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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has experienced a fluctuating relationship with former President Donald Trump, swinging between admiration and contention.
Initially seeking Trump’s endorsement during his gubernatorial campaign and later facing criticism from Trump after opposing him, DeSantis has come to accept the likelihood of Trump securing the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Despite Trump’s occasional disparagement of DeSantis, the former president mentioned him as a potential vice presidential candidate during a recent Fox News Town Hall with Laura Ingraham.
DeSantis officially endorsed Trump in December after halting his own presidential bid. However, unlike other former contenders such as Vivek Ramaswamy and Senator Tim Scott, DeSantis has not actively campaigned for Trump.
His recent trip to South Carolina has drawn attention, especially given his absence from actively supporting Trump ahead of the upcoming primary.
Responding to queries from the press on Wednesday, DeSantis expressed confidence in Trump’s victory over his last GOP competitor, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Describing Haley, who also served as Trump’s ambassador to the UN, DeSantis remarked:
“If you have a path, you have every right to be running…even if [you are at] one percent.”
“But if the path isn’t there,” DeSantis continued, “then I think: At what point is the purpose of this? And I think that would actually just be how everyone looks at it.”
“What I didn’t understand about Nikki — and I still don’t understand it today,” added DeSantis, “is we have a voter base in the Republican Party. And I think if you look at the Iowa results, it’s a good example.”
Asserting that Nikki Haley lacks a viable path to victory due to her lack of support from the Republican base, Ron DeSantis remarked, “Eighty-five percent of the registered Republicans voted for either Trump or me, effectively… so that’s just a big conservative base, right? To try to appeal to people who aren’t a part of that base for a primary — I just didn’t understand that,” the governor explained, emphasizing that such a strategy is bound to fail.
The Florida governor continued, stating, “It was clear to me after… Iowa that she just didn’t have support amongst Republicans, and I’ve never seen anyone win a Republican nomination by focusing on non-Republican voters. It just doesn’t work.”
Highlighting his adherence to this principle, DeSantis remarked, “And so that was why after Iowa — and I took it, you know, four or five days to analyze all the data, look at the path forward — I didn’t make a flippant decision, but I looked at it, [and suspended my campaign].”
Regarding Haley’s prospects in her home state of South Carolina, DeSantis asserted, “There’s no question that South Carolina is going to be a big victory for Donald Trump because he appeals to core Republicans in a way that Nikki Haley just does not or is not trying to.”
DeSantis at SC State House: “There’s no doubt that South Carolina is going to be a big victory for Donald Trump because he appeals to core Republicans in a way that Nikki Haley does not or is not trying to.” pic.twitter.com/UVV51Syfgr
— Bad Hombre (@joma_gc) February 20, 2024
Of Trump, DeSantis said, “He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear — a repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism — that Nikki Haley represents. The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology, are over.”
