Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) took shots at the federal government under President Joe Biden on Tuesday during the Florida State of the State address.
DeSantis, who has fallen to third in Republican primary polling behind former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, mostly stuck to a pro-Florida script as his state prepares to open its legislative session and avoided shots at his GOP rivals.
“Florida now has millions of more residents than New York state,” he said. “Yet New York’s budget is twice the size of ours here in Florida. They have a $4.3 billion deficit. We now have more manufacturing jobs than New York and have added twice as many jobs as New York in the past year. And our employment rate is close to 50% lower than that of New York.”
He spoke of the state’s wins over “woke” culture and bragged about eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at Florida’s public colleges, charging that DEI stood for “discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination.”
There were plenty of mentions of national topics for the presidential candidate, with a particular focus on immigration, which he called the “Biden border crisis.”
“More than 8 million illegal aliens have entered the United States across the southern border and the past three years alone, and deaths due to fentanyl that has come across that border have reached record levels,” DeSantis said.
Among the attendees the governor recognized was a man who had a friend killed in a hit-and-run collision, during which the driver was an illegal immigrant who had already been deported three times. DeSantis also recognized the mother of a 25-year-old woman who died due to a fentanyl overdose.
“We can’t just sit idly by while we continue to see a massive invasion across this country,” he said. “The federal government’s not doing anything to stop this. We in Florida are picking up the slack.”
DeSantis has spent more time in Iowa than in his home state over the last few weeks. His speech comes just one week ahead of the Iowa caucuses. He has visited all 99 of the Hawkeye State’s counties, which he refers to as completing the “full Grassley” in reference to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
Despite that strenuous pace of campaigning, DeSantis is now trailing not only Trump but Haley in national polling, and his support is down nearly two-thirds from a year ago. His campaign has shifted since late fall to mostly attacking Haley, while Trump has also shifted his focus to the rising South Carolinian.
SFA Fund, a pro-Haley Super PAC, released a statement ahead of the speech calling for accountability for DeSantis’s campaign travels.
“This is a monumental speech for Florida, as after promising to win Iowa, Ron DeSantis knows his most likely outcome is finishing his final two years as governor of Florida,” SFA Fund spokeswoman Brittany Yanick said. “Once the dust is settled, the state with the best sunshine laws deserves to know how much taxpayer dollars were used for Ron DeSantis’s failed presidential endeavor and if he will refund Floridians’ campaign events that were disguised as ‘official’ state business.”
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DeSantis mentioned neither Trump nor Haley by name and did not seem to allude to them either, focusing on his home state’s accomplishments and calling for more during the spring legislative session.
“We are the heirs to the spirit of 1776 represented by that Liberty Bell [in Philadelphia],” DeSantis said. “Over the next two months, let’s enact policies that focus on Florida’s future and that keep faith with our nation’s founding ideals.”