Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, one of former President Donald Trump‘s two remaining competitors, pulled out of the presidential race on Sunday, before the New Hampshire primary, and backed him.
In a video posted from Florida on Sunday afternoon, DeSantis endorsed Trump over the last contender, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, noting that while he disagrees with Trump, he believes Trump is better than Haley and surely better than Democratic President Joe Biden.
In the video, DeSantis said that following his second-place performance in Iowa, when he placed ahead of Haley but far behind Trump, he, his family, and team “prayed and deliberated on the way forward.”
“If there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it,” DeSantis said in an interview. “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.”
Seconds thereafter, DeSantis officially embraced Trump.
WATCH:
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL“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
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said in a statement. “They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance, and they see Democrats using lawfare to this day to attack him. While I have had disagreements with Donald Trump, such as on the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of Anthony Fauci, Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge. 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.”
Had he waited until 2028, DeSantis would have been a rock star, but he listened to the Trump-hating neocons and the establishment donor class, who told him he could beat Trump. So, after one contest, the Iowa Caucuses, he’s out. That speaks volumes about how much the establishment is out of touch with the common Republican voter.
Top Republicans close to Trump are also reacting to the news, with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), an early Trump supporter who just this weekend on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel called on DeSantis and Haley to drop out so Republicans could unite behind Trump, praising DeSantis for the move:
With DeSantis’ resignation from the contest, Trump now has only one genuine challenger: Haley. Things between Trump and Haley have gotten heated ahead of New Hampshire’s GOP primary on Tuesday, and a strong Trump performance there–as polls predict–could take her off quickly and early, before the contest moves on to Nevada and ultimately South Carolina. Haley will not even compete in the Nevada caucuses, ensuring a unanimous Trump victory there, as only one other candidate–Ryan Binkley, who received slightly more votes than former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson in Iowa’s caucuses–will be competing. All of this means that Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary is virtually do-or-die for Haley, as she needs to defeat Trump and win the primary outright to have a road ahead with her candidacy.
That development is poor news for Haley’s prospects, considering that her primary Granite State surrogate, Gov. Chris Sununu, has been openly actively lowering Haley’s expectations, saying that coming second is beneficial to her. That is certainly no longer the case, and the likelihood of anyone stopping Trump from gaining the GOP nomination and finishing it up shortly is becoming increasingly unlikely at this point.
#RonDeSantisEndorsesTrump #2024GOPPrimary #TrumpVsHaley
