Casey DeSantis was known politically for being the wife of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. However, The Sunshine State's first lady has a long history as a public figure. She has been a television host, writer and is an Emmy award winner. Currently, she is the founder of several non-profit organizations.
Casey DeSantis' role in her husband's career has become increasingly relevant. Once dubbed the governor's "secret weapon" has become "the not-so-secret weapon" that runs the show for Ron DeSantis' image and political career, according to The New York Post.
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She is a faithful believer in traditional family values who defends and supports the same ideals as her husband. "Rights are not granted by the government, but by God. And the job of politicians is to preserve them as they were founded," she commented at a Moms for Freedom conference in Florida a few months ago.
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In addition, her personal popularity continues to grow. She has almost 200,000 followers on Instagram. There she shares her life as the first lady of Florida and her personal life with her children and husband.
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Casey was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021. After nearly six months of treatment and after undergoing surgery, Governor DeSantis reported that his wife was "cancer free" and thanked the support received since the announcement of her illness.
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Before becoming first lady
Casey was born on June 26, 1980 and grew up in Troy, Ohio. Her birth name is Jill Casey Black. Her parents are Robert Black, an optometrist, and Jeanne, a speech therapist.
She graduated from the College of Charleston with a degree in economics with a minor in French. She was a three-time national equestrian champion and a member of the Omicron Delta Epsilon and Pi Delta Phi societies.
Early in her professional career, she hosted "On The Tee" and "PGA Tour Today" on Golf Channel. She was also a local news anchor at WJXT, a CBS-affiliate. She held several on-screen positions as a general assignment reporter and did various special reports for networks such as CNN.
In 2014, DeSantis created, produced and hosted "The Chat," a one-hour talk show that simulcast on NBC and ABC regional stations. Casey also wrote and produced the television documentary "Champion, "The J.T. Townsend Story," about a high school soccer player J.T. Townsend who suffered a spinal cord injury during the course of a game.
The now First Lady of Florida was nominated three times for Emmy Awards, and won one of them in the category of Best Television Anchor for her work at Tegna, First Coast News, in Jacksonville, Fla. Florida Politics called Casey DeSantis "one of the most recognizable faces on Jacksonville television."
Marriage and beginnings in politics
Ron and Casey met on the University of North Florida golf course when he was then a naval officer at Maypor Station. They were married in September 2010, at Disneyworld in Florida, as reported by TampaBay.
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They have three children, Madison, Mason and Mamie. The latter is the first baby to be born at the Florida governor's mansion in more than 50 years.
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Casey was dubbed the governor's "secret weapon" and "ace up his sleeve" by the media for a clear reason: it is common that when a politician announces his candidacy for office that he asks an elected official or someone accustomed to speaking in public to do the honors of introducing him at a campaign kick-off event. When he decided to run for governor of Florida, DeSantis decided that it would be his wife who would use her television speaking skills to announce his candidacy before more than 300 people at an event in Boca Raton, Fla.
Casey said Ron was a "man of integrity, honor, conviction, morals, principles and values."
Speaking to Tallahassee magazine, Ron and Casey DeSantis joked about their lifestyle at the governor's mansion with young children:
We're just going to make sure they don't destroy any of Florida's irreplaceable history, because there are so many wonderful and neat artifacts. If you walk into the dining room, you see the wallpaper lining the walls painted from the late 19th century, and I don't think my kids' orange crayon would look good on it.
Her role as first lady
Casey chairs the Florida Children and Youth Cabinet, and has been involved in numerous foundations and organizations helping those in need. Hope for Healing Florida, The Facts, Your Future and Resiliency Florida are initiatives that discuss community-level solutions to address mental illness and illicit substance use.
In September 2019, Casey created Hope Florida: a Path to Prosperity, which seeks to "help people achieve economic self-sufficiency and prosperity." In March 2022, it was announced that the initiative reached the important milestone of providing family-centered assistance to more than 25,000 Floridians to help them achieve economic self-sufficiency.
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Casey DeSantis has become a role model for the fight against cancer in the state of Florida. She helps secure $100 million in funding for research and treatment of the disease in the fiscal year 2022-2023 budget. The Florida Legislature recently renamed the Florida National Institute's Consortium of Centers Program the "Casey DeSantis Cancer Research Program."
