We're Beginning to See the Real Ron DeSantis

• Donald Trump's indictment may have cleared a path for Ron DeSantis' 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
• DeSantis has focused on tough-on-crime policies and anti-woke education bills in his home state of Florida.
• He has faced criticism for his views on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and a lack of foreign policy experience.
• DeSantis may also lean on hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration.
• He's been hugely popular in Florida—so can he translate this into national appeal?
  

For several weeks now—well before Donald Trump's indictment made history—Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been embarking on what could be considered a shadow national presidential campaign ahead of an expected 2024 confirmation.

Since February, DeSantis has spoken to police unions in New York, Philadelphia and the suburbs of Chicago to discuss his tough-on-crime credentials and the policies which he says protect law enforcement in Florida.

The governor recently spoke to Republicans in Iowa, where around 1,000 people saw him appear at two separate events in Davenport and Des Moines on March 10 to promote his new book, The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival, which has also seen DeSantis visit states such as Texas, California, Alabama.

Elsewhere, DeSantis recently gave an interview to Fox Nation's Piers Morgan in which he openly criticized Trump's leadership style—an eventual retaliation to the former president launching attack after attack on the Florida governor amid claims he is due to enter the 2024 GOP primary race.

DeSantis also told Morgan that if he were president he would have "fired" Dr. Anthony Fauci, who as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was the country's top medical adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic, and suggested he has "what it takes" to beat President Joe Biden but stopped short of confirming his 2024 bid.

DeSantis has seen his stock rise in GOP circles and is hugely popular in Florida, as evidenced by his comprehensive midterm gubernatorial re-election victory in November in which he beat Democratic candidate Charlie Crist by nearly 20 percentage points.

With Trump, long considered the favorite for the Republican 2024 nomination, now indicted following an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office into alleged hush money payments made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels—not to mention the damage to his reputation from the GOP's poor midterm results—many consider DeSantis to be the one who should lead the party in the future.

For his part, DeSantis is standing by Trump over the indictment, tweeting that Florida will not assist in an extradition request for the former president, whom he said was the victim of the "weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda," and echoing attacks on the "Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney."

Others also see what DeSantis has achieved in Florida during his time as governor, including implementing a series of policies targeting education and LGBTQ+ issues as part of his battle against the "woke," as being the groundwork for the GOP's future, rather than a return to Trump's MAGA agenda.

However, Sean Freeder, assistant professor of political science at the University of North Florida, suggested that should DeSantis run for president in 2024, it is not his policies, but how he has implemented them, that could be the key to his campaign.

"To the extent that DeSantis stands out from other Republican elected officials, I would say it is more about the extent to which he has pursued that platform, his success in picking public fights over those issues and therefore attracting national media attention, and the degree to which he has pursued the preferences of his base relative to his constituents as a whole," Freeder told Newsweek.

Freeder added that should the governor run for the White House, he will likely attempt to "claim issue ownership" in a few particular areas.

Don't Say Gay/LGBTQ+ Views

For the past couple of years, DeSantis has put himself at the center of a number of culture war issues, including the introduction of HB 1557, legislation critics have dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, which bans the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades at Florida schools.

The bill saw the governor enter a war with Disney after the company spoke out against the legislation. DeSantis later stripped Disney of its so-called special benefits protected under the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which essentially allows Disney to run under its own governing body, which critics said was in retaliation.

He also signed into law the Stop WOKE bill in April 2022, which bans lessons in K-12 classrooms that could make students feel "guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress" because of historic wrongs due to their race, color, sex or national origin. The bill is currently facing a number of lawsuits and injunctions preventing its full implementation.

A number of other states have introduced education bills that are similar to DeSantis' anti-woke policies. Should he run for the White House, there is no reason to suggest DeSantis would not continue to campaign on letting parents have greater input in their child's education, or fight against the perceived liberal bias in schools.

"Of course, the president has relatively little direct involvement in these matters, given education is largely a state and local issue, but it won't stop him from campaigning heavily on these actions given their popularity with the Republican base," Freeder told Newsweek.

Views on Ukraine-Russia

One area that may prove more problematic for DeSantis in his presidential campaign is his foreign policy, particularly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

DeSantis has already been met with criticism from Republican hawks after he described the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a "territorial dispute" in which the U.S. should not get further involved, before backtracking on the comments during his recent interview with Morgan.

"Obviously, Russia invaded—that was wrong," he said. "They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014—that was wrong. What I'm referring to is kinda where the fighting is going on now, which is that western border or eastern border reaching Donbas and then Crimea."

DeSantis also called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "war criminal" due to his actions in Ukraine.

Fox News correspondent Kevin Corke accused DeSantis of having "flip-flopped" on his views on Ukraine because the governor was aware that he may soon need to express the "talking points of a national candidate."

"We want to support the Ukrainian people, we want to make sure we're doing the right thing, and we can't just stand by while Russia sort of gobbles up bits and pieces of Europe," Corke said.

What may save DeSantis on his presidential campaign is that foreign policy is not such a big concern for voters, with polls frequently suggesting domestic issues such as inflation and the economy are the top issues, and that Trump was able to win in 2016 with his "America First" policy.

"DeSantis' foreign policy experience is essentially non-existent, which is not unusual for a governor or even most politicians, so he may struggle when responding to questions related to international issues," Freeder said.

Vaccination/COVID-19

DeSantis has long been a firebrand politician, as seen during his refusal to reintroduce coronavirus lockdowns in Florida in late 2020, despite CDC recommendations, or force vaccine mandates in the Sunshine State.

DeSantis was heavily criticized by some scientists and media commentators for keeping bars, restaurants and other businesses open, seeing as the state had one of the highest COVID-19 death rates in the country at the time. He defended the policy as being crucial to protecting Florida's economy. "We were right and they were wrong. And millions of families in Florida are better for it," DeSantis said during his state of the state address in 2022.

DeSantis, much like Trump, praised the vaccine's effectiveness against the COVID-19 virus. However, the governor's public enthusiasm waned, with Trump appearing to make a thinly veiled attack on DeSantis during a January 2022 which the former president criticized "gutless" politicians who won't confirm or deny whether they had received a COVID-19 vaccine booster.

In January 2023, Trump also accused DeSantis of trying to "rewrite history" with regards to how he dealt with the pandemic, noting how the governor "closed the beaches."

"While COVID policy is unlikely to be a big determinant of 2024 voting behavior, or a big focus in any eventual 2025-2028 presidential administration, it is a highly salient recent issue and potentially a topic on which he could try to draw distinction between himself and Trump, at least in terms of leadership," Freeder said.

Elsewhere, DeSantis will almost certainly lean on other hot topic issues such as abortion, with the governor indicating he would sign any bill that would ban the procedure after six weeks should one land on his desk.

DeSantis will also be keen to show that he has a hardline stance of immigration, having already inserted himself into conversations about immigration in the U.S.-Mexico border with his stunt in flying migrants from Texas to the affluent Martha's Vineyard area of Massachusetts.

"Overall, I would expect a DeSantis administration to look very similar to a Trump administration, but without nearly as many endless, needless personal distractions," Freeder told Newsweek.

"President DeSantis would not likely be tweeting at 3 a.m., and he would likely play more of a hands-on role working with his party in Congress but, otherwise, his administration would likely pursue most of the same policy goals as Trump or, frankly, any Republican president would at this point.

"Similar to Trump, President DeSantis would probably be quickly surprised at how little power he actually has over most issues most of the time," Freeder added.

"DeSantis has enjoyed a Republican supermajority in Florida, which means he has been able to essentially do anything he wants without any meaningful opposition.

"As president, DeSantis would be dealing with a Congress controlled by Democrats at worst, or the gridlock produced by the Senate filibuster at best, which means there's no reason to believe that his policy productivity would continue to be anywhere near as high as it has been in Florida."