The Florida governor has spent much of his adult life railing against liberal elites. In 2023, he wrote a book about it — and it made him rich.
By Kyle Mullins, Forbes Staff
Even as his poll numbers stagnate and his political capital wanes, Ron DeSantis has seen one thing go right in 2023: His bank account balance keeps rising. Sitting at around $300,000 in 2021, a lucrative book deal made the Florida governor a millionaire by the end of last year. Today, he’s worth an estimated $1.5 million.
DeSantis has the simplest finances of anyone making a serious run at the presidency. He did not build a sprawling real estate empire (like Donald Trump), nor start a billion-dollar biotech company (like Vivek Ramaswamy), nor sit on corporate boards (like Nikki Haley), nor marry a Wall Street spouse (like Chris Christie), nor give a bunch of high-dollar speeches (like Mike Pence). DeSantis, the 45-year-old once seen as the heir apparent to a Trumpified Republican Party, owns just one equity holding: a recently purchased oil fund worth $15,000 to $50,000, according to his financial disclosure report. Outside of that, two small pensions and a big pile of cash, there’s nothing else. He resides in the Florida governor’s mansion and does not even own a house. On his most recent financial disclosure, he reported two cash accounts that Forbes estimates have roughly $1.4 million between them — most of it book income from the past two years.
He didn’t come from big money. Born to working-class parents from the Midwest, DeSantis spent most of his childhood in Dunedin, Florida, a Gulf Coast city minutes from Tampa Bay. His father installed Nielson television ratings devices, and his mother worked as a nurse. His Little League team represented the South at the Little League World Series in 1991.
DeSantis’ baseball chops took him all the way to Yale University in 1997. In the book that made him his money, titled “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” he says his cultural background made him stick out among the prep-school coastal elites. “I was geographically raised in Tampa Bay,” he writes, “but culturally my upbringing reflected the working-class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio—from weekly church attendance to the expectation that one would earn his keep. This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving.”
The future presidential candidate’s four years at Yale were defined, in his telling, by baseball, working various campus jobs and encounters with “unbridled leftism.” Evidently undeterred, DeSantis moved further north, earned a law degree from Harvard University in 2005, then — in a bold move for someone with sizable student loans — eschewed a Big Law job or judicial clerkship in favor of an officer’s commission and prosecutor position in the Navy. In 2006, he met his future wife, Casey, a Jacksonville-area reporter and television anchor, shortly before deploying to Iraq.
Casey DeSantis has become a fixture on the campaign trail, where she frequently joins her husband for events.
(AP Photo/Andy Barron)
After returning to the States, DeSantis bought a $307,500 home near Jacksonville in 2009. He worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs to take out a $314,000 loan, enough to cover the entire purchase price. Ron married Casey at Disney World in 2010, left active-duty service and joined a Florida-based law firm that finally gave him a six-figure salary. He harbored political ambitions, though: His first book, “Dreams from Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama,” didn’t make him much money, but it earned him some cachet among conservatives, which came in handy when he launched a run for Congress.
He won an east-coast seat in 2012 and the $174,000 salary that came with it, a major boost for someone who reported holding less than $20,000 in stock and cash just before taking office. DeSantis plowed the extra funds into a savings account and a second, $242,000 home in Palm Coast, Florida that he sold in 2018 for a small gain. His five years in Congress, combined with his military service, provided him a federal pension worth just over $50,000 today.
While in Washington, DeSantis hewed to the right-wing line: Per one measure, he was more conservative than 87% of Republicans in his final two years. Then he turned his sights on statewide office. He reportedly sucked up to Trump on Fox News and Air Force One, winning the president’s endorsement before even declaring a run for governor. In the primary, DeSantis emphasized his Trump ties, running an ad that showed the congressman “building a wall” with his kids and reading them the “Art of the Deal.” He won by a wide margin, then upset Democrat Andrew Gillum to become governor of America’s third-largest state, even as a blue wave crested nationwide.
Contentious debates between Republican Ron DeSantis, left, and Democrat Andrew Gillum, right, foreshadowed the extremely close election that put DeSantis in the governor’s mansion.
(AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
The victory came with a pay cut: DeSantis’ new salary was 25% lower than his congressional one. Casey had left her reporting job in 2018. But they also had one fewer expense, housing. They ditched their Jacksonville-area home for $460,000 — paying off their mortgage and walking away with an estimated $150,000 — to take up residence in the governor’s mansion. At this point, they were worth less than $300,000.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and national fights over reopening, DeSantis grew his profile, picking culture war battles that kept him on television. He railed — and legislated — against mask and vaccine mandates, “woke” corporations and “critical race theory.” In his 2022 reelection race, he crushed former Florida governor Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points, winning yet more national attention.
The attention offered a business opportunity, which DeSantis seized. He authored a book that provided $1.25 million in 2022 and at least $725,000 in 2023. In “Courage to be Free,” the Yale and Harvard graduate blasts “elites” and the “ruling class,” calling the Democratic Party a “woke dumpster fire.” His net worth quintupled from $300,000 at the end of 2021 to an estimated $1.5 million today.
He also seized a political opportunity, declaring a run for the presidency in May. “Decline is a choice,” he said in an announcement video, promising to lead a “great American comeback.” But his poll numbers have slipped, as the baseball player from Dunedin struggles to gain any support in two debate performances while the criminally indicted real estate mogul from Queens runs away with the race without even showing up.
If DeSantis doesn’t catch up to Trump, he’ll at least be able to keep his job as governor of Florida—and perhaps write another book.
Dan Alexander and Kavya Gupta contributed reporting.
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