Five facts to know about DeSantis and his path to the White House

By Steve Peoples and Anthony Izaguirre - Associated Press

After months of anticipation, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will launch his campaign to be the Republican nominee for the White House in 2024 on Wednesday during a Twitter event with billionaire Elon Musk. DeSantis is polling shows former President Donald Trump's main rival in the Republican primary, though many voters are just beginning to get to know the governor.

Here are five facts you should know about the 44-year-old candidate joining the Republican race:

1. He was a schoolteacher and studied at Harvard

Born in Florida to a Midwestern family, DeSantis was a standout baseball player in his younger years. He represented Dunedin in the 1991 Little League World Series and was team captain at Yale University.

DeSantis, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Feb. 24, 2022.John Raoux/AP

He worked briefly as a high school teacher and then earned a master's degree in law at Harvard University. After that, he served as an officer in the Attorney General's Office, a position that took him to Iraq and the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

DeSantis ran for Congress in 2012, won an Orlando district and became a founding member of the extremist congressional Freedom Caucus. Like many conservatives in Congress at the time, he pushed for changes to Medicare and Social Security, including a measure that would have raised the retirement age to 70.

He served in Congress for three terms and then launched his campaign for Florida governor in 2018, which at the time was considered a risky gamble. He ended up winning the race by less than a percentage point, but last year he managed to be re-elected by a wide margin of votes.

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2. A 'soldier' in the culture wars

Perhaps more than any Republican politician in the nation, DeSantis has fought for and enacted policies that deepen the country's cultural divisions. He has called it his fight against woke (a term to reflect awareness of social inequalities).

Florida's last legislature has positioned him as perhaps the most combative conservative governor in the country in the so-called culture wars.

He signed and expanded the Parental Rights in Education bill, known to critics as the Don't Say Gay Act, which bans classroom instruction or discussion on LGBTQ issues in all Florida public schools and at all grade levels.

He also signed a law banning state and federal funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state colleges and universities.

This spring, she signed a law banning abortions after six weeks gestation, which is before most women realize they are pregnant. He also removed an elected prosecutor who vowed not to charge patients or doctors under Florida's new abortion restrictions.

DeSantis also signed into law a law this spring that allows Florida residents to carry a concealed, loaded firearm without a permit. He pushed for new measures that experts warn would weaken press freedom. He also took control of a liberal arts college that he believed was indoctrinating students with leftist ideology.

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3. DeSantis' fight against Disney

DeSantis seems willing to fight anyone or anything that stands in his way. There may be no better example than his enmity with the Walt Disney Company, one of his state's largest employers.

The fight with the entertainment giant began last year after Disney, beset by great pressure both internally and externally, publicly opposed the Don't Say Gay law. In response, DeSantis eliminated the Disney World autonomous district under a legislative change he introduced. He also appointed a new board to oversee municipal services for theme parks and hotels.

DeSantis has even threatened to build a state prison on park property. Several business leaders and Republican rivals criticized the measures, saying they were not in line with conservative ideology of hands-off rule.

Disney has filed a lawsuit against the DeSantis administration, a legal battle that will likely follow through the 2024 presidential race. Amid the fight, Disney announced last week that it was scrapping plans to build a new campus in Florida that would have employed 2,000 people.

Florida Gov. RonDeSantis at the state Capitol on March 7, 2023.Phil Sears/AP

4. Is DeSantis a better candidate than Trump?

DeSantis' allies say the governor would be more competitive than Trump in a presidential election. Just six months ago, DeSantis won re-election in Florida by a margin of 19 percentage points, even as Republicans in other states struggled. His victory represented the largest margin of victory in any Florida gubernatorial race in decades. He even won Miami-Dade County, a Democratic stronghold packed with minority voters.

DeSantis' super political action committee recently distributed fliers to primary voters describing him as "a conservative leader who fights and wins."

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Still, there are doubts about his ability to connect with both voters and party leaders on a personal level.

Largely for that reason, most of Florida's Republican congressional delegation has already backed Trump over DeSantis. Numerous anecdotes have also emerged in recent weeks revealing the extent to which DeSantis has ignored other Republican officials in Florida and elsewhere.

He has also struggled to maintain a close network of advisers. To this day, his wife, former television news reporter Casey DeSantis, is considered his top adviser.

5. Trump and DeSantis went from allies to rivals

There may be bad blood between DeSantis and Trump, but it wasn't always that way.

DeSantis has acknowledged that he probably wouldn't have become governor of Florida without Trump's endorsement in 2018. DeSantis has also embraced Trump's fiery personality, populist policies and even some of his rhetoric and gestures.

But in recent months, Trump has focused on undermining the Florida governor's political appeal. That's largely because Trump and his team believe DeSantis may be their only real threat to the Republican nomination.

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Trump has referred to DeSantis as Ron the Self-righteous and Ron Albondigon, among other nicknames. At his rallies, Trump questioned DeSantis' loyalty. And in paid ads and social media posts, Trump has also attacked DeSantis' record on social media, security and Medicare.

He has even questioned DeSantis' sexuality by sharing social media posts suggesting DeSantis behaved inappropriately toward underage students when he taught at a high school in his 20s.

DeSantis was slow to defend Trump when New York prosecutors charged him. At the time, DeSantis said only that he didn't know "what it means to pay a porn star money to ensure her silence about some kind of alleged affair." Recently, he has attacked Trump over his record on abortion.