DeSantis makes play for Michigan and brings war on woke to Hillsdale College
Jeremiah Poff
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is continuing a nationwide tour Thursday with two events in Michigan, one with a local Republican Party and another at Hillsdale College, a conservative college he has openly praised on multiple occasions.
DeSantis, who has drawn significant national media attention over the past few years by enacting a slew of conservative policy initiatives in Florida, is at the center of rumors that he will launch a campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
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The Florida governor’s visit to the Wolverine State began with a breakfast with the Midland County Republican Party named for former Michigan Rep. Dave Camp (R), who served in Congress for two decades before retiring in 2015. In the evening, DeSantis is scheduled to give a speech at Hillsdale College, followed by a public conversation with the college’s president Larry Arnn.
The visit to Michigan provides DeSantis with an opportunity to contrast his aggressive conservative governance with that of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who has advanced a slew of liberal wish list policies since Democrats achieved unified control of the state legislature last year.
On Wednesday, Whitmer signed a bill that repealed a pre-Roe era abortion ban, effectively legalizing abortion in the state until birth, and is advancing a series of gun control efforts. In contrast, DeSantis has expressed support for a bill in the Florida legislature that would ban abortion in the Sunshine State after the detection of a fetal heartbeat — typically six weeks gestation — and recently signed a so-called “constitutional carry” bill that allows for the carrying of firearms in public without a permit of any kind.
DeSantis’s visit to Hillsdale also comes on the heels of a visit by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to the New College of Florida this week. DeSantis appointed an entirely new conservative board of trustees for the college this year in an attempt to remake the liberal bastion into a conservative college. He has specifically called for turning the public Florida liberal arts college into a “Hillsdale of the South.”
The new board of trustees at the New College of Florida has wasted no time in working toward remaking the school in Hillsdale’s image. The new board quickly fired the college’s president and installed DeSantis’s former education commissioner in the role, and abolished diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the school.
“[DeSantis] has one thing that is common with everything he’s doing − bullying and intimidating vulnerable communities,” Newsom told students at the college, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. “You’re not only on the right side of history, you have something he’ll never have − moral authority.”
As the New College’s direction drastically changes in the coming months and years, Hillsdale has embraced the comparison while also reminding admirers that “There can only be one Hillsdale College.”
“With respect to the idea of New College becoming the ‘Hillsdale of the South,’ we are, of course, flattered by the comparison. There can only be one Hillsdale College,” Hillsdale spokeswoman Emily Stack Davis told USA Today earlier this year. “But that said, we understand why Hillsdale is a sort of benchmark.”
The Michigan primary is typically one of the earlier states in the presidential election calendar but has yet to schedule the date of the election in the state.
The Florida governor, who has yet to announce a campaign, is the third presidential contender to visit Hillsdale in recent weeks. Two Republican 2024 contenders, former Vice President Mike Pence and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have both made visits to the college.
But DeSantis’s hesitation in launching a presidential campaign has not stopped Michigan Republicans from lining up to endorse him.
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On Thursday morning, the Never Back Down PAC, a group pushing for DeSantis to enter the presidential race, announced a slew of endorsements from Michigan Republican state lawmakers and law enforcement officials, including Aric Nesbitt, the Republican leader in the state Senate.
“America is at a turning point, and the time for real leadership is now,” Nesbitt said. “The person best equipped to step up and fearlessly fight for our American values is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. That is why I, without reservation, endorse Gov. DeSantis for president of the United States. Gov. DeSantis is the new generation of Republican leadership – unapologetic in taking on the tough fights and, most importantly, winning them. It’s the leadership America needs.”