Figure 1 DeSantis will hope to end up here one day
When you think of US politics, it is understandable to imagine that those involved are already incredibly wealthy. It seems like characters such as Donald Trump are the norm, where family and individual wealth is a starting point to launch a career in the Senate, Congress, or even in the White House.
But there are plenty of examples where US politicians are nowhere near as well off as Trump. That is not to say that there isn’t a healthy paycheck that comes along with the job – or that there are not numerous possibilities to accumulate wealth as a political career continues. But it might surprise you when you hear about the – relatively – modest income of some of the big names in politics.
Ron DeSantis is one of the most high-profile politicians in the country at the moment. He is the current governor of Florida and launched his bid for the presidency earlier this year. He only became a millionaire fairly recently though. With a background in baseball, DeSantis may well be used to checking out online sports betting reviews, but now he has the chance to become the 47th US President.
Early Life
Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Ron DeSantis has remained in the Sunshine State, with short periods away at university at Yale and Harvard and a stint in the armed forces. His family is originally from southern Italy and settled in Ohio when it first came to the United States.
DeSantis showed an early talent for baseball after moving to Dunedin, Florida, just outside Tampa. He was able to use his sporting skills to study at Yale, where he combined a history degree with playing for the college team. After Yale, he coached for a year before completing a degree at Harvard Law School.
Pre-Politics Life
In what must have been an uncommon move for anyone graduating from Harvard, DeSantis decided against a job at a big law firm and elected to join the service. He was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy and worked as a prosecutor, eventually being made lieutenant in 2006.
He was stationed at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for a while before being deployed to Iraq in 2007. He was the legal advisor to SEAL Team One in Fallujah. After returning to the US in 2008, he became a trial defense counsel until his honorable discharge two years later. He remained part of the US Navy Reserve up until four years ago.
Political Career
DeSantis worked for a while in the legal field before entering politics. He had borrowed a loan to buy a house in Florida and made a little money from a well-received book. That visibility allowed him to garner support for a shot at Florida’s 6th congressional district – and he entered the US House of Representatives in 2013.
That move up the political ladder brought in a salary of around $174,000, which boosted a bank balance that was minimal compared to his peers – even with a pension received for his service in the Navy. DeSantis has always run on his blue-collar background and has been very public about not being in politics for the perks.
He then decided to make a run for the governor job of his home state and won a close race in 2019. The job actually meant a drop in pay – but it did mean he could make some money from selling his house, as he and his family were able to move into the governor’s mansion. At this point, his net worth was still around $300,000 – not a lot for a possible future president.
Personal Life
Ron DeSantis met his future wife on a Florida golf course when she was a reporter and they married at a Disney resort in 2009. They now have three children and live in Tallahassee, after moving from the 6th congressional district.
DeSantis has always put his political outlook down to his family values. Although he lived primarily in Florida, he has stated that those values were gleaned from his family’s working-class Rust Belt roots.
Net Worth
We have already seen that Ron DeSantis is perhaps not as wealthy as many of his fellow politicians. But there has been an upturn in the family bank balance recently.
Much of DeSantis’ media visibility has come from his governorship of Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic. He made some very controversial decisions in how his state reacted to the emergency and won as many supporters as there were critics. He has now firmly gotten behind attacking woke-ism, railing against critical race theory being taught in schools, and has been heavily attacked for his policies on LGBTQ issues.
As much as that has made him a hated figure on the left, it gave him the marketability for Harper Collins to pay him a handsome advance on his second book. He earned around $1.25 million from that in 2022 – and almost another million this year. It is now estimated that Ron DeSantis’ net worth is around $1.7 million. That’s quite a leap from the $300,000 in 2021.
Figure 2 There is at least one particularly large obstacle to DeSantis reaching the White House
The Future for Ron DeSantis
Although DeSantis’ profile has sky-rocketed in the last few years, he is still trailing quite a way behind Donald Trump in the polls when it comes to the Republican candidacy for the presidency. At the current time it seems unlikely that he will become the GOP candidate – and therefore not have the opportunity to become the 47th US President after all.
But, even if that is the case, he is now one of the most high-profile politicians in the US and will likely remain as the governor of Florida. He will also have the opportunity to write another book – and boost that income and net worth considerably in the coming years.