Debunking Trump’s Misleading Attacks on DeSantis’s Record as Governor
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Former president Donald Trump unleashed a decontextualized and misleading volley of allegations at Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday, trashing his home state of Florida and casting its governor as merely a talented public-relations man, not someone worthy of the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Trump cited recent voting numbers to suggest that he’s more popular than DeSantis in Florida, but those figures don’t tell the whole story.
“Let me explain the facts,” said Trump. “He is, for a Republican, an average Governor, he got 1.2 million less Votes in Florida than me.”
On its face, this number is roughly true. Trump got about one million more votes in the 2020 presidential election compared to DeSantis’s total votes in the 2022 midterms. However, Trump’s margin was less than 5 points while DeSantis’s margin was a blowout, nearing 20 points in a state very recently considered purple. Additionally, midterm turnout is consistently dwarfed by presidential election year turnout.
After trashing DeSantis’s congressional record on entitlement reform, the former president turned to his record as Florida governor, focusing much of it on the Covid response that elevated DeSantis to celebrity status among conservatives.
“Florida has been successful for many years, long before I put Ron there—It’s amazing what Ocean & Sunshine will do! Surprise, Ron was a big Lockdown Governor on the China Virus, sealing all beaches and everything else for an extended period of time, was Third Worst in the Nation for COVID-19 Deaths (losing 86,294 People), Third Worst for Total # of Cases, at 7,516,906. Other Republican Governors did MUCH BETTER than Ron and, because I allowed them this “freedom,” never closed their States. Remember, I left that decision up to the Governors!” Trump said. “For COVID Death Rates Per State, Ron, as Governor of Florida, did worse than New York.”
It’s true that an estimated 86,850 Floridians have lost their lives to Covid as of March 23, placing Florida third behind only California and Texas in both lives lost and total cases. New York comes in fourth, just behind Florida, in cases and deaths. The former president appears to be correct that among those four states, Florida has been harder hit when accounting for population. Florida has about 2 million more people than New York, but has had a million more cases than that state, though the difference in total deaths is only around 10,000. Compared to Texas, also a Republican state and one which has 8 million more residents, Florida had only roughly 500,000 fewer cases and 5,000 fewer deaths.
Trump did not, however, take into account the fact that 21.3 percent of Florida’s population is 65 years old or older, placing it second in the country for highest proportion of seniors behind only Maine, according to the Population Reference Bureau. By contrast, just 13 percent of Texans and 17 percent of New Yorkers are 65 or older. Florida’s sizable elderly population was at unique risk of suffering severe illness and death from the virus, with 80 percent of 2020 Covid deaths occurring amongst people 65 or older.
Faced with a uniquely vulnerable population and a Trump administration urging diligence, DeSantis indeed instituted a lockdown in Florida. This was the norm across the United States, only bucked by seven Republican states. The Florida lockdown lasted roughly one month, according to Ballotpedia, a shorter time period than all blue states and just eight red states.
Trump also left out his own role in encouraging lockdowns and deferring to the guidance of public-health like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who continued to urge people to stay at home long after DeSantis opened up Florida.
The embattled former president then turned his sights on Florida’s education system, which has been celebrated by conservatives for its rejection of critical race and gender ideology and Covid-driven remote schooling.
“In Education, Florida ranks among the worst in the Country and on crime statistics, Florida ranked Third Worst in Murder, Third Worst in Rape, and Third Worst in Aggravated Assault. For 2022, Jacksonville was ranked as one of the Top 25 Major Crime Cities in the Country, with Tampa and Orlando not doing much better…On Education, Florida ranks #39 in Health & Safety in the Country, #50 in Affordability, and #30 in Education & Childcare, HARDLY GREATNESS THERE!,” says the former president.
The president’s characterization appears to be wrong or at least contested by other groups. Florida is ranked 3 by U.S. News in its best states for education and No. 1 on choice for parents by the Parent Power Index. It is No. 3 for K-12 achievement, according to a 2021 report.
While all states saw test scores drop during the pandemic, DeSantis’s concerted effort to keep schools open saw Florida rise in the rankings as other states declined in a steeper fashion. DeSantis particularly touted Florida ranking No. 3 in the nation in fourth grade reading and No. 4 in fourth grade mathematics. His Parental Rights in Education Act, commonly dubbed the “don’t say gay” law, has been very popular on the right for protecting students from being instructed on sexuality and gender.
On crime, Trump was correct that Florida’s murder capital, Jacksonville, breaks into the top 25 most crime-ridden cities, yet he didn’t point out that it is the only city in a very populous state that made that list. Trump is again correct that Florida features in several crime rankings as the third worst state, but that tracks with the state’s population. Florida in 2022 had a violent crime rate of 3.8, below the national average of 4.0 per 1,000 residents.
Finally, on affordability, the former president appeared to cite news reports on soaring rents in Florida’s most popular cities, inadvertently highlighting the massive in-migration that’s occurred under DeSantis’s watch in the Sunshine State. Florida’s population increased by 1.9 percent to 22,244,823 between 2021 and 2022, surpassing Idaho, the previous year’s fastest-growing state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In terms of general affordability across the whole state, Florida is in the middle of the pack, coming in at No. 31 on a U.S. News and World Report list that compares the cost of living to the average household income in each state. Trump also neglected to mention that Florida ranks eighth in the country for most affordable states to retire in, according to a 2023 report by WalletHub.
