Scattered measures to mitigate the rise in coronavirus cases have been vilified during the campaign.
Former vice president Mike Pence and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy speak during the first Republican presidential debate hosted by Fox News in Milwaukee. Few of the candidates were willing to attack former president Donald Trump, who did not attend, by name during the debate. Washington Post photo by Joshua Lott.
But even such measures have been vilified by Republican White House candidates. Last month, former president Donald Trump promised that if reelected, he would use every available authority to cut funding “to any school, college, airline or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate.”
On the campaign trail, the handling of the pandemic has emerged as a way for DeSantis to try to differentiate his policies from those of the Trump administration. Early on in the pandemic, DeSantis had praised Trump for his leadership and efforts to expedite the development of coronavirus vaccines. But he has since become a critic of the vaccines and the pandemic response.
Republican campaign veteran Scott Jennings said the mask mandate “is a real flash point for Republicans” which provides DeSantis with an opportunity to distinguish himself as a candidate in the crowded Republican field. “For DeSantis, this issue is how he came to national prominence,” Jennings said. “He was governor of Florida and was constantly in the national press during covid.”
Some Republican candidates, such as former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, have framed the issue in a way that suggests the return of mitigation efforts in school is an attack on parental rights. That issue, namely that parents do not have enough input on the educational experiences of their children in publicly funded spaces like libraries and schools, gained prominence during the pandemic over concerns about masking in schools, vaccine mandates and school closures.
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