This 11-Year Old Photo Might Help Settle the DeSantis Boots Controversy

AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has been plagued for weeks with mocking accusations he’s wearing some sort of lifts inside his boots to make himself appear taller. Well, thanks to a photograph from an event I attended over a decade ago, I may be able to help clear up this controversy.

DeSantis’ alleged desire to appear taller isn’t illogical; studies of American presidential elections all the way back to the first one in 1788 show that the taller candidate won about two-thirds of the time. And with the 6-foot-plus former president Donald Trump literally and figuratively casting a giant shadow over the GOP primary — plus his well-known habit of tagging opponents with diminutive nicknames like “Little Marco” — one can understand a guy trying to claw for any advantage he can get.

It’s a ridiculous story on its face, but showing little signs of fading from the public interest as social media users continue to create musical montages, speculate why the toes of DeSantis’ boots curl up so weirdly, and renew the jokes about the shiny white boots he wore in October 2022 to a hurricane relief photo-op. There was even an in-depth Politico article that enlisted not one, not two, but three expert bootmakers to weigh in.

DeSantis and his campaign have strenuously denied he’s wearing lifts, with the governor insisting he’s just buying “standard off-the-rack Luccheses” and making awkward comments about foot fetishes.

But Politico’s panel of experts concurred with the jokesters on Twitter that DeSantis did appear to be wearing lifts, noting the “very unusual” ways the boots and his pants were fitting, specifically creases in the boot and the toe curl, indicating his foot was propped up further back in the boot, leaving the first few inches of the toe empty.

Each of the three boot experts said they estimated DeSantis’ lifts were about 1.5″, plus the heel on the boot itself, thereby adding a total of about 2.5″-3″ to his height — making his true height somewhere around 5’8″ to 5’9″.

This entire time this “how tall is he?” controversy has dragged on, I’ve been highly skeptical of DeSantis’ claim to be 5’11”. I’ve met him multiple times, dating back to before he was ever elected to office, and he certainly did not appear to be three inches taller than me.

I’m 5’8″, so I should have to look up to someone who is actually 5’11”.

Decades of memories are one thing; a picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. And in this case, also about an inch.

The below photo was taken on August 4, 2012 at the RedState Gathering in Jacksonville, Florida, back in the day when I was an intrepid Young Republican blogger going to as many political conferences as I could get a media pass to attend. It’s not a great photo (I had a very basic digital camera at the time) but as you can see, DeSantis is somewhere around my height, maybe about an inch taller at the most.

Screenshot via Instagram.

The governor’s penchant for Western footwear is a relatively new development. When he was a first-time candidate and during his congressional career, he generally wore traditional men’s dress shoes, most of which add about an inch in height.

At this point in 2012, I had been to enough of these events to know that they involved a lot of walking and standing (CPAC certainly has its problems but is a guaranteed way to get your daily steps in, for whatever that’s worth), and I wasn’t tottering around in stiletto heels. I wouldn’t have worn boots in August in Florida, so it would have been either flats or some low black heels I had at the time that added about an inch to my height.

Since I can’t say with absolute certainty what exact pair of shoes I was wearing, I’ll refrain from making any declarations about how tall the governor actually is. Readers, you can judge for yourselves, but to make a long story, err, short: if I’m 5’8″ and in flats or a low heel and DeSantis is in men’s dress shoes that add about an inch, and he’s just slightly taller than I am, then he seems to be closer to 5’9″ than the claimed height of 5’11”.

I contacted Lucchese’s customer service department to see if they could provide any additional information about the governor’s boots, pictured below at an event last month.

AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel.

These boots appear to be the men’s “Haan” boot, which retails for $895. An employee on the “Lucchese Live Shopping” digital chat said the heel on the Haan boot was 1 1/8″. That isn’t much different from the heel on a regular men’s dress shoe and wouldn’t be enough to take a hypothetical 5’9″ presidential candidate to 5’11” — but boots do have more room inside to add lifts than dress shoes, hmm?

It should perhaps be noted that the Haan boot on the Lucchese website does not appear to curl up at the toe.

Screenshot Lucchese.com.

This article has been updated to describe Trump as “6-foot-plus,” since there is also some dispute about the ex-president’s claims about his own height. The Washington Post reported that his New York driver’s license listed him as 6’2″. Trump self-reported his own height as 6’3″ when he was booked into the Fulton County, Georgia jail.