Camp Hill, Pennsylvania— Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Saturday addressed a vast roomful of Pennsylvania conservatives, reviewing his record, asserting it has meant boldness and — crucially for his possible future presidential campaign — victory.
The governor has not declared himself a candidate for the White House, but many expect he will become a robust rival against former President Donald Trump in a 2024 primary campaign. He spoke at length to attendees of the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference just outside of Harrisburg about his work in the Sunshine State. It’s a story, he observed, of success after success.
His policy wins, he noted, came only after election victory. He won his initial gubernatorial contest narrowly but prevailed in last year’s reelection with a resounding 59.4 percent of the vote, the largest share of the vote any Florida GOP gubernatorial hopeful ever received.
“In this endeavor, there is no substitute for victory,” he said. “The winners get to make policy. The losers go home.”
Those gathered at the Keystone State’s largest yearly gathering of right-leaning activists heard a detailed breakdown of the political sea change DeSantis’s landslide bespoke in his state. He and his GOP compatriots flipped control of previously Democrat-run counties like the heavily urbanized Miami-Dade with double-digit wins. The Republicans also now enjoy supermajorities in the state legislature.
The party, he added, enjoyed related triumphs on the school-district level, with 29 conservative stalwarts getting elected to school boards throughout the state. Even the deep-blue stronghold of Palm Beach County is now governed by a Republican-controlled commission.
And registration numbers suggest the overwhelming electoral wins DeSantis helped usher in reflect more than fleeting public sentiment: In 2018, Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans by about 300,000; now, about 448,000 more Republicans than Democrats call Florida home.
“We took that swing state that was always one point in either direction and we’ve turned it into a red state,” he said. “What that represents is a massive defeat for the left…. We have left the Democratic Party for dead in the state of Florida.”
The governor’s audience frequently erupted in cheers when he reviewed for them such policies as banning vaccine passports, repatriating 11,000 illegal aliens, keeping Florida open through most of the COVID pandemic, expanding school choice by historic proportions, banning the use of Critical Race Theory in schools and removing leftist Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren from office.
A wide array of economic and demographic indicators, he said, underscore Florida’s success. It enjoys the largest population growth among states, it has among the highest economic growth and it boasts nearly the lowest tax and debt burdens per capita.
DeSantis said his policy victories should counsel conservative public officials concerned about the risks of being politically enterprising.
“The stakes are very high,” he said. “I think what Florida shows is that if you pursue a bold agenda, if you exhibit strong leadership, you not only can take on the left, you can beat the left. And we have done that day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.”
And while DeSantis nonetheless spoke in a way seemingly designed to contrast him with Trump, whose electoral record is more checkered, the governor did speak up for his potential nomination opponent on the “hush money” indictment the latter is currently facing.
“[Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D)] doesn’t want to charge people with felonies, so now he turns around, purely for political purposes and indicts a former president on misdemeanor offenses that they’re straining to try to convert into felonies,” DeSantis said. “That is when you know that the law has been caponized for political purposes.”
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
