Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took on a heckler Friday at a campaign event in South Carolina, who accused him of running a “police state,” before adapting one of Winston Churchill’s most famous speeches for his “war on wake.” .
DeSantis arrived in Palmetto state earlier this week after stops in Iowa and New Hampshire.
He used his stupid speech to launch a 30-minute attack on front-runner Donald Trump, without ever using his name, promising that “focus” not “entertainment” would help him get the job done.
But he was briefly stopped at a rally in rural South Carolina when a female heckler interrupted just as he was describing what he believed were “bad things” and “pornography” in schools.
She was heard accusing him of interfering with children’s health care and imposing a ‘police state’.
Ron DeSantis arrived in South Carolina Friday as he continued his tour of early states. Gilbert’s biggest cheer came when he faced a heckler who accused him of being a ‘police state’
After the speech, he sat down with his wife, Casey, as she described her job and what it’s like to have a young family in Florida’s governor’s mansion.
When she was pushed out of the barn by guards, he replied, “We won’t let you impose an agenda on our children.” We’re going to stand up for our children.’
It provided the biggest cheer of the speech for some 500 supporters and the DeSantis curious.
The remainder of the speech contained a greatest hits list of his achievements during his tenure.
And it included not-so-subtle digs at Trump, detailing how “focus” was key to getting work done in the office rather than short-term decision-making.
“Leadership is not about entertainment. It’s not about brand building. It’s not about signaling virtue,’ he said.
“Leadership is about getting results for the people you represent.”
DeSantis also used one of Winston Churchill’s most famous phrases when speaking of his dedication to the “war on wake.”
‘We will fight the guards in the schools; we will fight the vigil in the companies; we will fight the vigilantes in the halls of Congress,” he said in an echo of Churchill’s World War II speech.
“We will never, ever surrender to the awake crowd.”
DeSantis signed books, posed for selfies and chatted with attendees after the event
About 500 people heard him speak at The Grove, a wedding venue outside of Columbia. Some were supporters, others were just “deSantis curious” as they weighed who to support
DeSantis was on a three-stop swing through the early state primary. But he arrived after receiving news that he had lost ground to Trump since entering the race.
A new poll shows the former president has increased his lead over DeSantis by eight points since early May.
The data will come as a blow to DeSantis, who last week used an online interview with Twitter owner Elon Musk to enter the race. But outages on Twitter Spaces caused the event to start late and listeners were repeatedly kicked out of the feed.
A Yahoo News/YouGov van 1,520 adults found that Trump had increased his share of support from 48 percent in early May to 53 percent.
DeSantis’ share fell from 28 percent to 25 percent, giving the former president a 28 percent lead.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis toured the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina this week, but a new poll shows he has lost ground to Donald Trump
A new poll shows DeSantis has lost ground to front-runner Trump over the past month, despite launching his campaign last week. He is now 28 points behind, compared to 20 at the beginning of May
However, only 13 percent said the launch failure left them with an “unfavorable” impression.
Still, the data will be a headache for the DeSantis campaign, which is hammering out the message that Florida’s governor is more eligible than Trump.
Against that backdrop, DeSantis will hold three events in South Carolina on Friday, following swings through New Hampshire and Iowa — three of the key states in the primary race.
His Never Back Down super-PAC ramps up activity in Palmetto State to coincide with the visit. According to a source familiar with the plans, the group will be knocking on doors over the weekend and the group has a series of messages of support to roll out in the coming days.
Analysts say all is not lost at this early stage and DeSantis still has a path to winning the Republican nomination.
James Johnson, co-founder of polling firm JL Partners, said his firm’s data suggested Trump’s rule could prove tenuous in the coming weeks.
So even though his poll showed DeSantis trailing 15 points in Iowa and 33 points back in New Hampshire, nearly half of Trump supporters said Florida’s governor was their second choice.
And they used the same word to describe him – “strong” – as they used to describe the former president.
Casey took the stage with her husband during his first campaign stop in South Carolina
Trump showed up at a Fox News town hall on Thursday night and used it to beat up his rivals
“Trump voters don’t use the same insults he uses at the rallies,” he said.
“Trump has so far failed to define DeSantis negatively in the minds of Republican primary voters.”
In addition, he beats Trump on the three most important points for Republican voters in New Hampshire: “Can beat Joe Biden in an election,” “Is competent,” and “Stands up to wake values.”
“That’s pretty unique for a poll where the other candidate has such a big lead,” Johnson said.
Still, Trump said Thursday night that he thought DeSantis would soon fade from view.
“You know, I’m really going after whoever is second and I think whoever is second has gone down so much and so fast that I don’t think he’s going to be second for long. I think he’ll be third or fourth,” Trump told Sean Hannity at a Fox News town hall.
The two passed the time jabbing at each other.
Trump used his time in Iowa to push back against DeSantis’ argument that he can serve two terms in office to push his agenda, while his opponent would be limited to just one term.
“Who wants to wait eight years?” Trump said, insisting he only needed six months to unravel President Joe Biden’s policies.
For his part, DeSantis said Trump had already made one attempt to solve the country’s problems.
He asked, “Why didn’t he do it in his first four years?”