CNN
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose battles with Disney and aggressive pursuit of conservative victories have made him a leading figure in the Republican Party, has filed to run for president in 2024.
His filing with the Federal Election Commission comes ahead of an announcement he is scheduled to make Wednesday night with Twitter owner Elon Musk on the site’s audio platform, Twitter Spaces.
It makes official a decision that has been widely anticipated since November, when DeSantis won re-election in a landslide and caught the attention of a party eager to turn the page from the recent losses. He entered the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination later than the other contenders and failed to freeze much from the jump, but was better funded, better known and polled higher than all but one: Donald Trump.
The former president has treated DeSantis, who he previously endorsed for Florida governor, as his archenemy for months, attacking him regularly on social media and in interviews. A Trump-aligned super PAC spent millions attacking DeSantis on national television, setting expectations for a major clash between the two former allies.
To defeat Trump, DeSantis must convince Republican voters that he is best positioned to face President Joe Biden next November. That could include winning over conservatives who may still remember Trump’s presidency while also consolidating the support of Republicans eager for new blood to lead the party.
DeSantis, 44, spent months laying the groundwork to make that case. He has traveled the country extensively, styling himself as a leader in the culture wars of the right and presenting a new vision for a Republican Party that uses elected officials power to punish political opponents and impose conservative orthodoxy on institutions and businesses. Working with his state’s GOP-controlled legislature, DeSantis has racked up several policy victories — including banning abortion after six weeks, eliminating permits to carry a concealed handgun in public , creating a universal school voucher law and targeting transgender health care access — all of which will serve as a platform for her to launch her campaign.
“I think (DeSantis) and former President Donald Trump, they have a lot in common, which they don’t want to hear, but I think it’s the truth,” Wisconsin voter Steve Frazier said after DeSantis spoke at a recent GOP dinner in Marathon County. “Unfortunately, they’re running potentially for the same office, and that’s a conflict for people like myself, because we have two, highly qualified men running for the same position.”
DeSantis continues to make headlines for his year-long battle with Disney, his state’s most iconic business and a vital economic engine, over a new law that bans some instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. After Disney released a statement opposing the move, DeSantis plans to take over the special tax district that would allow the entertainment giant to build its iconic theme park empire in Central Florida.
The move put Florida businesses on notice and alarmed even some in the GOP, who questioned whether elected executives should use the state’s power to punish a company. Undeterred, DeSantis has made his battle with Disney a central part of his political story, devoting an entire chapter of his recent memoir to the saga. Disney sued DeSantis, accusing the governor of wielding his political power to punish the company for exercising free speech rights, while DeSantis promised not to cave.
Although eager to take on private businesses, reporters and sometimes his own party, DeSantis has largely avoided directly confronting Trump. Instead, he chose a more subtle comparison between their tenures. He blasted the lack of action in Trump’s first four years while listing his own accomplishments as governor. He has often touted the lack of “drama” and “leaks” in his administration, a clear jab at the chaos that has often engulfed the Trump White House.
“If I’m running, I’m running against Biden,” DeSantis said in a recent interview with British television host Piers Morgan.
That same day, however, DeSantis appeared to mock Trump for his alleged affair with an adult movie star at the heart of the Manhattan district attorney’s case against the former president.
“I don’t know what the reason is for paying hush money to a porn star,” he said at a news conference.
For the most part, DeSantis has signaled he’s willing to mix it up with Trump. But a week later, as Trump was being indicted, DeSantis backtracked and instead criticized the prosecutor who filed the charges.
The walkback is an illustration of Republican struggles to challenge Trump on the first date back in the 2016 presidential primary. The former president’s GOP opponents have often chosen to target the contender seen as the biggest threat to defeating Trump: DeSantis. Already, 2024 is optimistic like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy who lobbed attacks on the Florida governor with more frequency than they criticize Trump.
“The subject of most of the attacks in the first debate was DeSantis, not Trump,” said Alex Conant, a veteran of several presidential campaigns.
Conant is familiar with what it’s like to run behind Trump. He advised the presidential campaign of Sen. Marco Rubio in 2016 and watched the Florida Republican face arrows from the rest of the GOP field in a debate heading into the New Hampshire primary. Rubio never recovered.
DeSantis’ team, Conant said, should “open the eyes that he is a target at every moment of the first debate.”
DeSantis has more resources than most to deal with attacks. A super PAC that supports his political ambitions, Never Back Down, raised $30 million in its first month after launching and spent millions boosting DeSantis and responding to negative ads from allies. by Trump in the early states. He has more than $85 million parked in a state political committee that his team has been planning for more than a year to transfer to a federal committee — possibly Don’t Back Down — even though some campaign finance watchdogs suggest the plan does not violate the law.
DeSantis, for a time, was also a favorite among deep-pocketed Republican donors who were angry with Trump and willing to finance an alternative. However, that support has cooled somewhat of late, with several major financiers expressing reservations about DeSantis. His hard right turn, his antagonistic feud with Disney and perceived personality flaws caused some to look for others to steer clear.
Thomas Peterffy, a billionaire businessman who has donated $570,000 to DeSantis’ political committee over the years, recently told the Financial Times that he and other GOP donors were turned off by DeSantis’ stance on “abortion and banning the book” and “holds our powder. dry.” DeSantis sponsored a new state law requiring approval of textbooks in classroom libraries and making it easier for the public to flag school textbooks for inspection.
However, if no other major alternative to Trump emerges, DeSantis allies remain convinced that Republican donors willing to move away from the former president will finally get behind the Florida governor.
“There’s a broad acceptance that this is really going to be a two-man race, and there’s a lot of personal appreciation for President Trump but a realistic understanding that he doesn’t have the best chance of beating Biden,” former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, founder of the Never Back Down super PAC, told CNN in March. “He doesn’t have the best chance to win the Senate and keep the House as history shows.”
This story has been updated with additional information.