Eye of the storm: Ron DeSantis and the politics of hurricane recovery

When it comes to disaster response, gasoline gets votes – at least according to one viral social media post. After Hurricane Ian, Gov. Ron DeSantis went into overdrive to get Florida back in order, having bridges rebuilt in record time, making sure utility line workers were re-electrifying the state, and seeing to it that fuel would flow. That got the support of at least one man in a nighttime video that made the rounds. 

“You can say shit about DeSantis, but that gas is here in Arcadia … so y’all know who we’re voting for,” the unnamed man says, wearing a sleeveless white undershirt. “I don’t know about the rest of y’all … but I’m voting for DeSantis. And I’m a Democrat.” 

Those in DeSantis’ corner have chided reporters and others not to “politicize” the storm, but savvy politicians know never to let a good crisis go to waste. The governor’s leadership post-Ian may well push many undecided voters over the line come November and is surely getting the attention of those who want him to be a presidential candidate in 2024 or later. He’s shown he may have the chops for a national race, amassing a whopping campaign kitty of $194 million since 2018 in his political committee and another $25 million in his regular campaign account for this year. 

And the coverage and credit he’s getting now will likely help later, when the longform profiles start afresh with a recitation of accomplishments, including photos and video of utility trucks barreling across the Sanibel Causeway. That’s despite the occasional and short-lived flubs, like the white boots that got him likened to Nancy Sinatra or the fleece vest that had his campaign logo, not the official state seal, which will probably be forgotten by all but the oppo researchers. 

Here’s the thing: During a crisis, it’s always good to be the incumbent. In a moment of comity during a visit after the storm, President Joe Biden (who maybe went low-key Southern) thanked DeSantis “for the hospitality.” The voluminous news coverage focused on the two political opponents burying the hatchet, at least temporarily. “I think we’ve worked as well across state, local and federal as any disaster that I’ve seen,” the governor told reporters. 

The Democratic president applauded DeSantis’ handling of the storm, which was rated as high as a Category 4 at one point. “I think he’s done a good job. … We have very different political philosophies, but we worked hand in glove. And … on things related to dealing with this crisis, we’ve been completely (in) lockstep. There’s been no difference.” The New York Times parsed the exchange as “professional, but hardly warm,” recollecting the damage former Gov. Chris Christie inflicted on himself by “warmly welcoming President Barack Obama when the two met after Hurricane Sandy devastated the New Jersey coastline in 2012.” Then a rising star in the Republican Party with presidential ambitions – much like DeSantis is today – Christie saw that welcome “weaponized against him four years later – with a handshake morphing into a ‘hug’ that helped doom him in the 2016 GOP primary.”

It’s impossible to know whether Florida’s governor will be in the mix for the White House in 2024, but the storm and the state’s response seem to be helping him so far. The Biden-DeSantis meet-up had Florida Politics’ Peter Schorsch tweeting that the “2022 race for Florida Governor is officially over.” Or, as Democratic campaign consultant and political communications savant Kevin Cate put it, “DeSantis already had the airwaves to himself before the storm, all the money – and now he has the Biden seal of approval on his response to the hurricane.” Cate worked for state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who lost to Crist in the Democratic primary for governor. “Would be really hard for him to mess the general up at this point,” Cate added. “But here’s to hoping.” 

As for his future political aspirations, it doesn’t hurt that DeSantis leads the third most populous state, according to Susan MacManus, the éminence grise of Florida political analysis. He gets “national attention because everybody has a tie to Florida,” said MacManus, a political science professor emeritus at the University of South Florida. People “either want to come here, they've been here or they know someone here,” she said. “So that made it a national story. Plus everyone is speculating he's going to run for president in 2024.”

Here’s what DeSantis did well: The regular press conferences in different parts of the state, drawing attention to the utilities crews coming in, the National Guard, the positioning of and moving out of people from homes and hospitals, McManus said. Moreover, “there was this flurry of outside Florida media just wanting to see if he and Biden got into some food fight and that didn't happen,” she added. “He was savvy enough to know that there are times when you put politics aside.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a fellow Republican known as the hurricane governor, also gave DeSantis high marks. Bush led the state through a still hard-to-imagine eight hurricanes in just two years between 2004 and 2005. A spokesperson for the former governor said he was unavailable for an interview, but Bush told The Dispatch news site that DeSantis has “done all the right things, just encouraging and staying connected with people. These press conferences he has, he’s got total command. The guy’s into the details, which is helpful. … He’s working hard. It will help him politically to show that he cares about the people he’s serving.” (Of course, Bush’s strong record responding to hurricanes in Florida didn’t propel him to the presidential nomination that he sought.)

The Rev. R.B. Holmes Jr. has openly opposed DeSantis, taking issue with his stance against mask mandates in schools during the coronavirus pandemic, for example. Holmes, pastor of Tallahassee’s Bethel Missionary Baptist, a historically Black church, has led the Statewide Vaccination Community Education and Engagement Task Force, which counts clergy, health care workers and teachers among its members. Along the way, the longtime Republican even renounced his party affiliation and now calls himself an independent. Yet Holmes has come around, referring to DeSantis’ “strong, stellar, sincere and steadfast leadership” in a recent interview. 

“He was able to rise above politics,” Holmes said. “He treated President Biden’s visit with grace and dignity. … There’s an old spiritual, ‘May The Work I’ve Done Speak For Me.’ This governor will be judged on his performance and the people will reward him according to how well he governed. Obviously, he may eventually run for president in the future, and he should.”

Jared Moskowitz has a more admittedly biased take. He’s DeSantis’ former Division of Emergency Management director from 2019 to 2021, when he picked up the nickname “master of disaster.” He’s also a Democratic former state representative and Broward County commissioner (appointed by DeSantis) now running for Congress in South Florida. “I worked with the governor for two and a half years,” Moskowitz said. “He's a calm, cool, collected guy and he takes in the information and the data. He doesn't just listen to people. He reads the briefings as well.” 

(To be sure, DeSantis hasn’t won over most rank-and-file Democrats. State Sen. Janet Cruz of Tampa, who served in the House with Moskowitz, was asked of her estimation of DeSantis’ leadership. Her full response: “He’s a dictator,” she wrote in a text message.)

But does all this translate for, say, a White House run? A lot can happen between now and 2024 – or later – but MacManus, the USF professor, said a candidate’s job includes refreshing the electorate’s memory. Trump, on the other hand, was relatively silent about the storm and has been bogged down in multiple legal matters, so this wasn’t a leadership opportunity for him. 

“No one knows what Donald Trump's going to do, but what has been somewhat surprising is that Trump has stayed out of any mention of DeSantis through all of this. And of course it's in both their best interests to not destroy each other,” MacManus said. “There's just a lot of interest in him. Being governor of Florida, which I always argue to people is the most complex state to campaign in of any of them because of our size and racial and ethnic mixes, is just really difficult.” 

And getting gas to Arcadia in the middle of the night never hurts.