Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the official candidate for the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential election in the United States. In the political line of Donald Trump, he is also his most serious competitor.
Here he is officially a rival of Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis announced that he was a candidate for the Republican primary in view of the 2024 American presidential election, on the night of May 24 to 25, 2023. The news that everyone expected did not benefit from the effect of surprise, but it also suffered from a media fiasco: the Republican declared himself a candidate in an interview with Elon Musk broadcast on Twitter, but the malfunctions were linked during the show. The entry into the race of the governor of Florida for the presidential election was therefore not the most successful and the former tenant of the White House did not hesitate to insist on the technical failures of the announcement. Still, of the seven candidates for the Republican primary, scheduled for the summer of 2024, Ron DeSantis could be the billionaire’s most serious competitor.
A candidacy equivalent to a declaration of internal war? The rivalry has already been going on for a few months between the two Republicans and it was palpable during the 2022 midterms poll which saw a landslide victory for Ron DeSantis, re-elected governor of Florida hands down with 59.5% of the vote and 20 points ahead of his Democratic rival, and several defeats for Trump’s foals.
Faced with the candidacy, the electoral legitimacy and the national stature of Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump is already using all the stratagems to discredit and weaken his candidate in the opinion of Americans. More vehement than ever, the real estate tycoon has attributed a small nickname as only he has the secret to his opponent: after the “Sleepy Joe” used to qualify Joe Biden, here is “Ron DeSanctimonious”, which we can translate as “Ron LaMorale”. This nickname is regularly accompanied by criticism mocking the lack of popularity and charisma of the governor of the “Sunshine State”. “The problem with DeSantis is that he would need a personality transplant,” Donald Trump quipped on his network, Truth Social, AFP recalls.
Prior to being rivals, Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump seemed to share a parentage in the Republican family. The Florida government is seen as one of the staunchest proponents of Trumpist politics with equally conservative ideas. And the billionaire supported Ron DeSantis’ first candidacy for government in 2018. This relationship makes Ron DeSantis the perfect heir to Donald Trump to try to bring the Republican camp back to the White House, except that the former leader of the state has not yet decided to hang up.
Candidate for the Republican primary, Ron DeSantis now has a year ahead of him to stand out in the polls and compete with Donald Trump. With two terms as governor to his credit, the conservative has established his position in the opinion of voters and supporters of the American right, but there is still a long way to go to overshadow the owner of Trump Tower. In the polls the former president of the United States is two steps ahead of his opponents with 58% of voting intentions according to the YouGov study published for CBS News on May 1, 2023, while Ron DeSantis in close second does not collects only 22% of the voting intentions. However, he is the only candidate to exceed the 10% mark and can count on the 30% of voters who plan to vote for him. A score that can still change in the coming months.
If Ron DeSantis is more polite than Donald Trump, his ideas are no less conservative than those of the billionaire. Double advantage for the Republican? It could be, because defending restrictive policies on immigration, abortion and LGBTQ rights but libertarian measures on the carrying of weapons, without getting lost in scandals and legal proceedings, he could attract a large part of the right-wing electorate. This is already why he is sometimes preferred to Trump in the ranks of the Republicans. “Ron DeSantis presents himself as an acceptable Republican by playing Trumpism without Trump,” summarized Marie-Christine Bonzom, political scientist and former correspondent for the BBC in Washington, with BFMTV.
Ron DeSantis’ conservative political line has already been at work since 2019 in Florida, aided by a predominantly right-wing local parliament. The prohibition for teachers to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity at school or the reduction of the legal deadline for abortion to 6 weeks, against 24 before his election, are cited by Republicans among his feats of arms. Another strong position of the presidential candidate of 2024: his support for the construction of a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico, an idea acclaimed by Donald Trump during the 2020 campaign. He is also in favor of the penalty of death and fervent supporter of the bearing of arms wishing to make this right unconditional.
Born on September 14, 1978 in Jacksonville, Florida to a television installer father and a nurse mother, Ron DeSantis went through several of the best schools in the United States during his schooling. Studying history at the prestigious Yale University (Connecticut), where he was captain of the baseball team for a time, he also studied law at Harvard (Massachusetts) before joining the ranks of the Navy in 2004. Advisor to the Navy Seals special forces, he was notably sent to Iraq. After a whirlwind stint on the federal prosecutor’s team in Florida, upon his return from Iraq, he entered the 2012 election as a candidate for the House of Representatives. Elected at 34, he quickly got noticed by Donald Trump, of whom he spoke highly. It was enough to launch his career.
Now the father of three children, named Madison, Mason and Granny, this Catholic married to ex-television journalist Casey DeSantis seems ready for his next battle, even if it means dismissing his former mentor? The future will tell. Le Monde reports, in any case, that from a financial point of view, Ron DeSantis would be more than ever in the starting blocks. During his gubernatorial campaign, he is rumored to have raised nearly $200 million, of which some $100 million was unused…
