Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drops out of 2024 presidential race, endorses Trump
Fox News
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out of the 2024 Republican presidential race and endorsed former President Donald Trump two days before the New Hampshire primary.
The Florida governor announced his decision to drop out in social media video on X, formally known as Twitter, on Sunday afternoon.
“If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it,” DeSantis said in the video. “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.”
“Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign,” he added.
DeSantis also added that he’s had “disagreements” with Trump, but believes that the former president is a better leader than Biden.
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis continued. “They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance, and they see Democrats using lawfare this day to attack him.”
The Florida governor also took a chance to criticize former United Nations ambassador and former two-term South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the other remaining major contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
“I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge,” the Florida governor continued. “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.”
Haley, speaking at a campaign stop in Seabrook, New Hampshire, told the crowd “I want to say to Ron. He ran a great race. He’s been a good governor. And we wish him well. Having said that, it’s now one fella and one lady left.”
A signal that the end was near came on Saturday night, when DeSantis canceled two major Sunday talk show appearances. His campaign said at the time that the interviews were canceled in order to allow the govenor to travel back to New Hampshire from South Carolina, where he was stumping on Saturday.
The DeSantis video posted on Sunday afternoon, a couple of hours before the governor was scheduled to hold a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire. That stop was canceled and there was no word on if DeSantis would fly to New Hampshire to join Trump ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
DeSantis, 45, finished in second place in last week’s Iowa caucuses with 20.1% of the vote, but only narrowly defeated Haley and came in 30 points behind Trump, who achieved a record-breaking and commanding victory in the low-turnout Hawkeye State contest.
DeSantis’ departure from the race comes after his campaign went “all in” on Iowa, betting that a strong ground game, events, visits to all 99 counties and endorsements from top Iowa Republicans would propel him to a strong showing leading into elections in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
But his distant second place finish – while it slightly exceeded expectations in the final polls – was seen as a major disappointment, considering all the time and resources he spent in Iowa.
DeSantis, who was convincingly re-elected to a second term as Florida governor 14 months ago, was once the clear alternative to former President Donald Trump in the Republican White House race. Multiple polls showed DeSantis leading Trump before jumping into the race, but he faltered out of the gate with a glitch-riddled campaign announcement on Twitter, now known as X.
The governor was backed by the big-spending outside PAC Never Back Down. However, after a series of campaign setbacks over the summer and autumn, and after getting hammered by negative ads, DeSantis saw his support in the polls erode.
The governor’s departure from the race essentially means a head-to-head matchup between Haley and Trump.