Last Updated on January 21, 2024
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ended his 2024 presidential campaign and is endorsing 45th President Trump, the frequent target of his unsuccessful campaign’s attacks. DeSantis’s campaign ends after the Iowa Caucuses kicked off 2024’s presidential nomination process, with Trump blowing out the entire GOP field and DeSantis finishing in a distant second. The exit of DeSantis, which follows the exits of Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, effectively turns the GOP race into a contest between President Trump and Nikki Haley, the only remaining candidates that even register in polls, with Trump maintaining a huge lead.
“If there was anything I could do to produce a more favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it,” Ron DeSantis said in a video he filmed from Florida, announcing the end of his presidential campaign. “We don’t have a clear path to victory,” he said.
“I am today, suspending my campaign,” said DeSantis, before endorsing President Trump and taking a swipe at Nikki Haley, who DeSantis bested by just over 2 points in Iowa.
Haley is expected to make her one and only 2024 stand in New Hampshire, though like DeSantis in Iowa, she’s expected to lose to Trump severely.
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” said DeSantis. “They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance and they see Democrats using lawfare to this day to attack him,” he added, also mentioning his “disagreements” with Trump over “the coronavirus pandemic” and “his elevation of Anthony Fauci.”
“[President Trump] has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear,” DeSantis went on. “[We can’t go back to] The 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.”
Watch the full DeSantis forfeit announcement below:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 21, 2024
