Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said on Thursday that Joe Biden’s (D) pro-lockdown policies will “not play well” in Florida.
Florida is continuing in its gradual reopening process, allowing bars to reopen at a 50 percent capacity this week. This month, DeSantis vowed that officials in the state will “never do any of these lockdowns again,” adding, “I hear people say they’ll shut down the country, and honestly I cringe.”
He capitalized on that sentiment during a Fox & Friends appearance on Thursday, warning that Biden’s pro-shutdown views will “not play well” with Floridians.
“Biden is somebody that says he would shut down the country when he’s president. That is a disaster. We cannot do that. That will not play well here in Florida,” DeSantis told the outlet, noting the contrast President Trump and Biden have on the issues, as well as the addition of new Floridians, who are “happy to get out of some of the high tax, high unemployment states.”
“The issue contrasts are very strong,” DeSantis said. “Biden’s record is one of repeated failures.”
The governor guessed that many of the people flocking to the Sunshine State will “tend toward the president” but ultimately said it is hard to predict where the state stands, given the ever-shifting electorate.
“It is something where we have so many new voters added to the pot every election cycle, that it’s a little bit more challenging in Florida than it would be in some other states that don’t see the type of growth, and incidentally, the pandemic has not slowed that down at all,” he added.
During a Thursday appearance on Bill Hemmer Reports, the governor added that Biden has “not been able to make the sale on a lot of voters that a Democrat would need to win.”
“I think it’s always competitive in Florida, and this will be no different. But I think the president has the advantage,” he added.
Biden has continued to criticize Trump’s handling of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, claiming “all the people would still be alive,” had Trump “done his job from the beginning.”
“And if the president had done his job — had done his job from the beginning — all the people would still be alive,” he said during Thursday’s CNN town hall. “All the people — I’m not making this up, just look at the data. Look at the data.”
He also denied that he wants to lock down the entire country again, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper that he instead wants to focus on “regions.”
“We’re not talking about locking down the whole country. What we need — we need, Anderson — we need a criteria from state to state within states as to what constitutes the risk in each of the regions,” he said.
“You could very well have to have stay-at-home orders relative to a city or a community and another community, a rural community not have that at all, because the rate of infection is much lower, number one,” he continued.
Last month, Biden called for a national mask mandate, regardless of age or indoors or outdoors, and said the mandate should reign “for the next three months at a minimum.”
While he admitted on Thursday that he cannot force people to wear masks, he said he would call governors to urge them to institute mandates on the state level.
“I would like to see the governors enforce mask-wearing. Period. I can do that on federal property,” he added.
“As president, I will do that. On federal land, I’d have the authority. If you’re on federal land, you must wear a mask,” Biden said. “In a federal building, you must wear a mask, and we could have a fine for them not doing it.”
Florida, which is in the midst of its reopening process, does not have a statewide mask mandate in place.
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