Even though his 2024 presidential campaign has fallen compact of expectations and Republican voters have largely turned away, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is still doing his thing: His crackdown on illegal immigrants is paying off, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the firing of Soros-backed prosecutor Monique Worrel, and his focus on school choice has been wildly successful – all examples of the recent successes he can now boast of.
As we’ve also noted, he’s won major victories against Disney and the plaintiffs in the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, he’s cracked down on squatters’ rights and shoplifting, signed five laws to combat sex offenders, and signed a law requiring elementary school students to learn about the cruelty of communism.
All in one day’s work for DeSantis, who understandably took a well-deserved victory lap after the Biden campaign about the Sunshine State at the start of the summer presidential election campaigns:
President Joe Biden and the Democrats insisted that Florida was within their reach in November.
But not everyone seems to have gotten the memo. In a podcast interview with John Heilemann from Puck News released on Monday, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon answered bluntly When asked if Florida was a swing state, he replied, “No.” Heilemann then joked that he was “afraid you would lie” about Florida’s status.
The comments seemed to throw Florida politics into a tailspin, and even many Democrats viewed them as contradictory a memo from Biden’s campaign manager from April Julie Chávez Rodríguez declared Florida “winnable.”
This triggered the following reaction from DeSantis:
For decades, Florida was the largest and most critical swing state in presidential elections.
Today, even the Biden team recognizes that those days are over.
Florida is not in play in 2024. https://t.co/C8XgyZxFXD
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) 24 June 2024
Back in April, my colleague Ward Clark wrote about Florida’s pointed change of course to the red flag and the impulses behind it:
During Governor DeSantis’ tenure, Florida has gone from a nerve-wracking swing state to a reliably Republican state. It’s critical to note that immigration from failing Democratic states is partly to blame. We can blame Democratic governors for driving productive (and tending to lean right) people out of their states. But Florida has made the Sunshine State a welcoming place for those same people, and Ron DeSantis deserves some credit for that.
Regarding the migration of people from the democratic states to Florida, DeSantis to say that by the time:
Today, there are almost 900,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats. So we’re talking about a voter registration of over a million. And yes, I think that’s partly a local reaction, because in Florida, people are more likely to switch from Democrats to Republicans, from independents to Republicans, and vice versa.
And that was an critical part of it. But I think the migration is skewed among people coming to Florida, not because they want to change the policies to reflect them in Illinois or California or New York, but because they appreciate that Florida has done things differently than the people they’re coming from. And I think that’s contributed to this real record thing.
Go ahead, Governor. Go ahead.
Flashback: NBC News is sharply criticized after the “migration” smear article about Ron DeSantis and Florida falls flat
