DeSantis' Two Terms Reshape Florida into a Deeply Conservative State

Elected in 2018 by a razor-thin margin, Ron DeSantis has spent eight years reshaping Florida’s political landscape, cementing a conservative agenda through a combination of legislative majorities and aggressive use of executive authority. He routinely employed line-item vetoes, notably vetoing $4 million in Manatee County projects after local opposition, and directed pandemic policy, reopening the state by August 2020 while later overseeing a mixed COVID-19 mortality record that rose to eighth highest per capita.

In 2022 the legislature created a $500 million emergency fund that DeSantis tapped for immigration emergencies, spending more than $1 billion on detention centers including the controversial Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades. He also restructured higher education by appointing conservative trustees to New College of Florida, aiming to turn it into a “Hillsdale of the South,” and imposed restrictions on voting, mail-in ballots, and ballot initiatives while pushing gerrymandered maps approved by a Florida Supreme Court he helped populate. These actions have left the state markedly redder, with Republican registrations outnumbering Democrats by 1.5 million and a political environment geared toward maintaining that advantage.