Ron DeSantis

Ronald Dion DeSantis (; born September 14, 1978) is an American politician serving since 2019 as the 46th governor of Florida. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the U.S. Representative from from 2013 to 2018. DeSantis was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, withdrawing his candidacy in January 2024.

Born in Jacksonville, DeSantis spent most of his childhood in Dunedin, Florida. He graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. DeSantis joined the U.S. Navy in 2004 and was promoted to lieutenant before serving as a legal advisor to SEAL Team One. He was stationed at Joint Task Force Guantanamo in 2006 and was deployed to Iraq in 2007. When DeSantis returned to the U.S. about eight months later, the U.S. attorney general appointed DeSantis to serve as a special assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida, a position he held until his honorable discharge from active military duty in 2010.

DeSantis was first elected to Congress in 2012 and was reelected in 2014 and 2016. During his tenure, he became a founding member of the Freedom Caucus and was an ally of President Donald Trump. He briefly ran for U.S. Senate in 2016 but withdrew when incumbent senator Marco Rubio sought reelection. DeSantis won the Republican nomination for the 2018 gubernatorial election and narrowly defeated the Democratic Party nominee, Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, in the general election by 0.4%.

DeSantis was governor during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as during Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole. He encouraged the passage of the Parental Rights in Education Act and the Heartbeat Protection Act. In the 2022 gubernatorial election, he defeated former governor Charlie Crist by 19.4 percentage points, the state's largest margin of victory for a governor's election in 40 years.

On May 24, 2023, DeSantis announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, and he continued to serve as governor during the campaign. On January 21, 2024, DeSantis withdrew his presidential candidacy and endorsed Trump.

DeSantis has written two books: ''Dreams From Our Founding Fathers'', published before his first campaign for Congress in 2011, and ''The Courage to Be Free'', published in 2023. Provided by Wikipedia