DeSantis enters new year in national spotlight

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is entering 2023 as one of the hottest commodities in Republican politics amid speculation that he’s nearing a campaign for the White House.

DeSantis was sworn in for a second term in the governor’s mansion on Tuesday, seizing on the moment to tout the accomplishments of his first four years in office and lay out some of his priorities for the next four. 

But many Republicans remain skeptical that he’ll stay in Tallahassee for another four years, given his growing stature on the national stage and increasing likelihood that he’ll challenge former President Trump for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nod.

“It’s becoming a lot harder to see a scenario in which he doesn’t run,” one Republican strategist said. “He’s right where anyone that’s considering running for president would want to be. Everyone’s watching him, everyone wants to be around him. No one is running away.”

DeSantis hasn’t yet made a final decision about a presidential bid, according to multiple Republican sources. Even if he eventually launches a campaign, it likely won’t be until after the Florida legislature wraps up its 2023 session in May. 

Nevertheless, DeSantis’s growing clout within the national GOP has become undeniable, even with Trump back on the campaign trail.  

Early polling of the 2024 GOP primary shows him as the only serious threat to Trump’s White House ambitions. He’s emerged as one of the most prolific Republican fundraisers in the country. And he won reelection in November by the widest margin in four decades, dealing a crushing blow to Florida’s status as a swing state.

“He took a state that was considered to be the premier battleground for 20 or 30 years and has, at least temporarily, turned it into a red state,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.

All that has turned DeSantis into something of a unifying figure for many Republicans at a time of internal conflict and uncertainty for a party still grappling with the fallout of a largely lackluster midterm election year.

“To me, he’s definitely the person that seems to be shaping the Republican Party as it moves away from Trump, and now the only question is when that will happen,” Jewett said.

There are signs that DeSantis has already started to supplant Trump atop the rungs of GOP politics. A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released last month found that by a 2-to-1 margin, Republican voters want a new standard-bearer to pursue Trump’s policies. That same poll found that roughly two-thirds of Republican and Republican-leaning voters want DeSantis to run for president in 2024.

Jewett said that part of DeSantis’s strength among Republicans stems from his ability to frame controversial political positions as a matter of common sense rather than ideology.

“He has a great ability to frame an issue to make it seem like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world. All of the ‘anti-woke’ stuff, he can sell it as a matter of parental rights in education or law and order or protecting free speech. He’s been very effective at putting his own spin on these culture war issues that he’s leaned into.”

Indeed, that strategy was on full display on Tuesday as DeSantis addressed a crowd in Tallahassee after taking his oath of office for the second time. 

He repeatedly cast his opposition to COVID-19-related restrictions as a cut-and-dry effort to preserve basic freedoms, railed against an “unaccountable” federal bureaucracy and insisted that he “will not allow reality, facts and truth to become optional.”

“We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die,” he said, using a phrase that has become a linchpin of his stump speeches.

Yet DeSantis’s inauguration speech was distinct in tone, coming off as more of a national address than a routine outline of his second-term plans. 

He boasted about the rapid growth of the state’s population in the years since the pandemic began and painted himself as a leader unconcerned with ideology, sprinkling in references to former Presidents Lincoln and Reagan along the way.

“We have articulated a vision for a free and prosperous state. We have through persistence and hard work executed on that vision. We have produced favorable results,” DeSantis said. “And now we are here today because the people of Florida have validated our efforts in record fashion.”

DeSantis remains a deeply divisive figure. His willingness to wade into the culture wars has made him a chief villain among Democrats, who see him as a more well-spoken — and potentially more dangerous — iteration of Trump.

And while DeSantis may be starting the New Year in a particularly strong position, politics — especially at the presidential level — can be notoriously fickle. Early on in Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, for instance, few Republicans expected the reality TV star and real estate mogul to eventually win the GOP nomination, let alone the White House.

Another complicating factor for DeSantis is that he’s only just beginning his second term as governor. Some Florida Republicans who support DeSantis say they’re not ready to see him leave the governor’s mansion for a stint in Washington.

Thomas Kennedy, a Democratic National Committee member from Florida, cautioned against betting too heavily on DeSantis’s political future. Kennedy said that, while DeSantis has clear political momentum in his home state and among the GOP’s conservative base, he also carries a significant amount of baggage that could prove damaging on the national stage.

“Our state is uniquely insane, but at the national level, I’m not sure that it plays,” Kennedy said. “You have to pivot or moderate, and I don’t see how DeSantis does that.

“At some point, he’s going to have to try something else. I just don’t think he wins the presidency maligning trans individuals and talking about anti-vax stuff. It’s not a winning strategy.”