Jody Baumgartner

PROFILES OF 2024 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: Ron DeSantis

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Since 2019 DeSantis has served as the 46th governor of Florida. He previously represented Florida’s 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018. Born in Jacksonville FL, he graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. He joined the US Navy in 2004 and was promoted to lieutenant before serving as a legal advisor to SEAL Team One. He was stationed at Joint Task Force Guantanamo in 2006, and was deployed to Iraq in 2007. When he returned to the U.S. about eight months later, the U.S. Attorney General appointed DeSantis to serve as a Special Assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Florida, a position he held until his honorable discharge from active military duty in 2010.

DeSantis was first elected to Congress in 2012 and was reelected in 2014 and 2016. During his tenure, he became a founding member of the Freedom Caucus and was an ally of President Donald Trump. He briefly ran for U.S. Senate in 2016, but withdrew when incumbent senator Marco Rubio sought reelection. DeSantis won the Republican nomination for the 2018 gubernatorial election and narrowly defeated the Democratic nominee, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, in the general election by 0.4%.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Florida experienced above-average economic growth. DeSantis cut state-government spending, which, combined with federal stimulus payments and high sales-tax revenue, led to the largest budget surplus in Florida history. He engaged in recovery efforts after Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole, and oversaw the passage of the controversial Parental Rights in Education Act. He was reelected in a landslide in the 2022 Florida gubernatorial election; his 19.4% margin of victory over Charlie Crist was the state’s largest in 40 years.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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