Speaking on Staten Island, the Florida governor appeared to position himself as the law-and-order candidate in a presidential campaign he has not announced.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida traveled to New York City on Monday, kicking off a tour meant to highlight the issue of crime in Democratic-led cities in an apparent attempt to position himself as a law-and-order candidate in a presidential campaign he has yet to announce.
Speaking to law enforcement officials at a restaurant in the Republican stronghold of Staten Island, Mr. DeSantis said that “woke” cities like New York were taking the wrong approach to fighting crime.
“Those woke approaches to crime and law and order and being anti-police, those policies have failed,” Mr. DeSantis said in a live interview on Fox News from the event. “Florida’s policies have succeeded.”
New York, where Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, has also criticized left-leaning Democrats, was the first stop on Mr. DeSantis’s tour, and the governor’s appearance was arranged at Mr. DeSantis’s behest, according to people familiar with the details. He was expected to visit Fort Washington, a Philadelphia suburb, and Elmhurst, Ill., near Chicago, later on Monday.
Mr. DeSantis, 44, has captured the attention of Republican voters by presenting himself as a younger, more policy-focused heir to former President Donald J. Trump.
His speech on Monday, delivered in the only New York borough that supported Mr. Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, was attended by leading state Republicans. He was introduced by Lee Zeldin, the former Long Island congressman who lost last year’s governor’s race to Kathy Hochul, the incumbent Democrat, and who has been a staunch ally of Mr. Trump’s. Mr. Zeldin’s presence suggested a possible loosening of Mr. Trump’s grip on top Republicans in his former home state.