Do we like Ron DeSantis?
Our score: 2 out of 10. He signed laws that restricted LGBTQ+ people's rights and backed ending vaccine mandates, with only some Everglades spending to set against it.
DeSantis has run Florida since 2019 and is in his final year, term-limited and leaving office in January 2027. His last State of the State speech in January 2026 was a victory lap on tax cuts, school choice, teacher pay and Everglades funding. Democrats in the room answered that his legacy was “Division, meanness and a growing affordability crisis.”
The harm check is where he comes unstuck. In May 2023 he signed four bills in one go: Don't Say Gay was expanded through eighth grade, transition-related care for minors was banned, trans people's bathroom use was restricted, and children were barred from “adult live performances”. He said, “We're not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida.” GLSEN said he was trying to “erase LGBTQ+ people from existence”, and major medical associations oppose such care bans.
It isn't only LGBTQ+ policy. In September 2025 Florida's surgeon general announced the state would work to end vaccine mandates, and DeSantis backed the push and launched a commission to go with it. Public health critics warned it was a recipe for disaster. On climate, coverage credits him with big Everglades and resilience spending while faulting him for dodging the cause, including a bill that cut most climate mentions from state law.
Then there's immigration. In August 2025 a federal judge ordered the Everglades detention centre dubbed Alligator Alcatraz wound down, after environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe argued the state skipped a federal environmental review. DeSantis said of the judge, “we knew exactly what she was going to do,” and vowed to appeal. An appeals court paused the order, and the site was dismantled by July 2026.
The Hope Florida saga is the messy one. A legislative inquiry and then a Leon County grand jury examined a $10 million payment from Medicaid contractor Centene to the Hope Florida Foundation, which passed money on to committees that opposed a 2024 marijuana ballot measure. The grand jury's target was unclear, and DeSantis and his wife called the inquiry “politicking”. In October 2026 an appeals court said the money went directly to the foundation and ordered the report expunged, which he called a hoax.
Fact-checkers give a mixed picture on straight talk. PolitiFact found in 2023 that slightly more than half of the 43 DeSantis statements it checked fell on the false side. It rated a Martha's Vineyard migrant claim False and a low per-capita tax burden claim Mostly True. The record is thin on personal kindness either way, and that's honestly what the sources we opened give us.