DeSantis has been increasingly critical of President Donald Trump and his response to the coronavirus pandemic, but his stance is a difficult one for many Republicans to accept, as Trump remains extremely popular among the GOP base. DeSantis has raised eyebrows by questioning the need for some of Trump’s travel bans and pushing back on the president’s attempts to promote unproven treatments for the virus. He has sought to cast himself as a centrist, pledging to put governance over partisanship, but this approach has drawn some criticism from more conservative Republicans, who view DeSantis as moving away from the hard-right policies they have come to expect from Trump.
