DeSantis Is a Winner. What Does That Mean for Trump in 2024? – WSJ

If Floridians had taken their cue from the media, he would have lost in a landslide. Instead, he scored what he called a win for the ages, beating Congressman Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points. He had long been favored, but as recently as September, his margin in polls was 3 to 8 points. The size of his victory isn t a footnote. It contains a message to GOP leaders, who never liked Mr. Trump anyway, and to Republican voters who ve been telling pollsters they want to renominate the former president in 2024.

No Florida newspaper with a significant readership endorsed Mr. DeSantis. They echoed the national media in excoriating him. The Miami Herald opined that Gov. Ron DeSantis Florida is a place of meanness. It s a place where dissent is muzzled, where personal rights triumph over the greater good, where winning is more important than unity especially if that victory moves him closer to a White House run. The Tampa Bay Times called him a bully who divides to conquer. The Palm Beach Post wrote that he relies on hubris and manufactured culture war drama to govern. Fort Lauderdale s South Florida Sun Sentinel asserted that DeSantis rules Florida with an iron hand. He dictates what teachers teach, creates barriers to voting, uses raw power to punish critics and marginalizes women, Blacks and LGBTQ people.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (who is running ahead by a slightly narrower margin in an overwhelmingly Democratic state) ludicrously encouraged us to move to California, where we still believe in freedom. Few voters took him up on it, but many of us heard the insults from out-of-state reporters and celebrities that felt like digs on us as much as they were critiques of our governor. Mr. DeSantis s Keep Florida Free platform resonated, and his record of competent governance and effective hurricane relief produced a landslide that was one of the few pleasant election-night surprises anywhere in the country for Republicans.

via www.wsj.com