Ron DeSantis urges Florida Republicans to stick to conservative values as party grows

As time winds down on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ second term, he warned Florida Republicans against watering down the party message.

“Going forward, there’s nothing permanent in politics. People are up, and then they say, Oh, there’s going to be Republicans forever, and then all of a sudden, things shift. And other people can get in,” DeSantis said at the Florida Freedom Forum.

“I don’t think the threat to the Republican Party in Florida right now is as much that the Democrats are going to get their act together than we as Republicans, or some Republicans, fumble the ball.”

DeSantis arrived at the Orlando gathering, organized by the Republican Party of Florida, pleased to tout electoral successes in the state. He noted that when he first won election as Governor in 2018, Democratic voters in Florida outnumbered Republicans by around 300,000, but GOP voters now hold a 1.3 million-voter advantage.

Nearing the end of DeSantis’ time as Governor before he faces term limits next year, Republicans hold supermajorities in the Florida House and Senate. Yet, this year’s Legislative Session saw greater friction between the Governor and the Legislature, particularly the House, than ever before.

That included frustration even before Session, when DeSantis called the Legislature to Special Session to pass an immigration enforcement bill, only to see lawmakers gavel out and pass their legislation. He placed the blame for that episode on Speaker Daniel Perez.

“He passed a bill that I had to veto that would strip our ability to do what we need to do, and actually would shut down our current operations and all the things you’ve seen about the news,” he said, a reference to pressure on local law enforcement to enforce immigration law and establish the Alligator Alcatraz detention center. “All of that would have been illegal.”

Ultimately, the Legislature and Governor came together on a different immigration bill, but DeSantis continued to struggle with the House over budget issues, lawsuit reform and other matters all year. Speaking at the Republican gathering, he put that primarily on a failure to elect sufficiently conservative leaders into office despite the GOP’s successes in the state.

“You can have an ‘R’ by your name — and I guess you know that’s obviously better than having a ‘D,’ at least you have the sense to do that,” he said. “But if you get elected with an R by your name, that doesn’t give you license to smuggle leftism into the Republican Party. It doesn’t give you a license to do things that are not consistent with what got us here and what led to these big numbers. Because I can tell you what led to the big numbers more than anything, the results that we produced drew a sharp contrast with the Democrats and the left.”

He tallied a list of policies, from education reforms that drove out “gender ideology” from Florida schools to cracking down on riots and expanding universal school choice, that became law on his watch.

As he ran through some of the policies, several protesters yelled at DeSantis before being escorted out, similarly to earlier in the day when individuals criticized U.S. Rep. Randy Fine. The Governor dismissed those attendees. “I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing,” he shouted back.

But to party faithful, he said the conservative accomplishments matter most in growing reach and influence.

“We’ve drawn a clear contrast by being very strong on conservative policy, being strong conservatives, not being wishy-washy, not just sitting there and trying to cut the difference, not making it muddled to where voters don’t know. The reason we’ve grown the party is because people know you stand for something.”

He said that only by contrasting policies with liberalism can voters be drawn to the Republican Party.

“Bottom line, a political party is not an engine of itself,” he said. “I’m a Republican because I think it’s a vehicle to deliver policies that I believe in and that can make people’s lives better.”