Gov. DeSantis: We've 'Left Democratic Party for Dead' in Florida

Achieving something Republicans in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania might only dream of, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed his taking onetime swing state from a "1-point margin" to a huge blowout in the 2022 midterms.

"We took that swing state that was always one point in either direction and we've turned it into a red state," DeSantis, speaking before the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference (PLC) on Saturday in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax.

"And what that represents is a massive defeat for the left. It's been a massive defeat for the Democratic Party. They did not want to see Florida go red.

"They threw everything but the kitchen sink to stop us — and yet we have left the Democratic Party for dead in the state of Florida."

Hailing his Florida legislative agenda, deep Republican supermajorities in the state, achievements during and coming out of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, DeSantis boasted Florida is not only a deep red state now, but "a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom."

"Florida got it right," DeSantis said to the conservative gathering in Pennsylvania — which remains one of the biggest battleground states in the nation along with Georgia and Arizona.

"I'm just proud that when the world lost its mind — when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue — that the state of Florida stood as a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for people all over this country and across the world."

DeSantis blasted the authoritarian orders of Dr. Anthony Fauci and other Democrat leaders in dealing with the pandemic.

"We refused to let our state descend into some type of Faucian dystopia where people's livelihoods were destroyed and their freedoms were curtailed," DeSantis continued. "No, we chose freedom over Fauci-ism."

It was not easy standing up to political tyranny, though, DeSantis admitted, saying even some of it came from those that were supposed to be the right side of the aisle.

We were not supported in making those decisions at the time by the bureaucracy, by experts, by the media, by the left," DeSantis said. "I even had a lot of Republicans that were attacking me, if you go back 2020, particularly in the summer.

"And I had a lot of supporters are like, 'Man, you are getting hammered by the media. They're killing you with all this stuff. You got to just do something to get them off your back. You know, impose a restriction here, do a mandate, close this, close that.'

"And, you know, at the end of the day. My job as governor is to care more about the jobs of the people that I represent and [than] to worry about my own job."

The bold leadership has made Florida a destination for "disenfranchised" Americans from coastal blue states, DeSantis hailed.

"It wasn't just the election that people have voted to vindicate what we've done in Florida: People have been voting with their feet," he said. "And if you look at what's happened over these last, particularly these last three or four years, we've seen a great exodus out of states governed by leftist politicians pursuing leftist ideology.

"And those places people are moving more than any other state in the country to the free state of Florida. We've served as the promised land for Americans who've been disenchanted with left-wing government."

In an American with a struggling economy, high taxation, and record debt and inflation, DeSantis took a bow for Florida's budget surplus and fiscal health.

"Of course, we have no state income tax," DeSantis told the Pennsylvania crowd. "You all should try that some time: It's not bad.

"Good governance matters. Florida's built for the long haul. Not only do we not have an income tax, we would have no need to have taxes go up because our fiscal is in such great shape."

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