Ron DeSantis Is Definitely Running

The first GOP presidential debate is five months away, in August. Primaries begin about six months after. This thing is on. Some observations on Ron DeSantis.

The Florida governor is definitely running. Every sign is there: donors, a growing and increasingly professional organization, a book that is part memoir, part platform and debuted this week at No. 1 on the New York Times list. A few days ago he gave a big, packed-house speech at the Reagan Library.

He’s come off a landslide 2022 re-election (almost 20 points) in which he won majorities of Hispanics, independents and women. He is 44, governor of a major state that was purple and has gone red, and there is no way (barring the unanticipated) he is not in. I read him as a guy who thinks you get a moment in politics, a magic moment, and when it comes you move because you don’t know if it will ever come again. “They’ll forget me,” 43-year-old John F. Kennedy said when advised to wait and go for the presidency in 1964. No, he’d made a splash at the 1956 convention, 1960 was his shot, move now or never.

Mr. DeSantis is a big dawg, and it isn’t only Donald Trump trying to take him down. A prospective competitor called recently to share his thoughts: “DeSantis is a cheap imitation of Trump, it’s Fox News soundbites and cowboy boots with 2-inch heels.” Others retail the gossip that he’s “on the spectrum.”