This is the extreme anti-abortion governor casting a shadow over Donald Trump's hopes of winning re-election as US president in 2024.
Ron DeSantis, the 44-year-old governor of Florida, stormed to victory on Tuesday, hailing his landslide re-election as a "win for the ages".
DeSantis is the likeliest Republican rival to former US President Donald Trump in 2024 and he has now strengthened a potential White House bid with today's win.
Trump, 76, warned the Florida governor, whom he calls “DeSanctimonious”, he would “hurt himself very badly” if he entered the race.
At an election night party in Tampa, DeSantis said his re-election for another four-year term was a historic, landslide victory and said he looked “forward to the road ahead”.
His win comes as Trump ominously warned he would make a “very big announcement” next Tuesday and many believe this will be his official 2024 Presidency bid announcement.
The latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows Trump as the favourite frontrunner for the party’s nomination, followed by DeSantis, who claims the support of just shy of 21 per cent of Republicans.
If Mr DeSantis were to announce a presidential bid, Mr Trump said he would reveal "things about him that won't be very flattering - I know more about him than anybody - other than, perhaps, his wife".
DeSantis echoed former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill in his victory speech on Tuesday night.
He said: "We fight the woke in the Legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob."
Churchill famously said: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
DeSantis voted no on reauthorising the Violence Against Women Act, opposes same-sex marriage, respects faith-based opposition to same-sex marriage and allows carrying guns openly and on college campuses.
In 2021, DeSantis threatened to withhold Covid-19 vaccines from counties that criticised how vaccines were distributed.
That same year, during a resurgence of Covid cases, he banned public schools from implementing mask mandates, claiming without evidence that masks were harmful to children, and later threatened to fine, withhold funding, or withhold salary from any school district or school official who required masks.
In 2022, he signed into law the Parental Rights in Education Act, called the "Don't Say Gay Law" by its opponents, which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in public school classrooms from kindergarten to third grade.
After the US Supreme Court removed the constitutional right to abortion, Mr DeSantis declared that "the prayers of millions" had been answered.
The US treasury department is currently investigating whether DeSantis improperly used funds to trick migrants to be removed from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, a Massachusetts island, on chartered flights.
