Ron DeSantis (14 September 1978-) was Governor of Florida (R) from 3 January 2019 (succeeding Rick Scott, formerly serving as a member of the US House of Representatives (R-FL 6) from 3 January 2013 to 10 September 2018, succeeding Cliff Stearns and preceding Michael Waltz. DeSantis was elected Governor of Florida as a Tea Party Republican willing to engage in bipartisanship, but, by 2022, he achieved nationwide recognition as a rising star in hard-right conservative politics due to his crusades against "woke" education, gay rights, Black history, and COVID-19 mask mandates and lockdowns. By 2023, he was regarded by many leading Republicans as the post-Trump future of the party due to his popularity within Florida and the GOP.
Biography[]
Ron DeSantis was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1978. He served in the US Navy on active duty from 2004 to 2010 and in the reserve from 2010, serving in the Iraq War and as an advocate before rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. In 2012, he was elected to the US House of Representatives as a Republican Party member, and he was a Tea Party conservative. In 2018, he ran for Governor of Florida, and some accused him of racism after saying that Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum, an African-American, would "monkey things up" if elected. However, DeSantis won the governorship in a close election. Following his inauguration, he focused on bipartisan environmental, drug policy, and state budget reforms. He allocated $2.5 billion for Everglades restoration, supported broader use of medical cannabis, supported budget increases, and appointed Democrats to many cabinet positions, surprising both parties and drawing praise from lawmakers and the media. By February 2019, he was one of the most popular governors in the country with a 64% approval rating. His handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 drew criticism from liberals, as his slowness to close the beaches and his quickness to reopen them in June led to a spike in coronavirus cases in his state, but he boasted about his state's ability to remain open throughout the pandemic and quickly became a rising star in the Republican Party. DeSantis' politics veered towards the far-right as he oversaw the controversial "Don't Say Gay" bill in 2022 (prohibiting public schools from teaching students from kindergarten to third grade about sexual orientation or gender identity, and banning education about the LGBT community in all grades if the lessons were against state standards), dissolved Disney World's special district and eliminated its privileges in retribution for Disney's opposition to the bill, moved to eliminate the teaching of Black history through banning several anti-racism books and arguing that "Black history" added no educational value, and moved to eliminate Advanced Placement (AP) classes. After the Republican Party's disappointing 2022 midterm results, which many pundits blamed on Donald Trump's poor choice of candidates and his continuing personal scandals, many Republican leaders, such as Mitch McConnell, turned towards DeSantis as the future leader of the party ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
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