5 things to know about Ron DeSantis, the Republican who announced his candidacy for US Presidential elections

His announcement also comes soon after Tim Scott, a fellow Republican, announced his own plans to run. Apart from them, Indian-origin former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Trump are some other major candidates from the Republican party. Of them, one party nominee will be chosen in a few months after a long process, to be the face for the elections in which incumbent president Joe Biden will also contest. Here are five things to know about the firebrand leader.

I’m running for president to lead our Great American Comeback. pic.twitter.com/YmkWkLaVDg

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) May 24, 2023

Alumnus of Yale and Harvard, early work in the Navy

The 44-year-old was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2012. He was elected governor six years later in 2018 and re-elected in 2022 for a second term.

DeSantis describes himself as a “native Floridian with blue-collar roots”. He graduated with honours from Yale University, where he was captain of the varsity baseball team. He then went to Harvard Law School. During his stint at Harvard, he joined the US Navy’s legal arm as a JAG officer. He was honourably discharged from service in 2010.

He then became a federal prosecutor, before entering the race for a seat in Florida’s Sixth Congressional District in 2012. In the early days of his political career, DeSantis’ campaign was largely centred around economic issues usually championed by Republicans, like ‘small government’ and reduced taxes. He was also a vocal opponent of former president Barack Obama’s policies.

From a Donald Trump supporter to rival

In 2018, when DeSantis announced he was running for governor, he was backed by several prominent Republican leaders, including Trump. His influence on the campaign was apparent — for instance, in one of his campaign ads, he told his children to “build the wall” while playing with blocks, referencing Trump’s plan to put up a wall at the US-Mexico border, and showed them how to read with a ‘Make America Great’ sign. He also thanked Trump in his victory speech, saying, “I think we’ll have a great partnership”.

But that camaraderie has not sustained with the campaign cycle beginning. “If I faced him, I’d beat him like I would beat everyone else,” Trump said in October 2021. Trump also reacted to the Disney feud, saying when the company moved to undo the state board’s influence, DeSantis was “outplayed, outsmarted, and embarrassed by Mickey Mouse”, the BBC reported.

The Disney feud

The “fight” began last year, after Disney publicly opposed a Florida law that banned classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity for children in primary classes. This has been termed as “Don’t Say Gay” law by its critics. The law’s supporters claim it is to allow parents a say in school education, while DeSantis has said schools should not be teaching kids about LGBTQ identities.

However, Disney’s opposition came after it initially maintained a silence in the run-up to the bill becoming a law, angering its LGBTQ employees.

All of this has led to the disagreements with Disney over the law being framed as DeSantis taking on the “woke” entities in the country. The term was initially used among Black Americans to signal vigilance in resisting racist policies and ideas, but is increasingly being used among conservative politicians to refer to anything that they believe goes too far against conservative ideals.

But there is some contradiction too, as being pro-business and anti-government regulation is also an important conservative belief. Here, the governor has said their fight is about Disney’s “special privileges”. Recently, Disney junked plants to invest nearly in an office complex that was scheduled for construction in Orlando, Florida, at a cost of roughly $1 billion, The New York Times reported. “It would have brought more than 2,000 Disney jobs to the region, with $120,000 as the average salary, according to an estimate from the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity,” it said.

Focus on Conservative talking points

Over the short period of time that he has led the state, DeSantis has earned a reputation as a leader who sticks to his party’s ideology and gets things done quickly.

For example, DeSantis removed mandatory mask requirements and quarantine restrictions in 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic saw a debate in the US about the need for such directives. Many Republicans, in particular, pointed to the losses suffered from keeping businesses closed. He has also supported making access to abortion more limited in his state.

Odds of him winning the Republican nomination are not inspiring, but still closest to Trump

Polls show Trump has an edge over the Florida governor, who has long been considered a Republican rising star and the herald of a new generation of leaders in the party, Reuters reported.

A recent CNN poll says that Trump is the first choice of 53% Republican and Republican-leaning voters in the primary, roughly doubling DeSantis’ 26%. This is also a dip from a March poll by CNN, where the two men were on more equal footing. “But the survey also finds that wide swaths of Republican-aligned voters are willing to consider either of the two, as well as several other candidates,” it says.

“More than 8 in 10 either support or say they’re open to considering Trump (84%) and DeSantis (85%), and smaller majorities say they support or would consider former UN ambassador Nikki Haley (61%), Scott (60%) and former Vice President Mike Pence (54%),” it adds.

(With inputs from Reuters)