Ron DeSantis killed tens of thousand of Floridians because he thought opposing vaccines would help make him president

I mean “killed” is such a harsh word — maybe “helped kill via reckless indifference to their potential deaths” would be fairer.

On the single factor that those experts say mattered most in fighting Covid — widespread vaccinations — Mr. DeSantis’s approach proved deeply flawed. While the governor personally crusaded for Floridians 65 and older to get shots, he laid off once younger age groups became eligible.

Tapping into suspicion of public health authorities, which the Republican right was fanning, he effectively stopped preaching the virtues of Covid vaccines. Instead, he emphasized his opposition to requiring anyone to get shots, from hospital workers to cruise ship guests.

While Florida was an early leader in the share of over-65 residents who were vaccinated, it had fallen to the middle of the pack by the end of July 2021. When it came to younger residents, Florida lagged behind the national average in every age group.

You’ll never guess what happened next:

That left the state particularly vulnerable when the Delta variant hit that month. Floridians died at a higher rate, adjusted for age, than residents of almost any other state during the Delta wave, according to the Times analysis. With less than 7 percent of the nation’s population, Florida accounted for 14 percent of deaths between the start of July and the end of October.

Of the 23,000 Floridians who died, 9,000 were younger than 65. Despite the governor’s insistence at the time that “our entire vulnerable population has basically been vaccinated,” a vast majority of the 23,000 were either unvaccinated or had not yet completed the two-dose regimen.

Whoopsie! The saddest part of all this, aside from all the dead people and the countless loved ones still grieving for them, is that DeSantis murdered helped kill all those people for this:

Florida’s Governor doesn’t look to have a path in Michigan when it comes to the 2024 race for the Republican presidential nomination.

That’s the sobering takeaway from the most recent Mitchell-MIRS Poll of Michigan released Friday.

That poll finds former President Donald Trump with 69% of the 300 Republican Primary voters surveyed, way out in front of Ron DeSantis (13%), former Vice President Mike Pence (3%), South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (2%), former South Carolina Governor and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (1%), and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson (0%).

The poll’s signal of DeSantis’ seeming irrelevance in the state comes just a few months after Democrats sounded the alarm about the Governor’s purported extremism before he came to the state for speeches at the Midland County Republican Party Spring Breakfast and Hillsdale College.

Ahead of that former speech, he drew 200 protesters before delivering his standard stump speech.

I assume this poll doesn’t have a margin of error of 56 points, so that’s not too good for Governor Anti-Vax.