Ron DeSantis pushes California Republicans to embrace Florida politics instead of Donald Trump

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn’t want California Republicans comparing him to former President Donald Trump. He wants them to contrast their state’s politics with those of his own.

DeSantis addressed the state GOP convention in Anaheim on Friday night, following Trump’s fiery, 90-minute lunchtime address. The Florida governor largely ignored Trump and his almost insurmountable lead ahead of the March 5 primary contest.

And he mostly sidestepped the former president’s claims that he had “done a number” on DeSantis in the presidential polls after helping him become governor following a tearful plea for help from the Florida leader.

“All I will say is Ronald Reagan made the point, ‘There’s no limit to what you can do when you don’t care who gets the credit,’” DeSantis said. “I just wish, if he was the one that turned Florida red, that he wouldn’t have turned Georgia and Arizona blue, because that’s not been good for us at all.”

DeSantis mostly focused on telling Californians disillusioned with their own leadership they should consider taking the Sunshine State’s policies national by electing him president.

“The Florida model represents a way for us to reverse American decline,” DeSantis said. “It represents a way to have an American revival. And that’s ultimately the choice that people are going to have to make. This is our time for choosing.”

DeSantis brags about Florida policies

DeSantis spoke to a crowd in a noticeably smaller hotel ballroom than the one Trump filled. While the former president addressed a crowd of thousands who waited hours to see him, DeSantis spoke to several hundred Republicans in a less raucous setting.

His reduced circumstances mirrored the standings in the Republican presidential race. A Berkeley IGS poll from August shows 55% of California voters favor Trump, while DeSantis lags far behind with 16%.

Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting DeSantis, shut down its California operations late this summer. That decision could be attributed to a new California GOP rule that changed the way the state awards its national convention delegates.

The candidate who wins 50% or more of the vote gets all of California’s 169 delegates, a sizable block of the 1,234 needed to become the presidential nominee. Trump appears to be well on his way to winning the state’s entire haul.

But DeSantis on Friday had the same message he shared Wednesday during the Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley: he is the candidate who has enacted policies GOP voters want to see.

He touted Florida’s commitment to school book bans and its so-called “don’t say gay” policy, which bans teachers from talking about sexual orientation or gender identity with students. DeSantis also celebrated Florida’s move to ban “critical race theory” curriculum.

“We’ll also be able to say that the school systems in this country are dedicated to educating our kids and no longer indoctrinating our kids,” he said. “We’ll be able to say that the rights of parents are universally respected throughout this country.”

In addition, DeSantis pushed a law-and-order attitude toward criminal justice issues. He bragged about giving bonuses to police officers and calling up the Florida National Guard to respond to Black Lives Matter protests.

As president, DeSantis said he would empower the military to “use deadly force against the Mexican drug cartels.”

“They’re killing our people,” he said. “It’s time we leave them stone-cold dead at the border.”

DeSantis vs. Newsom

DeSantis ended his 30-minute talk by saying he would see Republicans on Nov. 30, when he is scheduled to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom in Georgia during a Fox News-hosted event.

The governor said he has already won the debate, because more Californians are moving to Florida, a claim that has already been debunked. Numerous fact checks have shown roughly an even number of residents are migrating between the two states.

“I think this debate is useful because California is really the petri dish for American liberalism and American leftism,” DeSantis said. “And what Biden is doing are things that California was doing many years ago. What California is doing now is likely what a second Biden term would do, or God forbid, Kamala Harris, or God forbid Newsom himself. Who knows, right?”

Ultimately, DeSantis told Republicans, Florida politics represent the turnaround the United States needs.

“The California model represents more American decline,” he said. “The Florida model represents a way for us to reverse American decline. It represents a way to have an American revival and that’s ultimately the choice that people are going to have to make. This is our time for choosing.”