Gov. Ron DeSantis is poised to position himself Tuesday as a champion of conservative causes during a State of the State speech that will likely be both about his national aspirations and an assessment of Florida’s response to the pandemic and a series of crippling storms .

The speech comes at the start of a 60-day legislative session that has added significance this year as it will likely be used to launch DeSantis into a highly anticipated presidential campaign.

The Republican-dominated legislature, eager to promote DeSantis’ political prospects, is expected to sign off virtually the governor’s entire agenda, which is brimming with issues.

ranging from race to immigration to gender such as race, immigration and gender

that could be popular in a GOP presidential primary.

Instead of focusing on rising rents and

the

cost of living, a distressed real estate insurance market preparing for rising sea levels in a state vulnerable to climate change, DeSantis will kick off a session where the GOP will address issues

like like like

teachers telling what pronouns to use for students, making guns more available to Floridians, retaining immigrants

that who

being in the country illegally and leaving the state, and criminalizing some drag shows, as Tennessee did recently.

While DeSantis is unlikely to formally announce a presidential campaign before the legislature wraps up its work in May, he is already making big strides toward a bid for the White House. He took part in a high-profile donor retreat in Florida last week before traveling to California, where he spoke broadly against what he said were excesses of liberalism. Later this week, he will travel to Iowa for the first time this year, where the first Republican presidential caucus will take place in 2024.

Even without an official campaign, DeSantis is emerging as a leading alternative to the former president

Donald

Trump, a Florida compatriot who has already announced his

third next

offer from the White House. DeSanti’s power is fueled in part by commanding a

nearly 20 percentage points

re-election victory

of nearly 20 percentage points

last year in a state often notorious for close elections.

DeSantis praises Florida’s approach while visiting California

He has done this by restricting how issues such as race and sexuality can be taught in schools, banning transgender girls and women from school sports, rewriting the state’s political maps to favor Republicans, and dismantling a congressional district that favored black voters, to attack private companies that disagree. with its ideology and crackdown on Black Lives Matter protests.

Our governor is truly the governor of America. He has championed our conservative values, challenged the individuals and institutions that pose a threat to others, and proposed innovative solutions to improve our state, Republican Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said Tuesday. It is often said that states are laboratories for democracy. Under the leadership of Governor DeSantis, Florida is more than a laboratory. We are a model.

DeSantis acknowledges that his decisions as governor are based on what he thinks is right and not necessarily what’s popular in the mainstream. He said he was therefore able to turn a 32,000 vote win into a 1.5 in 2018

–

million

–

vote victory last year the largest margin ever won by a Republican governor in the state.

We beat the left day after day after day, DeSantis said at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Sunday

Simi Valley in California

. Don’t worry about the polls, don’t worry about the daily news cycle, and for Pete’s sake

,

don’t worry about the media, what they say. Do the right thing and the voters will reward you.

He’s also been the subject of jokes almost every night lately

–

night shows like Saturday Night Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

.

”

B

But the more critics mock DeSantis, especially those he calls the liberal elite, the more he gains support among his base.

While most candidates entering a presidential race spend two years in the early campaign days raising money, traveling the country to build support and increase their brand awareness, DeSantis still has $ 70 million in a political committee.

And he already is

one the

star

the you

jour at national level GOP events.

You don’t see the Florida flag behind him anymore. They are all American flags,” he said

Florida

Democratic State Senator Jason Pizzo.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis makes pilgrimage to California to court influential Republicans

DeSantis’ State of the State is sure to feature some of the same anti-woke, pro-freedom messages he’s been spreading across the country.

The book he released last week is titled

,

The Courage to Be Free, and its subtitle, foreshadow his plans for 2024: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival. Instead of the Trump slogan Make America Great Again, DeSantis is building the case for making the nation more like Florida and less like states like California and New York.

These liberal states are wrong, DeSantis said. It all goes back to ideology. I think it goes back to the waking mind virus that infected links and all those other institutions.

But Democrats see it as intolerance and misaligned priorities. They point to efforts to build on a new law that critics call Don’t Say Gay that limits discussion of gender and sexuality in schools. A new GOP proposal would limit how schools can use gender pronouns, while another would criminalize some drag shows.

the

number one no. 1

cause of death among children in our country is gun violence, but again they are concerned about who goes to what kind of drag show, said

Florida

Democratic Senate Leader Lauren Book. “You have Don’t Say Gay. Now 2.0, Don’t Say They. Let’s make sure people can pay their light bills and put food on the table, pay for medicines and put gas in their cars.