Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is quickly establishing himself as the Republican best positioned to inherit the mantle from former President Donald Trump if the latter exits electoral politics.
DeSantis has taken up the major themes of the Trump presidency — defending national sovereignty, assailing Big Tech, excoriating political correctness, pursuing economic reopening during the pandemic, and getting tough with China — and married it to a relatively popular gubernatorial record in a major state.
“Four years is a political lifetime,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell. “That said, if Donald Trump chooses not to run for president in 2024, there is no question that DeSantis, assuming he wins reelection in the Sunshine State in 2022, will likely be the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.”
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DeSantis was the only non-Trump Republican to record double-digit support in the Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll, taking 21% of the vote to the former president’s 55%. Without Trump on the ballot, DeSantis dominated with 43% to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s 11%.
Straw polls are not scientific surveys, and CPAC was held in DeSantis’s backyard in Orlando this year rather than outside of Washington, D.C. Most campaigns did not appear to push supporters to vote, with COVID-19 restrictions making mass busing untenable and Trump’s presence making him the likely winner clear. But it was an early test of organic support among the nation’s largest gathering of conservative activists. Other Republicans who have tied themselves to Trump, like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, languished in the single digits.
Even Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican who is traditionally a favorite of the type of movement conservative who attends CPAC, received just 7% of the vote without Trump listed on the ballot.
But DeSantis faces the same uncertainty about Trump’s 2024 plans as the rest of the hypothetical Republican field. He also must win a second term in a top battleground where statewide elections are normally competitive. “There’s no question before he can think about a larger office, he has to win reelection,” said Jamie Miller, a local Republican strategist, referring to the governor’s 2022 reelection race.
Scott Walker was once in a similar position. He had won three tough elections in the typically blue state of Wisconsin, one of them a union-backed recall, and was a popular governor among conservatives. He entered the presidential race and eventually led in Iowa and some national polls, toppling former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
It was all upended when Trump entered the race. Walker dropped out before the end of 2015, not even making it to the Iowa caucuses. He was defeated for reelection in 2018, a midterm election in which suburban voters swung massively against Trump’s GOP.
Still, Trump will be 78 in four years. DeSantis is only 42. The two men are political allies. And they now reside in the same state. “Florida under DeSantis has been heralded as a beacon of freedom by conservatives, and with Donald Trump residing at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach and Republicans locked out of power at the federal level, Florida is now seen as the center of the Republican political universe,” O’Connell said.
DeSantis’s star has risen as Democratic governors who were heralded by the media while he was savaged have stumbled. California Gov. Gavin Newsom could face a recall over his pandemic management, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is dealing with twin scandals concerning sexual harassment and the housing of COVID-19 patients in nursing homes.
“Probably no one has been helped more by the pandemic than DeSantis. DeSantis has become the Republican foil to Cuomo and Newsom,” said conservative strategist Chris Barron. “Proof that you didn’t have to wreck your economy and ruin lives in order to keep people safe. What will be interesting to see if DeSantis’s popularity with the grassroots will extend past the pandemic and whether he can capture the attention and excitement of the base in the same way President Trump did and continues to do.”
“Gov. DeSantis’s leadership during the pandemic has earned him plaudits in conservative circles across the country. When other big-state governors were stressing lockdowns and stoking fears, DeSantis was pushing to reopen safely, and it paid off. His goal was to minimize death and suffering while maximizing openness,” O’Connell added. “And it is not just Republican voters who recognize DeSantis’s success and meteoric rise, there is a reason why the Florida governor is being hammered by the dominant liberal media. He is succeeding by following the science and the data and making media-anointed pandemic heroes like Govs. Newsom and Cuomo look like amateurs in terms of doing what is best for their constituents.”
At the very least, this could help DeSantis win a second term as governor. “The Republican Party of Florida is 100% solidified behind Ron DeSantis,” Miller said. “Whoever decides to run against him will be going against a very popular bipartisan governor who has led with integrity during a crisis.”
“We are in an oasis of freedom in a nation that’s suffering from the yoke of oppressive lockdowns,” DeSantis told conservative activists at CPAC. “We look around in other parts of our country, and in far too many places, we see schools closed, businesses shuttered, and lives destroyed.”
DeSantis hit many of the same themes in his State of the State address on Tuesday. “While so many other states kept locking people down, Florida kept lifting people up,” he said. “Florida’s schools are open — and we are one of only a handful of states in which every parent has a right to send a child to school in-person.”
But COVID-19 isn’t the only issue DeSantis hit as a possible contrast with President Biden. “We need to take action, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party and foreign influence and interference in American research, education,” he said at CPAC. He also sounded populist Trumpian themes on immigration, deriding the “failed Republican establishment of yesteryear.”
“We reject open borders and instead support American sovereignty and the American worker,” DeSantis said. “Building a movement on amnesty and cheap foreign labor is like building a house on a field of quicksand.”
The governor’s handling of Trump will matter at least as much as his policy positions. Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor widely seen as having 2024 ambitions, has struggled to define herself in relation to Trump. DeSantis, who is close to Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, another top Trump ally, is seen as unlikely to try to distance himself from the 45th president.
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But a repudiation of Trump may not be the best way for the GOP to transition to new leadership. Ronald Reagan, who sought the presidency as a former California governor, never denounced Richard Nixon. He won the White House six years after Nixon’s resignation following the Watergate scandal.
DeSantis may not be another Reagan or even another Trump, but he has his admirers. “He seems to be very well grounded in his values, and when politicians are well grounded in their values, it helps them in times of crisis,” Miller said.
