Everything you need to know about Ron DeSantis 4:31

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) -- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he plans to "strike back" against former President Donald Trump's attacks after kicking off his 2024 campaign in Iowa on Tuesday.

Florida's governor implicitly mocked his main rival at his first official campaign event. But speaking to reporters after the event, he had a lot to say about Trump, unloading a series of punches designed to present him as a selfish, unprincipled and petty man.

"I think our voters are looking at this and saying, yes, we appreciate what he did, but we also recognize that there are many voters who will never vote for him," DeSantis told reporters Tuesday. "I know people in Florida who voted against me in 2018 and for me in 2022. They said in 2018, 'I thought you looked too much like him and in '22 we realized you were your own guy, we'll do it.'"

DeSantis said he believes Trump's constant attacks on him will ultimately backfire.

"I can count on my hand the number of Republicans in this country who would rather have lived in New York under (Democrat Andrew) Cuomo than live in Florida in our freedom zone," DeSantis said, alluding to Trump's recent suggestions that Florida fared worse than New York under Cuomo during the COVID-19 pandemic. "If we only decided that in the caucuses, I would be happy with the verdict of Iowa voters."

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As the opening race in the fight for the GOP nomination, Iowa has a unique role in assessing the presidential field, even if it has not proven predictive of the eventual nominee. But with a former president seeking to return to the White House for the first time in a century, the state will be closely watched for any signs that Trump's grip on Republican voters is fading.

During his remarks, DeSantis offered familiar culprits for the social ills he has criticized as governor — woke initiatives, leftism and diversity — while painting a dark picture of the country he said is "going in the wrong direction" and "infected" by "leftism."

"We cannot allow all the important institutions to have fun ideologically," he said. "We have to be guided by reality. Merit must trump identity politics. No American should have to compete in the Woke Olympics just to get a job or get into school."

He pledged to exorcise the country of these alleged ideological agendas, while promising unspecified accountability for the country's response to the covid-19 pandemic, reigning in federal bureaucracies, and finishing the border wall Trump started.

"If I am president, this will finally be the time when we bring this matter to a conclusion. We will restore the sovereignty of this nation," DeSantis said.

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After technical difficulties overshadowed the pronouncement of his presidential aspirations on Twitter last week, DeSantis' first official stop as a candidate had the most familiar features of a campaign launch. He spoke at an evangelical church outside Des Moines, a venue that illustrates how faith remains an influential force for Republicans, particularly in Iowa, as they choose their nominee, and is embarking on a traditional three-day tour of major swing states.

DeSantis has spent much of the days since his announcement explaining his unconventional launch and sharpening his criticism of Trump after largely avoiding talking about the former president this spring. He has focused on Trump administration issues such as the economy and the pandemic and accused him of being soft on crime and ineffective.

Although he did not mention Trump by name during his official remarks, he said it will take two terms to achieve his list of priorities, a nod to the fact that Trump, as a former president, is restricted to one term, and suggested, as he has for weeks, that the GOP needs to turn the page on "the culture of losing" in recent elections.

"It's time to impose our will on Washington," DeSantis said. "You can't do any of this if you don't win."

The Trump campaign, meanwhile, accused DeSantis of plagiarizing it with the Florida governor's campaign slogan, "the great American comeback."

"Perhaps, DeSantis' communications staff were preoccupied trying to put out the flames of their candidate's ad to present their own message," the Trump campaign said.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis makes his first trip to the early voting state of Iowa for a book tour stop at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, in March 2023. (Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/File)

Although he told Fox News over Memorial Day weekend that he intends to "compete everywhere," DeSantis said he hopes Iowa presents a unique opportunity to contrast the "values" between him and Trump. He said his policy wins on conservative priorities, which include a six-week abortion ban and new restrictions on teaching about racial or LGBTQ issues, compares favorably with recent Republican victories in Iowa.

"Iowa is very important," DeSantis said on Fox News. "We obviously have a lot in common with Iowa in terms of what Florida has done and what they've done under Gov. Kim Reynolds. And I think the groundswell of support has been very, very strong. We're going to press the case."

Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting DeSantis, has spent weeks building an operation in the state, hiring staff and enlisting the support of dozens of lawmakers. Leading that effort is veteran Republican operative Jeff Roe, the architect of Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 campaign. Cruz won the Iowa caucuses that year, triumphing over several candidates, including Trump.

Although polls continue to show DeSantis as Trump's main rival for the Republican nomination, he is jumping into an increasingly crowded field and his early moves suggest his political team is bracing for a protracted fight. After a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, DeSantis will return to Iowa this Saturday for Sen. Joni Ernst's Roast and Ride event.

The event has become a key stop for the presidential candidates – almost all the announced and expected candidates, with the exception of Trump, have confirmed their attendance – and DeSantis' willingness to participate in a traditional meeting of the GOP electorate is the clearest example so far that he will have to kick the street like the rest of the candidates.

Trump is also bracing for a rocky road to the nomination. Although Iowa was not a competitive battleground in the midterm elections, it held a pre-election rally in the state last November. He is scheduled to participate in a forum with Fox News on Thursday in Clive, Iowa.

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The influence of evangelical circles on the Republican campaign

DeSantis' event Tuesday was in that same Des Moines suburb. Before the event at the evangelical church, he and his wife, Casey, were expected to meet with 15 local Iowa pastors, according to a DeSantis campaign source familiar with the plans.

The pastors would be "praying for the governor's family and candidacy," the source said.

DeSantis has sought to make inroads into evangelical circles in the weeks leading up to the launch of his campaign. He and his wife dined with Bob Vander Plaats, president of the Iowa-based The Family Leader, at the Florida governor's mansion earlier this month. In April he addressed students at Liberty University, the University of Virginia founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recently joined evangelical commentator Franklin Graham to speak on stage at the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters Association.

Trump, meanwhile, has clashed with the evangelical community of late, accusing church leaders of "disloyalty" for not enthusiastically backing his campaign. Trump also angered the religious right for refusing to say whether he would support a federal ban on abortion.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. (Credit: Getty Images)

"No one has ever done more for the Right to Life than Donald Trump. I put in three Supreme Court justices, they all voted, and (evangelicals) got something they've been fighting for 64 years, for many, many years,'" Trump said in January, referring to the Supreme Court's overturning of the federal right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision last summer.

As DeSantis entered the race for the Republican nomination, Vander Plaats, an influential voice in Iowa politics who has become increasingly critical of the former president, wrote on Twitter that Trump leads in the Hawkeye State but has a "self-inflicted" ceiling.

"DeSantis is the current front-runner as an alternative to Trump, but he needs to clear or scale back the field," Vander Plaats tweeted last week. "Everyone else needs to show why they're the best alternative."

DeSantis was introduced Tuesday by Reynolds, who said the Florida governor's record compares well to the leadership of Republicans in his state. Reynolds does not endorse the race, but has appeared at most of DeSantis' events in Iowa this year.

"Politicians, we tend to talk a lot. But only a few actually get things done," he said. "Only a few have the determination and will to stand firm for us. And that's what Ron is in essence."

-- CNN's Kit Maher, Jessica Dean and Jeff Simon contributed to this story.

Republican PartyRon DeSantis