Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation, the Florida governor doubled down on his 2024 pitch, ignoring headlines about worried donors and Republican consolidation behind Donald Trump.
After a week in which little seemed to go his way, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida got back into his comfort zone: talking up his lengthy list of policy achievements in front of a receptive conservative audience outside Washington.
“We’ve really become the beating heart of the conservative movement in these United States,” Mr. DeSantis said of his state on Friday morning as he addressed the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank celebrating its 50th anniversary. “Florida is the state where our shared ideas and values actually become political reality.”
But outside that packed Maryland ballroom — where the foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, suggested Republicans were “craving a bold and visionary leader” like the Florida governor — the conservative movement has signaled some hesitation about Mr. DeSantis as he prepares for a likely 2024 presidential bid. Prominent donors have expressed concern, and Florida Republicans in Congress have so far shown little inclination to back him.
Underscoring Mr. DeSantis’s biggest challenge is his continued avoidance of mentioning former President Donald J. Trump, who is well ahead in polls and has kept up a whirlwind of attacks on his potential rival. Even as Mr. DeSantis spoke, Mr. Trump shared several critical posts about him on Truth Social, the former president’s social media website.
Mr. Trump’s posts focused on days of negative headlines challenging Mr. DeSantis’s political acumen and his handling of the fallout from a huge rainstorm in South Florida. The storm, which hit last week, flooded the Fort Lauderdale area and set off a severe gas shortage in the state’s most populous region.
Both of Florida’s Republican senators, in implicit swipes at Mr. DeSantis, have complained about the lack of fuel.
“They’ve got to get this thing fixed, this is crazy,” Senator Marco Rubio said in a video on Twitter, without naming the governor. Senator Rick Scott wrote that “Florida families shouldn’t have uncertainty about their next tank of gas.”
Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s deputy press secretary, defended the way the state had handled the gas shortage.
“At the direction of Governor DeSantis, the state emergency response apparatus has been at work since the flooding occurred and continues in full swing, responding to the needs of the localities as they are communicated to us,” he said in an email.
At the Heritage event, which was attended by a mix of policy professionals, conservative activists and think-tank donors, the crowd greeted Mr.
