Navy in 2004. He was promoted to lieutenant before serving as a legal advisor to SEAL Team One. DeSantis was stationed at Joint Task Force Guantanamo in 2006, and was deployed to Iraq in 2007. He returned to the U.S. about eight months later, and was appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice as a Special Assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida. He held that position until his honorable discharge from the Navy in 2010.
DeSantis was elected to Congress in 2012 and was reelected in 2014 and 2016. In that time he became a founding member of the Freedom Caucus and was a supporter of President Donald Trump. DeSantis was a vocal critic of Special Council Robert Mueller's investigation into allegations of links or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He considered a run for U.S. Senate in 2016, but withdrew when incumbent senator Marco Rubio sought reelection. DeSantis won the Republican nomination for the 2018 gubernatorial election and narrowly defeated the Democratic nominee, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, in the general election by a tiny margin of less than half a percent of the vote.
As governor, DeSantis resisted many of the measures recommendedto slow the spread of COVID-19 that various other state governments implemented. These included face-mask mandates, stay-at-home orders, and vaccination requirements. During the pandemic, Florida experienced above-average economic growth. This also allowed DeSantis cut state-government spending, and this, along with federal stimulus payments and high sales-tax revenue, led to the largest budget surplus in Florida's history. He also engaged in recovery efforts after Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole. He also supported and signed the controversial Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly known as the "Don't Say Gay" law, which would prohibit discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in school classrooms from kindergarten to grade 3. The Walt Disney Company, owner of Walt Disney World in Florida, called for the law's repeal, causing DeSantis, in April 2022, to sign a bill eliminating the company's special independent district and replacing its Disney-appointed board of overseers. He also threatened during a press confrence to build a new state prison near the Disney World complex. On April 26, 2023, Disney filed suit against DeSantis and several others, accusing them of retaliating against protected speech.
DeSantis was reelected in a landslide in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election by a margin of over his opponent, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist.
DeSantis had been considered to be a potential candidate in the 2024 presidential election as early as the inauguration of President Joe Biden. He was invited to the Republican National Committee's January 2021 meeting in Amelia Island, despite supporting then-president Donald Trump at the time. In October 2022, former Florida governor Jeb Bush praised DeSantis as a potential 2024 candidate, and in February 2023, Bush once again expressed the hope that DeSantis would run, though stopping short of endorsing DeSantis. In May 2023, DeSantis spoke to the Republican Party in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal—owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp—began to publish stories critical of Trump for the January 6 Capitol attack, while portrayong DeSantis in a positive light.
In February 2023, DeSantis released a book entitled "The Courage to Be Free", in which he set out his political beliefs. He subsequently embarked on a book tour in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. In April, he visited Japan, South Korea, Israel, and the United Kingdom, in a move seen by many as an attempt to improve his credentials on foreign policy. The Florida Legislature passed an elections bill in April that removes the requirement that DeSantis must resign as the governor of Florida if he launches a presidential campaign, a bill signed into law by DeSantis hours before he was expected to announce his candidacy.
On May 23, 2023, DeSantis officially filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). On May 30, DeSantis held his first in-person event at Eternity Church in Clive, Iowa, and he subsequently appeared in other cities across Iowa, including Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Pella, and concluding his visit in Cedar Rapids. The DeSantis campaign announced that DeSantis raised a total of US$8.2 million from online donations and donations made at the Four Seasons in Miami, outpacing Donald Trump, who had raised US$9.5 million in the six weeks after he announced his campaign.
According to aggregate FiveThirtyEight polls, the margin between Trump and DeSantis increased from January 2023 to May 2023. According to the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute between May 18 to 22, DeSantis attracted 25% of Republican voters compared to Trump's 56% hold. Despite this, DeSantis holds a stronger favorability rating. The most recent aggregate polling numbers from RealClearPolitics (RCP) shows Trump with a 32.7% lead over DeSeantic (more than two to one) with Trump at 52.9% and DeSantis at 20.2%.