An autobiography in which Florida Republican Ron DeSantis describes his rise from Little League baseball star to America’s most high-profile governor is due out in February, just as buzz about a possible 2024 White House run builds to a fever pitch.
“The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” is expected to detail the 44-year-old leader’s journey from Sunshine State baseball diamonds to Yale, Harvard Law, service in the U.S. Navy, three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, and his current role. While DeSantis has not announced plans to challenge former President Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, books such as this often precede White House bids.
“He shares his thinking from when he was fighting back against COVID mandates and restrictions, critical race theory, woke corporations’ and what Broadside describes as ‘the partisan legacy media,” Broadside Books said in a statement.
Ron DeSantis has written "The Courage to be Free," his mandatory textbook for every student in Florida. pic.twitter.com/3pURazCRzM
— Jane of the North (@JaneotN) November 30, 2022
The book is due out on February 28 from Broadside, a subsidiary of Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins Publishing.
Earlier this month, DeSantis won a second term in Tallahassee with a near 20-percentage-point margin of victory. The landslide was affirmation for DeSantis, who battled to keep Florida’s economy and schools open and rejected mask and vaccine mandates during the COVID pandemic. He has also been a fierce opponent of Critical Race Theory and radical gender ideology being taught in public schools.
“What Florida has done is establish a blueprint for governance that has produced tangible results while serving as a rebuke to the entrenched elites who have driven our nation into the ground,” DeSantis told Fox News. “Florida is proof positive that we, the people, are not powerless in the face of these elites.”
The book will detail DeSantis’ childhood growing up in Dunedin, his stellar academic career and service in the Navy after he volunteered in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, according to Fox News. It will also discuss his marriage to former television news host Casey DeSantis and her battle with breast cancer.
It will be the second book DeSantis has written, following “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers,” a 2011 work in which he chronicled conservatives’ return to the framers’ principles amid alienation in the “age of Obama.”
So far, only Trump has announced a 2024 bid. But a new poll from Iowa, where the presidential primary season gets underway every four years with the Iowa caucuses, showed Hawkeye State Republicans narrowly favor DeSantis over Trump, given the choice for 2024. Other polls have also showed that Republicans favor DeSantis over Trump and DeSantis faring better in a 2024 matchup against President Joe Biden. But some polls also show Trump more likely to emerge from a crowded primary field, should one materialize.
Earlier this month, the new leaders of Florida’s legislature both expressed support for changing a law some say would require DeSantis to step down as governor in order to run for president.