Desantis heads to Texas with a new book
Fresh off the release of a new book and with improving polling numbers, Florida Gov. Ron Desantis is heading to Houston on Friday as part of a tour of Texas that will only feed speculation that he’s angling for a White House bid in 2024.
Desantis is the keynote speaker for the Harris County Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner fundraiser on Friday night at the George R. Brown Convention Center. It is the first of a two-day run through Texas that includes a stop in Dallas for another GOP fundraising dinner.
The visit to the two most populous counties in the biggest GOP primary state in the nation comes almost exactly a year out from the Texas Republican primary on March 5, 2024. He’ll follow that up on Sunday with a trip to California where he will deliver a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley before attending a fundraising dinner with the Republican Party of Orange County.
“It sure looks like he’s running for president already, although he hasn’t officially announced,” said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.
Desantis, 44, has said little directly about his plans for 2024. But in his new book released Tuesday, Desantis outlines a “blueprint for America’s revival” that seems to set the stage for a future bid. In it, he takes lessons he’s learned from Florida and applies them to what he describes as the broken politics of Washington, D.C.
“The battles we have fought in Florida — from defeating the biomedical security state to stifling woke corporations to fighting indoctrination in schools — strikes at the heart of what it means to be a Floridian and an American,” Desantis says in “The Courage to Be Free.”
Trump: ‘He begged me’
Desantis may not be ready to declare for the GOP primary in 2024, but former President Donald Trump is certainly treating him like a threat in interviews and speeches. During an interview
on a conservative talk show last month, Trump took credit for helping Desantis win his first race for governor in 2018.
“Desantis got elected because of me,” Trump told host Hugh Hewitt. “You remember he had nothing. He was dead. He was leaving the race. He came over and he begged me, begged me for an endorsement. He said, ‘If you endorse me, I’ll win.’ And there were tears coming down from his eyes.”
After pulling out of the 2016 U.S. Senate race in Florida, Desantis in 2017 took steps to run for governor despite being a heavy underdog against thenflorida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who had the backing of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Desantis ultimately would win that GOP primary en route to narrowly winning the first of two terms as governor.
Jewett said Trump is probably right in his assessment. What really launched Desantis after the forgettable Senate campaign
was getting Trump’s full endorsement. If Trump had endorsed Putnam, Jewett says he’s not sure Desantis would have had much of a shot.
While people outside of Florida see Desantis as this bombastic leader who knows how to fire up an audience, they are missing a key piece to what allowed Desantis to be successful, said former Florida Senate President Bill Galvano, a Republican from Bradenton.
He said what really set Desantis apart is that he understands policymaking on a deeper level. He said people forget Desantis went to Yale and has a Harvard law degree.
“From day one, Gov. Desantis wanted to understand the policy and all the ramifications of it,” Galvano said.
That, and his refusal to back off politically on an issue when he gets a head of steam going, are a few reasons he’s been so successful in Florida, Galvano said.
But Jewett said Desantis’ rise in Florida has had plenty of
bumps along the way. While Desantis won praise from many for ending mask mandates and reopening the state during the pandemic before other states like Texas, it came at a cost.
“At one point, he did drop below 50 percent approval in polls because death rates were soaring,” Jewett said.
Florida has had more than 85,000 people die from COVID-19, while Texas — with more than 8 million additional people — has had over 94,000.
No stranger to Texas
While Trump remains the favorite to win the GOP nomination in 2024, recent polling suggests he has reason to be worried about Desantis.
A Quinnipiac University poll of the potential GOP primary field released in mid-february showed Trump leading Desantis by just 6 percentage points — the closest national poll yet.
A Fox News poll released on Sunday showed Trump up 15 points. While that’s a more comfortable
lead, it is far closer than back in October when the New York Times and Politico released polls showing Trump up over 20 percentage points.
By delaying an official announcement for the White House, Desantis essentially buys himself some time from the full wrath of Trump, Jewett said. Once Desantis gets in the race, Trump’s jabs at Desantis are sure to be more aggressive than he was in 2016 with then-gop presidential rivals like Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
Desantis is no stranger to Texas politics over the last few years. He has appeared at news conferences at the Texas border with Gov. Greg Abbott, delivered speeches in Austin and last year followed Abbott’s lead in flying migrants to Martha Vineyard at taxpayer expense.
Desantis is scheduled to speak at the Harris County Republican Dinner at 7 p.m. Friday. Tickets are sold out.