Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joins presidential race, taking over Trump for GOP nomination

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced the launch of his 2024 presidential marketing campaign on Wednesday, setting the Republican contender on a collision course with former President Donald Trump within the race for the GOP nomination.

DeSantis was set to personally announce his run throughout a Twitter Areas dialog with Elon Musk on Wednesday night, however the plan was derailed after the location crashed repeatedly and suffered quite a few different large glitches. Investor David Sacks, who was on the decision with DeSantis and Musk, blamed server points stemming from the 500,000 or so customers who signed on to pay attention. Musk then began a brand new Twitter Areas the place DeSantis introduced his presidential bid.

That second stream hosted greater than 300,000 listeners at its peak — far under the typical primetime viewership for many cable information networks, even people who have lately suffered a scores drop.

DeSantis’ press secretary, Bryan Griffin, asserted in a tweet after the stream ended that the glitch-filled rollout merely proved there was excessive enthusiasm for the candidate. He added that the marketing campaign had raised $1 million on-line in a single hour.

DeSantis was slated to look on Fox Information on Wednesday night time at Eight p.m. ET.

In a video posted Wednesday earlier than the Twitter occasion began, DeSantis criticized Democratic coverage on immigration, crime and training in rhetoric just like that deployed by Trump and his different GOP rivals.

“I am operating for President to guide our nice American comeback,” he stated.

In the meantime, DeSantis, who formally filed paperwork to kick off his marketing campaign Wednesday, additionally signed a invoice that makes it simpler to run for president, altering Florida’s so-called resign-to-run legislation.

The long-anticipated announcement marks the end result of years of buzz round DeSantis, 44, whose resistance to Covid-era lockdown guidelines and willingness to interact in polarizing cultural fights have rapidly made him a Republican darling.

It additionally makes official DeSantis’ simmering rivalry with Trump, burying their once-close relationship as some within the GOP look to interchange the previous president as their celebration’s customary bearer.

Trump has already pummeled the governor with relentless assaults for months. Trump and his allies have assailed DeSantis’ report, his political skills and even his character, whereas amplifying destructive information concerning the governor. One pro-Trump PAC even lower an advert depicting an anecdote about DeSantis consuming pudding together with his fingers, which the governor has denied.

Learn extra: DeSantis brings historical past of enterprise battles to presidential marketing campaign

Trump’s aggression might have paid off. Polls of the potential main subject have confirmed DeSantis, as soon as Trump’s shut competitor, persistently dropping floor for months, even because the governor toured key battlegrounds and racked up coverage wins together with his state’s GOP-held Legislature.

A Quinnipiac College ballot launched earlier Wednesday underscored the governor’s slide: Republican and GOP-leaning voters selected Trump over DeSantis by greater than a two-to-one margin, 56% to 25%, in a matchup of the hypothetical main subject. That end result confirmed Trump extending his good points and DeSantis dropping floor from a earlier Quinnipiac survey in late March.

The transfer was hardly a shock: DeSantis has been eyed as a 2024 presidential contender even earlier than the top of the 2020 election cycle. Whereas he has been largely tight-lipped about his presidential ambitions, the governor in latest months has revealed a political memoir, hosted occasions for donors and conservative teams, launched into a multi-state talking tour and launched campaign-style movies touting his achievements in Florida.

Within the meantime, his allies have been arduous at work mounting a well-funded political operation that has acted as a de facto marketing campaign for the governor’s impending presidential bid.

The tremendous PAC By no means Again Down, based by former Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli, has already raised tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} because it inspired DeSantis to run for president. An individual conversant in the group’s actions confirmed to CNBC that it’s anticipating to work with an total working price range of at the least $200 million.

That determine, first reported by The New York Instances, may embrace greater than $80 million that DeSantis’ allies are anticipated to attempt to transfer out of the governor’s outdated state-level political committee — a controversial switch that has divided marketing campaign finance specialists.

A Yale- and Harvard-educated lawyer, DeSantis was elected to the U.S. Home in 2012 and have become a founding member of the conservative Freedom Caucus earlier than resigning to run for governor of Florida in 2018.

Trump endorsed DeSantis in that gubernatorial main, giving DeSantis a polling bump and main him to chop an advert that includes his household embracing an array of Trump’s political slogans and catchphrases. DeSantis’ closeness to Trump went past simply his rhetoric, with critics noting that the governor’s physique language and hand gestures appeared to reflect Trump’s at occasions.

DeSantis handily gained the first and went on to narrowly defeat Democrat Andrew Gillum within the basic election.

As governor, DeSantis’ populist rhetoric and deal with divisive social points rapidly gained him a nationwide fame.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, DeSantis pushed sooner than different states to elevate public health-related lockdown measures, arguing that the closures had harmed Florida’s economic system. These and different strikes coincided with an inflow of latest residents to the state, however drew the ire of well being specialists and native officers, particularly when Covid instances later surged.

DeSantis additionally courted controversy when he joined GOP efforts to protest President Joe Biden’s border insurance policies by flying planeloads of migrants to the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Winery.

In the meantime, his help for a controversial invoice limiting dialogue of intercourse and gender in public colleges, dubbed “Do not Say Homosexual” by critics, has morphed into an ongoing struggle with Disney that has lasted effectively over a yr.

Disney, considered one of Florida’s largest employers, publicly opposed the invoice, becoming a member of critics who argued its obscure language may result in the focusing on and marginalization of LGBTQ lecturers and children. DeSantis and his allies responded to Disney’s criticism by focusing on Walt Disney World’s long-held particular tax district and vowing to finish the “company kingdom.” Disney has since sued DeSantis and others in federal courtroom, accusing the governor of orchestrating a marketing campaign of political retribution towards the corporate.

DeSantis additionally obtained a significant pre-presidential increase from Republican supermajorities within the Florida Legislature, which rushed to cross the governor’s sweeping agenda and cleared a path for him to launch a White Home bid.

DeSantis has spent latest weeks signing reams of latest laws, burnishing his fastidiously crafted picture as a get-things-done conservative fighter. He signed legal guidelines imposing stark new abortion restrictions, loosening guidelines on carrying hid weapons, increasing his state’s faculty voucher system, proscribing ESG investing and banning public faculties from spending funds on variety packages, amongst others.

The highly effective anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Professional-Life America praised DeSantis in an announcement Wednesday afternoon, whereas stopping wanting absolutely endorsing his candidacy.

The governor has taken Florida “from a late-term abortion haven to among the finest states within the nation for unborn youngsters and moms,” the group’s president stated. “We sit up for DeSantis and all contenders additional outlining their pro-life imaginative and prescient and platform as the first unfolds.”

In a state the place inhabitants is rising however Democratic registration has fallen, DeSantis’ resistance to Covid security guidelines and his perceived left-wing political foes had been mightily rewarded. He trounced his Democratic opponent, former Rep. Charlie Crist, in Florida’s 2022 gubernatorial election, successful by greater than 20 share factors.

This time, he did it with nearly no assist from Trump.

With DeSantis’ profile on the rise, Trump’s view of the governor has soured. Shortly after the November midterms, Trump wailed at “Ron DeSanctimonious,” considered one of a number of wonky nicknames for DeSantis, together with “Ron DeSanctus” and, reportedly, “Meatball Ron.”

Trump has been broken by his loss to Biden, the fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the underperformance of lots of his handpicked candidates within the midterms. But regardless of these bruises — and his escalating authorized woes, together with his indictment in a Manhattan hush cash case and being discovered accountable for sexual abuse and defamation in one other case — Trump is the Republican Get together’s present best choice for 2024.