DeSantis declares Florida 'beat the left,' says Sunshine State's Dem Party is 'like a dead carcass'

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declares Sunshine State's Democratic Party is 'like a dead carcass'

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared Thursday in Michigan that Florida Republicans have 'beat the left' and that the Sunshine State's Democratic Party is like a 'dead carcass.' (WSMH) 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared the Democratic Party in Florida is "like a dead carcass on the side of the road" after being "beat" by Republicans.

"In what used to be a swing state, now the Democratic Party in Florida is a hollow shell. It's like a dead carcass on the side of the road," DeSantis said at a Midland County, Michigan, GOP breakfast. "I mean, we have beat the left in the state of Florida."

The remarks from DeSantis, who has served as Florida's governor since 2019, come as he is widely expected to enter the growing field of Republicans seeking the GOP nomination for president in 2024 once the Florida legislature wraps up its current session this spring.

DeSantis, who has touted Florida as a state where "woke goes to die," offered similar comments in a February interview with Newsweek about the Sunshine State's Democratic Party.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a Midland Republican Party event in Midland, Michigan, on April 6, 2023. (Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Last November, DeSantis overwhelmingly defeated his Democratic challenger, former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, to win a second term in the Florida governor's mansion. DeSantis earned more than 1.5 million votes more than Crist, a former Republican who represented Florida's 13th Congressional District in the House as a Democrat from 2017 to 2022.

DeSantis' victory in the state's 2022 gubernatorial election was viewed by many Republicans, both locally and nationally, as a historic win.

The victory marked the first time in two decades that a GOP governor had won Miami-Dade County. In 2002, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush became the last Republican gubernatorial candidate before DeSantis to win the heavily populated and diverse South Florida county.

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Attendees wait for Ron DeSantis to speak during a Midland Republican Party event in Midland, Michigan, on April 6, 2023. (Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"Bold leadership is rewarded by voters, and you can't win by a million and a half votes by only getting Republicans. We're winning independents, we're actually winning Democrats," DeSantis said from Michigan.

Throughout his tenure as governor, DeSantis has earned national recognition by reversing course on COVID-19 lockdowns, attacking "woke" critical race theory and gender-identity content in schools, and punching back at corporations like Disney or journalists who have criticized his agenda.

His impressive 19-point re-election victory last November stood out in a midterm election year when Republicans generally underperformed, propelling him to the forefront of 2024 White House speculation among political pundits — much to the chagrin of former President Donald Trump, the GOP primary front-runner.

Former President Donald Trump, left, and Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, right. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images / Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)

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A Mason-Dixon Florida poll released last week finds that 59% of registered voters approve of DeSantis' performance as governor since his landslide re-election in November. The governor's job rating has increased by four points since just before the 2022 election, but it still remains below his all-time high approval rating of 62% in March 2019.

Fox News' Chris Pandolfo and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this article.