
DeSantis' net worth tops $2 million
DeSantis, 46, did not list a home or other property among his assets. He'll have to move out of the governor's mansion in Tallahassee when his second term expires in January 2027, assuming his wife is not elected to the post. Casey DeSantis has been mentioned as a potential candidate.
DeSantis put his net worth at nearly $2.1 million as of Dec. 31, up from just under $1.8 million the previous year. In 2019, DeSantis' first year in office, his net worth was listed at $291,449.
The Republican governor has gotten a financial boost from HarperCollins, which published his book 'The Courage to Be Free.' He reported a $625,500 payment from the publisher in 2024, the same as he got the previous year. In 2022, the publisher paid DeSantis $1.25 million, according to his disclosure filings.
DeSantis released the book in February 2023, ahead of his unsuccessful presidential run. The book detailed DeSantis' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and culture war fight with The Walt Disney Co., along with his political philosophy and approach to governance.
As governor, DeSantis earns about $141,400 a year, which is less than some of his top staff. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, DeSantis lists about $15,000 in student loan debt, his only liability.
DeSantis, who has three young children, reported he had $1.3 million in a savings account with Interactive Brokers, $573,109 in his USAA checking and savings accounts, $116,859 in the Florida Retirement System and $99,803 in thrift savings, a type of retirement plan.
Florida law requires state elected officials to disclose their financial interests, though they are not required to post the earnings or net worth of their spouse.
Though his wealth is growing, DeSantis is worth less than some other top Florida Republicans. Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, 59, put his net worth at $20 million, while former Florida Attorney General and now-U.S. Sen. Ashley Moody, 50, listed hers at $4.4 million.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, 72, a former Florida governor and health care executive, is considered to be one of the richest members of Congress. The investment research platform, Quiver Quantitative, estimated Scott's net worth to be about $550 million.
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San Francisco Chronicle
28 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
North Carolina Senate race sets up as a fight over who would be a champion for the middle class
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Democrats still in the dumps over last year's elections have found cause for optimism in North Carolina, where former Gov. Roy Cooper jumped into the race for that state's newly open seat with a vow to address voters' persistent concerns about the challenges of making ends meet. Even Republicans quietly note that Cooper's candidacy makes their job of holding the seat more difficult and expensive. Cooper had raised $2.6 million for his campaign between his Monday launch and Tuesday, and more than $900,000 toward allied groups. Republicans, meanwhile, are hardly ceding the economic populist ground. In announcing his candidacy for the Senate on Thursday, Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley credited President Donald Trump with fulfilling campaign promises to working Americans and painted Cooper as a puppet of the left. Still, Cooper's opening message that he hears the worries of working families has given Democrats in North Carolina and beyond a sense that they can reclaim their place as the party that champions the middle class. They think it's a message that could help them pick up a Senate seat, and possibly more, in next year's midterm elections, which in recent years have typically favored the party out of power. 'I'm Roy Cooper. And I know that today, for too many Americans, the middle class feels like a distant dream,' the former governor said in a video announcing his candidacy. 'Meanwhile, the biggest corporations and the richest Americans have grabbed unimaginable wealth at your expense. It's time for that to change.' Cooper's plainspoken appeal may represent just the latest effort by Democrats to find their way back to power, but it has some thinking they've finally found their footing after last year's resounding losses. 'I think it would do us all a lot of good to take a close look at his example,' said Larry Grisolano, a Chicago-based Democratic media strategist and former adviser to President Barack Obama. Whatley, a former North Carolina GOP chairman and close Trump ally, used his Thursday announcement that he was entering the race to hail the president as the true champion of the middle class. He said Trump had already fulfilled promises to end taxes on tips and overtime and said Cooper was out of step with North Carolinians. 'Six months in, it's pretty clear to see, America is back,' Whatley said. 'A healthy, robust economy, safe kids and communities and a strong America. These are the North Carolina values that I will champion if elected.' Still, the decision by Cooper, who held statewide office for 24 years and has never lost an election, makes North Carolina a potential bright spot in a midterm election cycle when Democrats must net four seats to retake the majority — and when most of the 2026 Senate contests are in states Trump won comfortably last November. State Rep. Cynthia Ball threw up a hand in excitement when asked Monday at the North Carolina Legislative Building about Cooper's announcement. 'Everyone I've spoken to was really hoping that he was going to run,' said the Raleigh Democrat. Democratic legislators hope having Cooper's name at the top of the ballot will encourage higher turnout and help them in downballot races. While Republicans have controlled both General Assembly chambers since 2011, Democrats managed last fall to end the GOP's veto-proof majority, if only by a single seat. Republican strategists familiar with the national Senate landscape have said privately that Cooper poses a formidable threat. The Senate Leadership Fund, a GOP super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, wasted no time in challenging Cooper's portrayal of a common-sense advocate for working people. 'Roy Cooper masquerades as a moderate,' the narrator in the 30-second spot says. 'But he's just another radical, D.C. liberal in disguise.' Cooper, a former state legislator who served four terms as attorney general before he became governor, has never held an office in Washington. Still, Whatley was quick to link Cooper to national progressive figures such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Whatley accused Cooper of failing to address illegal immigration and of supporting liberal gender ideology. He echoed the themes raised in the Senate Leadership Fund ad, which noted Cooper's vetoes in the Republican-led legislature of measures popular with conservatives, such as banning gender-affirming health care for minors and requiring county sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials. 'Roy Cooper may pretend to be different than the radical extremists,' Whatley said. 'But he is all-in on their agenda.' Cooper first won the governorship in 2016, while Trump was carrying the state in his first White House bid. Four years later, they both carried the state again. Cooper, who grew up in a small town 60 miles (96.6 kilometers) east of Raleigh, has long declined requests that he seek federal office. He 'understands rural North Carolina,' veteran North Carolina strategist Thomas Mills said. 'And while he's not going to win it, he knows how to talk to those folks.' As with most Democrats, Cooper's winning coalition includes the state's largest cities and suburbs. But he has long made enough inroads in other areas to win. 'He actually listens to what voters are trying to tell us, instead of us trying to explain to them how they should think and feel,' said state Sen. Michael Garrett, a Greensboro Democrat. In his video announcement, Cooper tried to turn the populist appeal Trump made to voters on checkbook issues against the party in power, casting himself as the Washington outsider. Senior Cooper strategist Morgan Jackson said the message represents a shift and will take work to drive home with voters. 'Part of the challenge Democrats had in 2024 is we were not addressing directly the issues people were concerned about today,' Jackson said. 'We have to acknowledge what people are going through right now and what they are feeling, that he hears you and understands what you feel.' Pat Dennis, president of American Bridge 21st Century, a group that conducts research for an initiative called the Working Class Project, said Cooper struck a tone that other Democrats should try to match. 'His focus on affordability and his outsider status really hits a lot of the notes these folks are interested in,' Dennis said. 'I do think it's a model, especially his focus on affordability.' 'We can attack Republicans all day long, but unless we have candidates who can really embody that message, we're not going to be able to take back power.'


NBC News
29 minutes ago
- NBC News
UCLA says it is losing some federal research funding
The California university UCLA said Thursday that it has been notified that it is losing federal research funding over alleged antisemtism, a move the chancellor called "a loss for America." 'UCLA received a notice that the federal government, through its control of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies, is suspending certain research funding to UCLA,' university Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a message to the campus community. 'This is not only a loss to the researchers who rely on critical grants. It is a loss for Americans across the nation whose work, health, and future depend on the groundbreaking work we do,' he wrote. The announced notice comes as the Trump administration has sought to pressure or retaliate against universities across the country following student protests on college campuses about the war in Gaza. Some Republican members of Congress and others have called the protests and some of the conduct antisemitic. Frenk in his message to the UCLA community said that the federal government used antisemitism as its reason for the loss of funding. "In its notice to us, the federal government claims antisemitism and bias as the reasons. This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination," he wrote. UCLA announced Tuesday that it has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged discrimination, and which was brought by Jewish students and a faculty member. The lawsuit filed in June 2024 accused the university of failing to take action when pro-Palestinian protesters set up encampments on campus that spring. Frenk wrote in the message to the Bruin community — as the UCLA community is known — that antisemitism has no place on campus but acknowledged room for improvement. He said that the university has taken steps to combat it, and put in place policies about student protests. The National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday. Frenk in his message to the university did not say how much federal funding will be suspended. He highlighted important work done by UCLA, which included helping to create what would become the Internet, and he said researchers "are now building new technologies that could fuel entire industries and help safeguard our soldiers." President Donald Trump during his campaign pledged to crack down on universities because of student protests against the war in Gaza, which Israel launched against Hamas after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that targeted Israeli civilians, including at a music festival. There is now a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and this week t he United Nations said the U.N.'s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, showed mounting evidence of a worsening famine there. The IPC emphasized that its warning constituted an alert and was not a formal 'famine classification.' Columbia University in New York City was among the universities targeted by the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism, and last week Columbia announced a settlement with the federal government in an effort to restore cut federal funding. Brown University in Rhode Island said Wednesday that it reached an agreement with the federal government to restore funding. The university said that agreement resolves three reviews of Brown's 'compliance with federal nondiscrimination obligations.'


Business Insider
30 minutes ago
- Business Insider
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