Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis doesn’t want to live in a ‘big city’

Florida’s Governor may be running for President, requiring him to spend four or eight years in Washington, D.C., but he’s telling Iowans he’d rather try it in a small town.

Ron DeSantis told a crowd Friday night that if he had his druthers, he’d be in a tinier community because big city life isn’t his “cup of tea.”

“And look, I’m not a guy that would live in … a big city. It’s just not my cup of tea. Right? I mean, I prefer more of the speed here in, like, Iowa and some of these other places and, you know, where I grew up in Florida,” DeSantis said, seemingly referring to Dunedin, which has had roughly 35,000 people for three decades.

The Governor, who has spent most of 2023 on the road, first on his book tour and then as a presidential candidate, noted “Where we live now in Tallahassee. It’s a smaller city, smaller town.”

The Governor made those comments in Grimes, Iowa, at an event staged by the Never Back Down super PAC. That city has roughly 16,000 people, and 19 of every 20 are White.

DeSantis has messaged heavily against big cities as a candidate as recurrent themes in his claims like “every urban area is now a disaster zone.”

“I mean, we can’t be successful as a country if every urban core in our country is a disaster zone,” DeSantis said during a CNBC interview. “Look at San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York City. They’ve all declined significantly, and the No. 1 reason is because of lack of law and order.”

During a “Fair Side Chat” with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds earlier this month, he groused that urban areas were “war zones,” all of which are “decaying.”

“You look at these urban areas in this country. Some of them are like war zones. You can’t be successful if every urban area is decaying,” DeSantis said, as part of comments making the case for “school choice.”

“Part of the reason it’s decaying is because the schools are horrible in places like Chicago and Los Angeles,” DeSantis added.

The Governor has specifically singled out San Francisco for special opprobrium.

“We’re here in the once great city of San Francisco,” he said during a previous campaign video. “We came in here, and we saw people defecating on the street. We saw people using heroin. We saw people smoking crack cocaine.”