ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing mounting pressure on the home front as he looks to cement his superstar status among Republicans nationally.
Over the past week, COVID-19 infections have surged in Florida to the point that the state now accounts for about 1 in 5 new cases. The vaccination rate, meanwhile, has begun to level off. At the same time, Florida’s Gulf Coast is suffering from a particularly harsh bout of red tide, prompting local officials to call on the governor to declare a state of emergency.
The troubles in Florida are putting pressure on DeSantis as he seeks to carve out a more robust national profile for himself in anticipation of what his supporters and critics alike see as a potential 2024 presidential run.
He took a fundraising trip to California last month ahead of his 2022 reelection bid. Over the weekend, he traveled to Texas to visit the southern border, where Florida law enforcement is deployed. And he was in Aspen, Colo., earlier this week for a meeting of the Republican Governors Association.
“He’s running for president, not for governor. He’s much more interested in fundraising and shallow and destructive appeals to the MAGA base,” Thomas Kennedy, a Democratic National Committee member from Florida, said, using the acronym for “Make America Great Again,” former President Trump’s campaign slogan.
“The guy has a big responsibility, and he’s abdicating it because of his own political aspirations,” Kennedy added.
The rise in COVID-19 cases in the state, combined with DeSantis’s recent trip to the southern border, prompted a scathing editorial from the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial board on Tuesday that suggested that the governor was more interested in “burnishing his 2024 presidential ambitions” than addressing Florida’s public health challenges.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/564195-pressure-mounts-for-desantis-in-florida
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