Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made the first official stop of his 2024 campaign with a rally at a church near Des Moines, Iowa, where he seeks to gain an early edge in a state that has moved in favor of the GOP after nearly two decades of being considered a swing state.

What You Need To Know

  • Republican presidential and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis positioned himself as a steward of conservative values in his first official rally looking toward the 2024 election cycle

  • Speaking from a church outside Des Moines, Iowa, DeSantis said that America "is going in the wrong direction," kicking off a speech signaling his dedication to pushing back on liberals, elites and "woke idology"

  • DeSantis took aim at the debt deal struck by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which cleard a key procedural hurdle in the House on Tuesday

“Our country is going in the wrong direction. We can see it and we can feel it,” DeSantis said, kicking off a speech that signaled his campaign’s dedication to pushing back on elites, liberals and “woke ideology" with themes of the everyman, sounding bells of individualism, resistance to government authority and a pledge to “restore sanity” to America. 

In doing so, he took aim at the debt limit deal struck by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which cleared a key procedural hurdle in the House Tuesday.

“We now see that Washington has now cooked up their latest ‘debt deal,’ and I can tell you this: our nation was careening towards bankruptcy before the debt deal and it will still be careening toward bankruptcy after this debt deal,” DeSantis said, echoing complaints raised by far-right lawmakers in recent days.

The rally was, as so many rallies go, an opportunity for the candidate to tout their successes while decrying the opposition. And much like Biden repeats “extreme MAGA Republican” throughout his speeches — essentially drawing a line between members of the GOP who support former President Donald Trump and those who do not — DeSantis repeatedly hammered culture war topics. He championed “education over indoctrination” with bills placing restrictions on teacher curriculums; he touted Florida’s fight against “the plague of Soros-backed district attorneys” and COVID-19 restrictions; and boasted about Florida’s acts pushing back on federal immigration actions.

DeSantis also noticeably took a page out of Trump’s playbook, occasionally lobbing asides to the audience the same way that Trump, at his rallies, would wink and nod with jokes to the crowd, saying that Iowans should try Florida’s lack of a state income tax. He also levied attacks against the media, calling reporting on the state’s book challenges against “objectionable material” as a “book ban hoax,” saying there have been no such bans. (Analysts have challenged his claims.) 

“As President, I pledge to be an energetic executive that will take these important issues head-on and deliver results,” DeSantis said, pledging to “reverse Biden policies that have harmed our economy” and to “rebuild critical infrastructure and manufacturing capability.”

He also sounded an alarm to Iowa Republicans by suggesting that a Democratic trifecta in the federal government – which Democrats held from 2021 until January of this year –  would lead to statehood for the District of Columbia, abolishment of the electoral college and packing of the Supreme Court with liberal justices. 

“If you nominate me as your presidential candidate, set your clock to Jan. 20, 2025, at high noon on the west side of the Capitol,” DeSantis said. “Because I’ll have my left hand on the Bible and that right hand in the air and I’ll be sworn in as the 47th president of these United States.”