Florida Governor Ron DeSantis still hasn’t announced if he’s running for president in 2024. He’s widely expected to do so in the near future.
However, DeSantis has some serious problems stacking up, including a major donor of his who says he’s no longer sure that DeSantis is a good choice for the country.
Kenneth Griffin is one of the biggest Republican mega-donors out there. He’s a hedge fund CEO and has made billions on the financial market.
Griffin gave $5 million to DeSantis in the last election cycle to ensure his reelection as Florida governor and praised him as a “tremendous” leader.
Griffin has been one of the biggest supporters of DeSantis, but he’s now becoming part of a larger group of donors who feel uncomfortable with some of the positions DeSantis is taking.
In particular, they disagree with DeSantis’ desire not to take sides and get involved in the Ukraine conflict; they also think he’s too hardline on being against abortion.
DeSantis recently signed a heartbeat bill to ban abortion after a heartbeat is detected in a fetus, which may occur around six weeks of pregnancy.
Others like Thomas Peterffy say they are also having reservations about DeSantis. Peterffy says DeSantis is too strict on abortion and claims the governor’s “book banning” is causing Peterffy and a “bunch of friends” to not give money for now.
DeSantis hasn’t “banned” books, but simply enforced Florida law to remove pornographic and sexual content from elementary schools.
Other donors like Robert Bigelow are not worried, however. Bigelow said supporting DeSantis is one of his top priorities and he will continue to do so.
The mainstream media is making more of a fuss than is warranted about the Griffin complaints. Nonetheless, it is true that DeSantis has a bit of a problem here.
Either he ends up tying himself in knots trying to please donors or he moves forward with what he thinks is right and ends up losing funding.
This, of course, is part of the problem with the current system that donors have so much money to sway elections.