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In Sioux Center, Ron DeSantis draws parallels between Florida and Iowa
The Florida governor is polling second among likely presidential candidates
SIOUX CENTER — Though Ron DeSantis hasn't officially declared for next year's presidential election, the two-term Florida governor had a lot to say about 2024 during his keynote address at Saturday's Feenstra Family Picnic in Sioux Center.
"We must reject the culture of losing that's affected our party in recent years, the time for excuses is over," DeSantis said to a crowd of at least 500 people inside the Dean Classic Car Museum. "If we make the 2024 election a referendum on Joe Biden and his failures, and if we provide a positive alternative for the future of this country, Republicans will win across the board."
The line drew applause from those attending the third-annual event hosted by two-term Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, and it was as close as DeSantis came to referencing former President Donald Trump who lost the 2020 election to Biden.
DeSantis, who won re-election in 2022 by nearly 20 points, said such winning wouldn't come easy for the GOP. He told the crowd, “(It's) going to require a lot of hard work and sacrifice” and ”I've only begun to fight.”
What he touted
Much of the half-hour DeSantis spent at the podium was dedicated to talking about the legislative and executive work he's been a part of since first winning the governorship in 2018 by less than one percentage point.
"We enacted the death penalty for pedophiles in the state of Florida," DeSantis said of a 2023 law focused on cases of child sexual battery.
DeSantis also referenced: increasing penalties for dealing fentanyl; ending the "self-governing status" of the Walt Disney Company; and approving bills that prevent students and teachers from being required to use pronouns that don't correspond to someone's gender at birth.
DeSantis warns of DEI measures at universities
Education and gender were issues DeSantis returned to over and over again. He suggested schools should increase their focus on math, science and reading and "not have pornographic materials in the school library" (referring to his state's focus on restricting what books students are offered).
DeSantis later told the eventgoers that students in Florida are being told the truth about the political ideologies of Leninism and Marxism and that students are "better off as a result of that."
At another point, DeSantis warned about diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the university level and said so-called DEI measures are "trying to impose an ideological agenda on the student body through the administrative apparatus of the university."
Educators should not talk about gender identity, DeSantis says
More than once, DeSantis used the phrase "gender ideology," or a variant, while talking.
Near the end of his speech, DeSantis alleged there has been a lull in enrollment in the U.S. military because of an embrace of "gender ideology."
He also told the audience they should wage a war on practices such as educators talking to students about gender identity.
"It's wrong for a teacher to instruct a student they were born in the wrong body," he said. "We should not have transgender ideology in our schools."
Iowa is ‘like the Florida of the Midwest’
The Florida governor told Iowans at the Feenstra Family Picnic that his political focuses over the past four years are matters Gov. Kim Reynolds has dealt with as well. In fact, he joked about the two Republican-led states being mirror images of one another.
"Iowa is like the Florida of the Midwest," DeSantis quipped. "You know, after watching all the good stuff you've got in Iowa, it may be that Florida is the Iowa of the southeast."
Reynolds noted the parallels as well and said Florida and Iowa are in a kind of legislative contest with one another. "When governors are competing, Americans win," Reynolds proclaimed.
Like DeSantis, she too carved out time to target the issue of gender by denouncing gender-affirming care for minors. "Our children are not experiments," Reynolds said.
Both politicians lamented the rollback of Title 42, which allowed U.S. officials to turn away migrants arriving at the southern border on the grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19, and the overall state of immigration between the U.S. and Mexico.
"(A) national disgrace," Reynolds called it. DeSantis echoed: "Don't tell these foreigners to just decide to come across the border when they want to." He then said he would shut down the border if he could which drew major applause in the room and had one attendee yell "Hell yeah" and say "Eliminate the problem."
Polls show DeSantis in second place behind Trump
At present, Trump is leading DeSantis by more than 29 percentage points, according to a FiveThirtyEight average of recent national polls of the 2024 Republican primary. The data site's figures, most recently updated Friday, show Trump at 52.1 percent, DeSantis at 22.5 percent, former Vice President Mike Pence at 5.6 percent, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 3.9 percent, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 3.4 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson at 0.7 percent.
Visitors to the Feenstra Family Picnic were not resolute on which candidates they support the most.
Dawn Kottler, a 72-year-old Ames resident, said she wanted to hear other choices out there but was leaning toward Trump.
"I just think he has the track record of everything he got done when he was in office last time," Kottler said.
Orange City resident Peggy Subart, 62, shared she's "all in" for a DeSantis 2024 bid.
"I believe he has conservative values. He's articulate. He stands up for parents," she said. When asked about Trump, Subart said "I'm just going to let that all pan out" but acknowledged she would vote for the Republican nominee, regardless of who it is.
A similar sort of hedge came from Susan Eshuis, a Rock Valley resident in her 50s. She said she wasn't worried so much about the people running, but the party itself and that Republicans need to do whatever it takes to win.
Marie Knebler, a 72-year-old native of Sioux County who now lives in Council Bluffs, gave Trump a slight edge over DeSantis, though confessed to some concerns about Trump who, on Tuesday, was found liable of sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.
"I haven't completely made up my mind yet," Knebler said.
The Iowa caucuses will kick off the GOP primary in early 2024.
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