Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will be a prominent feature at the most prominent annual gathering of conservatives.
Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union tweeted late Tuesday afternoon that the Republican governor is confirmed to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference or CPAC.
The conference will be held in Orlando from Feb. 24–27.
CPAC promotes itself as the “largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world,” annually drawing more than 18,000 “conservative organizations, educational institutions, elected officials, thought leaders, media personalities, and grassroots activists” to the multiday event.
DeSantis will undoubtedly pick up on the theme he highlighted at CPAC 2021, which was also in Orlando, when he told the crowd Florida was “our oasis of freedom.”
“Florida’s leading on the issues that matter to conservatives,” DeSantis said in that speech last year. “We don’t spout hollow rhetoric. We take decisive action.”
“We cannot, we will not, go back to the days of the failed Republican establishment of yesteryear,” he added.
“We reject open borders and instead support American sovereignty and the American worker. Building a movement on amnesty and cheap foreign labor is like building a house on a field of quicksand.”
DeSantis will attend CPAC fresh off the right’s victory over President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates – which DeSantis led the charge against.
A straw poll of attendees at last year’s CPAC found former President Donald Trump at the head of the GOP’s 2024 pack. He was the choice of 55 percent of voters.
In that straw poll, though, DeSantis placed second, with 21 percent, the only other figure in double-digits.
When Trump’s name was taken out of the equation, DeSantis was the clear favorite, receiving 43 percent of the crowd’s vote, and nearly quadrupling the runner-up, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
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