Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and his wife, Casey, are championing their efforts to be the 2024 Republican presidential team for parental rights ahead of the first Republican National Committee debate next month.
The couple reiterated their advocacy for parents who want more influence over what their children are taught in public schools when it comes to race, gender, and sexuality — a key concern for primary voters who will determine the 2024 Republican nominee.
STUDENTS FOR DESANTIS REACHES 100 CAMPUSES NATIONWIDE
“I think at the end of the day, she’s just a very genuine person. She really believes in this country. She really cares about the country’s future because our three young kids are 6, 5, and 3,” Ron DeSantis told Fox News‘s Ainsley Earhardt about his wife, who has taken on a more prominent role on the campaign trail, and their three children, Madison, Mason, and Mamie.
The Florida governor and his wife spoke during a joint interview.
Casey DeSantis launched her Mamas for DeSantis initiative in Johnston, Iowa, earlier this month with Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA). The project aims to boost Ron DeSantis among women as a whole, including young mothers and cancer survivors. Suburban women, in particular, are a key voting bloc and could help Ron DeSantis dethrone former President Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination next year and defeat President Joe Biden.
During the Iowa event, Casey DeSantis touted her husband’s help as she underwent chemotherapy to treat breast cancer. “I had to wear this dumb cold cap on my head that was like an ice cube, you’re like in an igloo for six or seven hours. And he held my hand during every single one of them, and he never left my side,” she said.
Surviving breast cancer helped Casey DeSantis to ignore the criticisms against her husband and instead focus on the well-being of her family. “When you’re given that opportunity in life, what do you do with it? Do I care what a headline says? No. I care about protecting the innocence of my children and your children,” she said at the time.
Her efforts to rally mothers around the nation are just another sign of her unique ability to connect with voters that Ron DeSantis must win over in his presidential campaign. Disaffected suburban women voters defected from the GOP under Trump’s administration, costing Republicans the White House, Senate, and House starting in 2018 and 2020. Any Republican nominee will need the skills to win back these voters if he or she wants to retake the White House and the Senate next year.
“When she does things like rally mothers like she did throughout the state of Florida and grandmothers — since it is Florida, we want to include them — and now she’s doing it around the country, it’s because a lot of the issues that these parents are facing, we’re facing,” Ron DeSantis said about his wife during the Fox News interview. “We’re in the same boat. We’re very sympathetic to that. And so, she is somebody that is very, very strong on the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”
As governor, Ron DeSantis has signed several pieces of legislation into law that target issues of concern to parents. In May, he signed into law the Let Kids Be Kids legislation, which expands prohibitions on gender and sexual orientation instructions in schools, prohibits sex reassignment surgeries and experimental puberty blockers for children, and prohibits children from sexually explicit performances in all venues such as drag shows.
That same month, Ron DeSantis also signed into law the Sunshine State’s largest tax relief plan, which gave Florida families $2.7 billion in tax cuts. The legislation included a permanent exemption for baby and toddler necessities such as strollers, cribs, diapers, and baby wipes. Ron DeSantis has joked several times on the campaign trail that Casey DeSantis teased him about not providing the exemptions when their children were younger.
Last year, Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education bill, which originally banned classroom instructions on gender and sexual orientation through third grade, into law. “Parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school and should be protected from schools using classroom instruction to sexualize their kids as young as 5 years old,” he said at the time.
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These efforts, though, have led to tough criticisms from Democrats, including Biden, and their more progressive allies. But the couple is undeterred.
“We feel that if we can do something to be able to change the trajectory and indeed preserve our American republic, and we can take one for the team by getting hit on behalf of the people of this country, we’re going to do it,” Casey DeSantis said. “We’re going to fight for your family. We’re going to fight for our family, and we’re going to fight for America going forward.”
