Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has officially entered the 2024 presidential race.
DeSantis filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) Wednesday afternoon ahead of his highly-anticipated special live-streamed event on Twitter with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. With his entrance into the race, many political pundits and analysts now view the Republican Party primary as a two-horse race between DeSantis and former President Donald Trump—both of whom are polling significantly higher than the rest of the field.
🚨Here we go…Florida Governor @RonDeSantis has filed FEC paperwork to run for President of the United States.https://t.co/qcpOne8zKu pic.twitter.com/P2C6VHupsg
— Rob Pyers (@rpyers) May 24, 2023
The 44-year-old governor was born in Jacksonville but was raised on the other side of the state in Dunedin. DeSantis excelled in academics and athletics growing up, eventually playing baseball at Yale and later obtaining his law degree with honors from Harvard Law School. After law school, DeSantis joined the U.S. Navy as a JAG officer and was deployed to Iraq as an adviser to U.S. Navy SEALs in Fallujah and Ramadi.
DeSantis’ campaign is expected to be largely centered around the enormous achievements that he has secured as governor for the state of Florida, dubbed the “Florida Blueprint,” and how he can transfer those successes to the national level as president of the United States.
The governor’s rise to the top of the Republican Party was cemented by his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which included bucking Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public health official whom the previous administration repeatedly took advice from throughout the course of the pandemic, and resisting draconian measures that impeded on the freedoms of people in his state. As a result, the state led the country in net-in migration over the last couple of years.
Due to the governor’s overwhelming popularity in the state — which was made clear last year with his 19-point blowout victory during his re-election — the state’s legislature largely does what he says in implementing his agenda for the state.
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