By Benjamin Rothove

In 2018, Ron DeSantis was elected the Governor of Florida by a margin of 30,000 votes.  Just four years later, he won reelection by 1.5 million votes.  As of November 2022, Ron DeSantis is the most popular politician in the entire country. How did this former Navy lieutenant become the most likely next President of the United States? 

Ron DeSantis was born in Florida to a middle-class family; his mother was a nurse and his father installed Nielson TV rating boxes.  DeSantis was an excellent baseball player on top of being an outstanding student, eventually serving as the captain of Yale University’s baseball team, a distinction he shares with former President George Bush. After graduating, he briefly worked as a history teacher, before attending Harvard Law School with fellow conservative Ben Shapiro.

DeSantis was commissioned into the Navy during his time at Harvard.  He deployed to Iraq in 2007 and worked as a JAG officer until 2010.  DeSantis still serves in the Navy Reserves, as of the recording of this video.

Ron DeSantis married his wife, Casey, in 2010.  Soon after, he published a book and announced a run for Congress. DeSantis was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012, and soon became a frequent commentator on Fox News. DeSantis served as a founder of the House Freedom Caucus and became a top ally of President Trump in 2016.  

In 2018, DeSantis launched his bid to become the governor of Florida.  He easily won the primary with the support of Donald Trump, but the general election was another beast.  It was among the closest-watched races of the 2018 midterm cycle and was seen as a tossup.  DeSantis faced Andrew Gillum, then a rising star in the Democratic Party. The race came down to the wire, and 11 days after election night, the vote totals showed that DeSantis secured a victory by a razor-thin margin.

After being inaugurated as governor, he appointed three originalists to the Florida Supreme Court. Soon after, he secured funding to restore the everglades and ended Common Core in the state.  However, DeSantis shot to national fame during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He stood up to President Trump by deciding not to entirely lock down the state of Florida. This was initially a very unpopular move.  DeSantis was the only governor in the country whose approval rating declined after the beginning of Covid. Nevertheless, DeSantis pushed forward to keep Florida open. By the Summer of 2020, Ron DeSantis was proved right as the economy of Florida soared and his approval rating skyrocketed.  In September of that year, he banned any county or city in Florida from requiring masks and reopened all of the schools to in-person learning.  It has been that the risk DeSantis took could have destroyed his career, but he led the charge against lockdowns and benefitted from doing so.

Despite being an ardent conservative, DeSantis is a Conservationist as well. He has passed numerous laws to protect the environment, has supported a fracking ban in Florida, and looks for solutions to climate change.

Another major area that has brought DeSantis into the national spotlight is education.  He led the effort to ban Critical Race Theory in public schools and passed the Stop WOKE Act. He dissolved standardized testing in Florida and passed requirements for students to learn about the victims of Communism. More impressively, students have to take a financial literacy course so that they can actually function in the real world.

DeSantis has stood up for women, signing the Fairness in Women’s Sports act which bans males from participating in girl’s and women’s sports.  Moreover, he has stood up for parental rights and against sexual indoctrination, prohibiting instruction on gender ideology through third grade.  He has stood up to Disney, revoking its self-government status, and has stood up to big tech for censoring free speech.

Moreover, his response to Hurricane Ian was praised by Republicans and Democrats, with even Joe Biden admitting that the governor did a great job.

DeSantis is seen as a potential frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.  He is the most popular politician in the country and has the highest support of any governor in his home state.  Ron DeSantis was reelected by one of the margins in Florida history, and he turned the former swing state into a Republican stronghold.  Moreover, he is polling ahead of Trump in some key swing states (see Figure 1).

There are some parallels between DeSantis and another historically important Ron– Ronald Reagan.  Both were governors of populous purple states who stood up to the establishment.  Reagan was elected after Nixon left in disgrace and Jimmy Carter destroyed the economy.  If this Ron is elected in 2024, history would rhyme.