After months of setbacks that culminated in a second-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses last week, Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign Sunday in a video statement posted on X.
“If there was anything I could do to produce a more favorable outcome —more campaign stops, more interviews — I would do it,” he said. “But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources, if we don’t have a clear path to victory.”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
- Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm
It marked a sudden and disappointing end to the presidential bid of a candidate who had been heralded for years as the natural successor to Donald Trump, one who combined both the former president’s ability to own the libs but without the chaos and criminal indictments.
After he was narrowly elected governor in 2018 following three terms in Congress, DeSantis emerged relatively early during the pandemic among Republicans to oppose measures such as mask mandates, endearing him to the right. After Trump’s loss in 2020 and the ensuing attack on the Capitol, DeSantis was turned into a conservative media darling by those who saw him as a candidate who could appeal to Trump’s base without the baggage of the MAGA leader. DeSantis overwhelmingly won reelection in 2022 at the same time Trump-backed candidates lost during the midterms.
It seemed, for a moment, he might be Trump’s heir apparent when the Republican race began that November following Trump’s announcement he was running for president a third time. He was so tarnished from 2020 and the midterms that he was considered to be a co-frontrunner with DeSantis. Soon enough though, Trump attacked DeSantis as an impostor to the throne and Republican primary voters closed ranks around the former president following his Manhattan indictment in late March. By the time DeSantis entered the race in May, his position was already slipping. Even DeSantis’s formal announcement in a Twitter Space with Elon Musk in May couldn’t go off without a massive glitch.
Everything seemed to go wrong for DeSantis, who wasn’t helped by his lack of affability with voters. He faced a constant barrage of criticism from Trump and his allies designed to belittle him: they literally made fun of his height and the house style of campaign communications was abject mockery — they called Rob, not Ron, and his super PAC, Never Back Down, was mandated to be referred to as Always Back Down. He could never figure out how to appropriately respond, clearly always afraid of alienating Trump’s base he sought to cultivate.
According to the International Churchill Society, Winston Churchill never said the words DeSantis cites to end his presidential campaign.
"We base this on careful research in the canon of fifty million words by and about Churchill..." https://t.co/EuS5XC2Ch2 https://t.co/LDWKyqvWXW
Even highlights like the completion of his 99-county tour in Iowa were paired with news stories about top aides leaving his campaign. His polling flagged against Trump, while Nikki Haley surged almost out of nowhere to challenge his position as the main alternative to the former president. DeSantis staked his campaign on winning Iowa, but he came in 30 points behind Trump in second place. Despite enormous investments in the state, DeSantis did not win a single county and barely edged ahead of Haley.
For all the abuse that DeSantis took from Trumpworld, he bent the knee and endorsed Trump on Sunday after he dropped out.. “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said. The Trump campaign replied in a statement that “we are honored by the endorsement.”
This post has been updated.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.
Ron DeSantis Finally Puts Campaign Out of Its Misery
3
1
22.01.2024
After months of setbacks that culminated in a second-place finish in the Iowa Republican caucuses last week, Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign Sunday in a video statement posted on X.
“If there was anything I could do to produce a more favorable outcome —more campaign stops, more interviews — I would do it,” he said. “But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources, if we don’t have a clear path to victory.”
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
- Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm
It marked a sudden and disappointing end to the presidential bid of a candidate who had been heralded for years as the natural successor to Donald Trump, one who combined both the former president’s ability to own the libs but without the chaos and criminal indictments.
After he was narrowly elected governor in 2018 following........
© Daily Intelligencer
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Bradley Blankenship
Michael Kwet
