Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is grabbing a lot of headlines these days. He’s contested COVID-era lockdowns and sent immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Now he’s trying to ban an AP course in Black history and beefing up a culture-war parenting bill. And it seems to be paying off. In an average of head-to-head polls taken since the midterm elections, the Florida governor is beating out former President Donald Trump by 48% to 43% for the 2024 nomination. Of course, none of that means much so far in advance of the election, but as Straight Arrow News contributor Matthew Continetti argues, it does indicate that DeSantis’ “anti-wokeism” message is working.
Trump covered somewhat similar ground in his presidential announcement last November. Unlike DeSantis, he used the word “woke” just once. DeSantis said it four times at his inaugural.
Most of Trump’s announcement speech defended his presidency. Interestingly, he did not mention his creation of an originalist majority on the Supreme Court or the pro-life policies he enacted while in office.
Just as he did in the early days of the 2016 campaign, Trump is playing up immigration. He links the border crisis to rising crime and the ongoing epidemic of fentanyl and methamphetamine overdoses.
For months, Trump has been promising to impose the death penalty on drug dealers. In January of this year, he released a plan to deploy the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels.
DeSantis faces an immigration challenge of his own. Hundreds of Cubans and Haitians have been arriving in the Florida Keys, overwhelming the humanitarian capacity of frontline communities.
Last fall DeSantis made headlines and earned additional conservative support by arranging for Venezuelan asylum seekers in Texas to be sent to the liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard.
Now the border crisis has come home to Florida. It’s another chance for DeSantis to demonstrate leadership ability and executive competence. Plenty of people will be studying how the governor responds to this latest development. And I can think of one DeSantis constituent in West Palm Beach who will be watching closely indeed.
