Ron DeSantis is doubling down on Covid vaccine skepticism. It probably won’t move GOP voters.

admin

Global Courant

“Covid restrictions have gone from a dominant issue that got talked about all the time in the focus groups to one that never comes up. People just don’t talk about it anymore,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who routinely conducts focus groups. “Covid cost [DeSantis] one of his calling cards.”

Few, if any, major presidential candidates have so openly aligned themselves with vaccine skepticism as DeSantis. His team has routinely minimized Operation Warp Speed — the Trump-administration effort to expedite the development of Covid-19 vaccines. He has openly discussed placing conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a top public health role in a prospective DeSantis administration. And in mid-August, he acknowledged to POLITICO that he never received a Covid booster shot.

“I have not gotten an mRNA shot,” he told reporters, when asked about his vaccine history. “One shot of the Johnson & Johnson, and that was it for me.”

- Advertisement -

That began to change as the pandemic persisted.

DeSantis broke from Trump administration officials and took heat from opponents for opening beaches, schools and businesses. He publicly scolded young students for wearing facemasks, arguing they were unnecessary. And as criticism mounted over his handling of the virus, so too did his resolve — such that by September of 2021, he tapped as Florida’s surgeon general a doctor who denounced vaccine mandates.

Those early moves are receiving renewed scrutiny as he seeks the highest office in the nation.

- Advertisement -