CNN
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After 60 days of pushing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ priorities, a controversial slate of policies that have established Florida as the vanguard of the conservative movement’s latest fascinations, state lawmakers wrap up their annual legislative session on Friday.
Then, the countdown to DeSantis’ presidential campaign begins.
DeSantis has delayed an announcement about his political future while lawmakers worked, looking to rack up political victories before jumping into the fray. The GOP-controlled Legislature has largely given it to him, giving DeSantis a potential platform for his White House run while reshaping Florida’s schools and society in immeasurable ways.
Abortion in Florida will be prohibited after six weeks with limited exceptions. No permits or training are required to carry a concealed weapon in public. A new law allows eight juries to send someone to death row, the lowest in the nation; another allows the execution of child rapists, defying a US Supreme Court ruling. A bill headed to DeSantis’ desk would bar undocumented people from becoming lawyers in Florida. Banks can be punished for refusing to lend to someone on moral or political grounds. Voter registration groups could face hefty fines if they flout strict new rules for registering people to vote. It will be more difficult for teacher unions to organize and retain members. Universities will have to close diversity programs. Transgender children will not be able to receive gender-affirming treatment, nor can transgender teachers use their preferred pronouns in school. It will be easier to mark books off school shelves and harder to sue insurance companies. Nearly $50 million will be invested in acquiring a small liberal arts college to transform it into DeSantis’ vision for a conservative college. Next school year, anyone can send their child to a private school with a taxpayer-funded voucher. And on Thursday, the state Senate approved a bill that would allow an appointed board to review and void previous land deals with the state — a victory for the governor in his feud with Disney.
DeSantis has touted many of those legislative victories in speeches around the country in recent weeks as he promotes his new book and lays the groundwork for a campaign that will contrast his conservative record with other GOP rivals, notably former president Donald Trump.
“We’ve been able to make a historic run that’s never been seen before in the history of this state,” DeSantis said Thursday. “And I guarantee you’ve faced us in any state, you know, in modern times, and I don’t think you’ll see the productivity and the grit that you’ve seen in Florida across the board.”
Republican allies in the state House and Senate also cleared the way for DeSantis to run for president without resigning and voted to shield his travel records from public disclosure.
DeSantis didn’t get everything he wanted. Lawmakers softened their proposed crackdown on illegal immigration by eliminating provisions barring in-state tuition for undocumented students and opposed making it easier to sue media organizations for defamation. But most of his wish list crossed the finish line.
The hard-right pivot has provided DeSantis with plenty of red meat to delight the sizable crowds he draws in early nominating states and the deep-red communities that make up Trump’s base. But his concern to remove so-called “wokeness” from public institutions and even private companies has left some potential supporters worried about his viability as he positions himself for a national campaign.
Top GOP financiers have recently expressed reservations about DeSantis’ agenda, questioning whether he has already alienated too many potential voters to seriously compete in a general election. Thomas Peterffy, a billionaire businessman who gave $570,000 to DeSantis’ political committee over the years, recently told the Financial Times that he and other Republican donors were turned off by DeSantis’ stance on “abortion and prohibition of books” and were “keeping our dust dry.”
“If he’s the Republican nominee, I’ll strongly support him in 2024,” another billionaire, tech mogul Peter Thiel, said in a recent podcast interview, “but I’m concerned that focusing on the awakening issue as zero point is not enough.”
Others are eager for him to signal when he enters the race to quell some of the initial negative attention about his political strategy and lack of personal touch.
“He’s raised the money. He’s done the book tour, the international trip,” said a Republican fundraiser close to the campaign. “It’s time to screw up or get out of the pot. Why stand on the sidelines and not be able to respond to these attacks?”
Trump and his allies are treating the Republican governor as if he were already a candidate. Make America Great Again, Inc., a Trump-aligned super PAC, has spent about $8.6 million on ads going after DeSantis. Current GOP primary polls continue to show Trump leading DeSantis by a healthy margin.
On a recent international trade mission, a reporter in Tokyo asked DeSantis about Trump’s upcoming polls. DeSantis visibly winced before replying, “I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes.”
Still, DeSantis doesn’t seem in a rush to announce. On Thursday, DeSantis acknowledged that there is “only so much time” before a decision has to be made, but noted that many bills passed by lawmakers this session remain unsigned and has prioritized capitalizing on his historic re-election victory of 19 points.
Next week, DeSantis will resume his political tour next week with visits to Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.
“At the end of the day, these things will happen relatively in due time,” DeSantis said Thursday, adding, “I’m not going to short-circuit any of the good work we’ve done.”
Alex Conant, a top adviser to Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said there’s “no reason to launch before June” and that much of the talk is noise that DeSantis should ignore .
“He would never stay as hot as he did after winning a historic election,” Conant said, referring to DeSantis’ nearly 19-point victory in November. “He’s clearly the strongest position to defeat Trump right now. He’s got more money, more identification and more political support. But it’s early. He can build on that or lose it depending on how his launch goes and how he performs in the debate”.
Speculation about an official start date has been rife, covering much of the calendar between now and July 4 with potential locations ranging from his hometown of Dunedin, Florida to somewhere in the Rust Where are his parents from?
Conflicting reports suggest DeSantis, who has maintained an insular circle of confidants, is playing his cards close to the vest as he finalizes his plans. Some who are directly raising money for DeSantis or helping the organizing effort are being kept in the dark about the exact timing and mechanics.
The circle has expanded out of necessity as DeSantis builds a national campaign. Never Back Down, a super PAC expected to play an outsized role in boosting DeSantis, has beefed up its staff and is already raising money and advertising on his behalf in early primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The Florida state GOP has also added staff who are expected to eventually move on to a DeSantis campaign.
But with growth have also come more leaks about how it works. For DeSantis, who values confidentiality and has weaponized the element of surprise to keep political foes on their toes, information leaking from inside his orbit undermines his claims that there is “no drama in our administration ” and “there is no palace intrigue”, a clear contrast. with the Trump White House reality TV show.
A veteran Republican fundraiser said GOP donors and operatives have already sensed tension between the super PAC, staffed with experienced political hands, and the DeSantis-built political operation in Tallahassee filled with less inexperienced but fiercely loyal protectors loyal to the governor’s political brand. There has been some disagreement about the best path forward for DeSantis, especially in light of the Republican’s recent stumbles.
“There are some snipers,” the collector said. “They’re going to go through growing pains. They’ve got a team that’s never done it before. And that’s a normal thing you go through. And the question is how do they handle it. A lot of people would be envious of where they’re at. They’ve never been featured before and he’s already 25 percent in the polls. He’s got $100 million. But he’s got to execute better.”
Never Back Down spokeswoman Erin Perrine disputed that there is any tension because DeSantis is not a candidate “so this palace intrigue drama is misplaced.”
“Never Back Down remains a grassroots movement focused on getting Gov. Ron DeSantis in the race to beat Joe Biden and become president,” he said. “The governor has a great team in Florida that delivered him a historic re-election victory, and we’re very supportive of all the work they’re continuing to do to help build momentum for DeSantis.”
