Touting ‘bold’ leadership in Florida, DeSantis gets warm reception at NCGOP convention

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the case for why North Carolina GOP voters should back him in next year’s critical presidential primary election, arguing that he was uniquely positioned to face off against President Joe Biden and reclaim the White House for Republicans.

Speaking to a ballroom full of delegates at the NCGOP convention in Greensboro on Friday night, DeSantis touted his leadership in an increasingly Republican-leaning Florida, and rattled off a series of conservative policies he’s implemented and stances he’s taken on everything from COVID-19 and the economy to education, gun rights and abortion, pausing every few moments for loud cheers and applause from the crowd.

As he’s been doing on the campaign trail, DeSantis drew a contrast, without naming the former GOP president, between himself and Donald Trump. He said he had demonstrated a willingness to take controversial positions even if that meant enduring an initial backlash, and said his approach paid dividends in 2022, when Floridians elected him to a second term by a 19-point margin.

“My view is that you lead boldly, you yield the power that you have to advance an agenda that reflects the core principles that we all share,” DeSantis said. “And so, we did that — we never in four-and-a-half years as governor have ever taken a poll about what to do on a given issue.”

“A leader doesn’t put their finger in the wind and try to follow the polls, a leader sets out a vision, executes on the vision, delivers results, and guess what, the polls change in your favor once you’re getting things done,” he added.

DeSantis, who formally launched his campaign in May after months of teasing a run, has been a rising star in conservative circles, having signed into law several key Republican legislative priorities including a six-week abortion ban and a significant expansion of school choice.

He’s also gained national attention — adulation from Republicans and harsh criticism and pushback from Democrats — for taking an aggressive stance on a number of social and cultural issues. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, DeSantis resisted locking the state down for long and touted Florida as a destination for people wanting to avoid masking requirements and online schooling.

DeSantis says he’s a proven conservative fighter

Throughout his remarks, DeSantis emphasized that his pursuit of unabashedly conservative policies distinctly qualified him to earn the GOP nomination and help shepherd the party through a new post-Trump chapter.

“You’ve got to be right on policy, but that’s not enough,” DeSantis said, while discussing what it takes to be an effective president. “You also have to demonstrate leadership, particularly in situations where the chips are down, and the going gets tough. You’ve got to be the one that holds the line and stands up for people, and I can tell you during COVID, we made the decision very early on that we were going to chart our own course in Florida.”

As governor and as a presidential candidate, DeSantis has boasted that he actively rejected the guidance coming from top public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases whose leadership many conservatives quickly soured on during and after the pandemic.

DeSantis has sought to attack Trump for relying on Fauci’s advice, and for refusing to fire him despite sustained pressure from conservative media to do so.

“We were not going to subcontract our leadership out to people like Dr. Fauci,” DeSantis said. “We were going to take on the left, we were going to take on the media, we were going to take on the bureaucracy, and even we took on some Republicans who were criticizing what we were going to do.”

DeSantis consistently returned to the point of him being a “no excuses” candidate who has shown he can get things done, and ran through a list of policies he has praised as achievements during his administration, ranging from looser COVID-19 restrictions to an over $20 billion state budget surplus. Many of the policies he discussed were signed into law during the 2023 legislative session, when a Republican supermajority handed him a breadth of victories.

“Leadership is about delivering results for the people that you represent. I’m pleased to say in Florida we have delivered results,” he said.

Rebranding DEI, and taking on Disney

His insistence on Florida being a state where “woke goes to die” came up multiple times in Friday’s keynote speech, specifically in regard to his education policies. He described DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, initiatives as “discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination,” and applauded a Florida law that makes it easier for parents to challenge books in school libraries as inappropriate for students.

“Kids should just be able to be kids without having some agenda shoved down their throats,” he said.

A variety of education bills under DeSantis’ administration have been shrouded in controversy, including the Parental Rights in Education bill, known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The bill bars instruction on gender identity and sexuality in kindergarten through third grade, and in May it was expanded to include fourth through 12th grades.

The bill ignited the ongoing feud between the Florida governor and the Walt Disney Co. as the entertainment conglomerate publicly opposed the bill’s passage. In a yearlong struggle, DeSantis retaliated through a takeover of the company’s self-governing district in Central Florida where the Disney World amusement parks are located. The takeover resulted in a First Amendment lawsuit filed by Disney — which is still underway — and some backlash from Republicans like Trump.

“In Florida, [Disney] basically called the shots for many, many decades. But there’s a new sheriff in town,” DeSantis said to applause.

Vowing to be the president to “end mass migration” into the country, DeSantis promised to be tough at the U.S.-Mexican border. Early on in his speech, he joked about bringing Florida construction workers who rebuilt Florida’s Sanibel Causeway — a bridge that was damaged by Hurricane Ian last year — to the U.S. southern border to build a wall.

Some NC voters want to ‘move forward’ with DeSantis

Before DeSantis took to the stage in Greensboro, some attendees were already waiting in anticipation of what the Florida governor would talk about in his keynote speech.

Clad in a glitzy American flag cowboy hat and a bright red jacket adorned with DeSantis presidential buttons, Robin Cole said she wants someone new and fresh for president. The Alamance County delegate said she sees that in the Florida governor.

“He’s really strong and the Republican Party needs a strong candidate,” Cole said. “We need to move forward.”

The 62-year-old considers herself a four-time Trump voter — in both the 2016 and 2020 primary and general elections. She still loves Trump, she said, but she decided a while ago that she was moving forward with DeSantis because he has a better attitude and knows “how to contain his words.”

Although she suspects Trump will get the Republican nomination, North Carolina Federation of Republican Women treasurer Pam Keller said she supports any Republican over Biden. She said she needs to hear more from DeSantis, but she would support him wholeheartedly if he got the nomination.

“I just want his points to verify that he’s really, really conservative,” the Cleveland County Republican said.

In a call with reporters ahead of the speech, Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, called out DeSantis on his abortion and gun policies, as well as for his “unrelenting attacks” on LGBTQ+ youth.

North Carolina Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton also decried the governor for his “catastrophic” and “ultra MAGA crusade.”

“This is a guy who has used his power as governor to rip away the freedoms of people in Florida,” Harrison said Friday morning.