Gov. Ron DeSantis touted Florida as the "fastest growing state in the nation" during his State of the State address Tuesday.
"We defied the experts, we bucked the elites, we ignored the chatter, we did it our way, the Florida way, and the result is that we are the number one destination for our fellow Americans who are looking for a better life," DeSantis said during his address, which comes at the outset of a 60-day legislative session.
The Republican governor boasted of the state's status as the number one state for net in-migration and new business formations, as well as for economic growth among large states.
He also highlighted the state's unemployment rate, among the lowest on record, and the state's 50-year low crime rate.
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"We've led the nation on many big issues. We don't make excuses, we don't complain, we just produce results," DeSantis said.
The legislative session has added significance this year because it will likely be used to launch DeSantis into a highly anticipated presidential campaign.
Though DeSantis is unlikely to formally announce a presidential campaign until the Legislature wraps its work in May, he’s already making big moves toward a White House bid. He participated in a high profile donor retreat last week in Florida before traveling to California, where he delivered a broadside against what he argued were excesses of liberalism. Later this week, he’ll travel for the first time this year to Iowa, which will host the nation’s first presidential caucuses in 2024.
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Even without an official campaign in place, DeSantis is emerging as a leading alternative to former President Donald Trump, a fellow Floridian who has already announced his third White House bid. DeSantis’ strength is fueled in part by commanding a nearly 20-point reelection victory last year in a state that’s often infamous for close elections.
He’s done so by limiting how issues like race and sexuality can be taught in schools, banning transgender girls and women from school sports, rewriting the state’s political maps to favor Republicans and dismantle a congressional district that favored Black voters, attacking private businesses that disagree with his ideology and cracking down on Black Lives Matter protests.
DeSantis acknowledges that his decisions as governor are based on what he thinks is right and not necessarily what's popular in the mainstream. He said that's why he was able to turn a 32,000-vote, recount-confirmed victory in 2018 into a 1.5 million vote victory last year — the largest margin a Republican governor has ever won in the state.
“We beat the left day after day after day,” DeSantis said Sunday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. “Don't worry about the polls, don't worry about the daily news cycle, and for Pete's sake don't worry about the media, what they say. Do what is right and the voters will reward you.”
He’s also been an almost nightly subject of jokes on late night shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," but the more critics mock DeSantis, especially those he calls the “liberal elite,” the more he galvanizes support among his base.
When he shuns mainstream media in favor of friendly conservative outlets, the more mainstream media covers him. And he has the luxury of not having to make a presidential run “official” at this point.
While most candidates who jump into a presidential race two years out spend early campaigning days raising money, traveling the country building support and boosting their name recognition, DeSantis still has $70 million in a political committee just four months after his reelection.
