Ron DeSantis marches into Donald Trump heartlands

The two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are taking their campaigns nationwide this week.

Ron DeSantis addresses police on Staten Island this week. Picture: AFP

The two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination are taking their campaigns nationwide this week, touting their law and order credentials and accusing the Democrats of being soft on crime.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is thought to be months away from formally declaring his intention to run next year. But the campaign is cranking through the gears as he tries to prise voters from Donald Trump.

Mr DeSantis, 44, spent the Presidents’ Day bank holiday on Monday addressing audiences in the suburbs of New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. He attempted to burnish his tough law and order record in what are Democrat strongholds and where crime rates are steadily growing.

“We’re grateful to be here to deliver a very important message, a message about safe communities, the rule of law and about standing by the people that wear the uniform and put themselves at risk to protect us,” he told police in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago.

He also addressed officers in Philadelphia and on Staten Island, the one New York borough that voted for Mr Trump in 2016 and 2020. Mr Trump, 76, has performed strongly with the police since 2016. The country’s biggest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, backed him in 2016 and 2020.

Mr DeSantis’s three-state visit on Monday is expected to be replicated in the coming weeks as he tries to build support outside Florida. He is publishing a book next week – the surest sign that he is running for president – and is expected to be the keynote speaker at Republican events in Alabama, Texas and California.

He has some catching up to do. Mr Trump, who declared his candidacy in November, has a lead in most polls just under a year before the party’s primary season begins in Iowa. Nikki Haley, ambassador to the UN under Mr Trump, is the only other serious contender to announce her candidacy. Mr DeSantis, Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, are expected to follow suit. In effect, all contenders are gearing up for primaries at the start of next year.

A Harris poll last week put the former president on 56 per cent, giving him a 12-point lead over Mr DeSantis in a race between the two. Law and order is likely to be one of the most keenly fought areas of policy for Republican contenders. Mr DeSantis told police officers in Elmhurst that law and order and a strong economy were vital for maintaining safety. He also attacked no-cash bail policies that have become popular in some states, such as Illinois and Oregon, in an effort to cut the prison population.

Mr Trump released a video on Monday outlining a seven-point plan to cut crime and “restore law and order”. The former president is also on the road this week. He is due to visit East Palestine in Ohio, where a freight train spilled chemicals into waterways earlier this month. Ohio backed Mr Trump in 2016 and 2020, after voting for Barack Obama in 2012.

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