DeSantis is Trump without the 'baggage', says analyst

STORY: "He needs to sort of say, 'Here is a flavor you haven't tried'," said Schiller, "'but I'm going to be better and more satisfying in the long run than Donald Trump and I can actually win the White House.'"

DeSantis will make the announcement on Twitter during a discussion with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, DeSantis' political team confirmed. At the same time, he will file a document with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy.

DeSantis was re-elected handily to a second term in November. His rising profile among Republicans and fundraising prowess likely make him the biggest threat to Trump’s hopes of becoming the Republican nominee for the White House again.

DeSantis has made crusading against what Republicans call “woke” education policies a centerpiece of his politics while supporting conservative candidates for local school boards.

"DeSantis has touched some hot button cultural issues," Troy, who's also a presidential historian, said "but it looks to me like you need to touch some of the cultural issues in order to be able to win over the Republican electorate these days. The cultural issues, concerns about 'wokeism' and critical race theory and corporate wokeism I think are issues that really inflate the base and get the base excited."