As Spencer wrote today, Ron DeSantis is out. The Florida governor suspended his 2024 campaign because there was nowhere to go. Sure, he finished second in the Iowa Caucuses, but still got blown out by Donald Trump by 30 points—Trump clinched 51 percent to DeSantis’ 21.
Mr. DeSantis couldn’t break into the double-digits in New Hampshire, hovering between five and eight percent. It was over. He didn’t have the cash flow to tread water, people were leaving his operation, and the gig was up. He and Nikki Haley virtually had Iowa all to themselves and couldn’t make a dent in the Trump stranglehold on the GOP base. DeSantis dropped out and endorsed Trump:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 21, 2024
- Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Sunday afternoon that he is suspending his 2024 presidential bid, just a few days short of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation GOP primary.
In a pre-recorded video posted on X, DeSantis announced the news and endorsed former President Donald Trump while throwing another punch in former Ambassador Nikki Haley's direction.
"Nobody worked harder, and we left it all out on the field," DeSantis said of his presidential campaign. "I can't ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don't have a clear path to victory," he admitted. "Accordingly, today, I am suspending my campaign."
After coming in second place in the Iowa GOP caucuses earlier in January, DeSantis said it's now "clear" to him "that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.
Looking back, maybe it was fool’s gold concerning whether DeSantis could chip away at Trump’s influence here. When he could not make massive inroads months after his announcement, maybe the writing was on the wall, but DeSantis had so much cash at the time that he owed his backers to put his best foot forward. Still, the warning signs have been there since last July. With Trump facing his legal issues, I don’t fault DeSantis for trying to present an alternative. I could have voted for either of these guys, but it was not meant to be. Maybe the FBI’s ransacking of Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022 ended the primary before it began, given the intense reaction from Republicans across the board. Loyalty and vengeance are compelling motivators, and tens of millions of GOP voters are still not convinced the 2020 election wasn’t without controversy.
So, that leaves Ms. Haley, who will do better than her pitiful third-place showing in Iowa, but she’s in the same boat: she has nowhere to go. She is not winning South Carolina, and after that primary duel, we all know how this will end. If anything, Haley should follow because it’s over for her, too. She doesn’t know it yet.
With DeSantis’ exit, her campaign is now a heinous vanity project, a colossal waste of time. Yet, it does bring back some 2016 primary memories. That crowded field was confident Trump could be stopped, but only if people dropped out. You remember the talking points: ‘If you combine candidate x’s numbers with that of candidate y, Trump can be stopped.’ Newt Gingrich peddled that out on the stump, but that’s not how this works. Again, the whole ego part regarding these folks vying for the throne, and you know Haley would never be the person to offer to drop out in some weird backroom plan to stop Trump. Everyone thinks they can win, supported by the consultants they hire who are paid exorbitant amounts of money to say so.
For starters, DeSantis voters aren’t going to waste their time with Nikki. The base is going to rally behind Trump. As with any presidential election year, base voters would support whomever the nominee was this year. For 2024, it’s Trump again. People read too much into the false narrative that roughly half the base wanted someone else. They were a lot of soft Trumpies—folks who might have backed DeSantis but would quickly set up shop back in the Trump tent if need be.
It's not a two-person race, Nikki. It never was. Even if it became one, you wouldn’t be the anti-Trump candidate in that equation. The 2024 GOP primaries never got off the ground. Now, we have time to unite and maybe say a few prayers because even with Trump as the undisputed frontrunner cruising to re-clinching the 2024 Republican nomination, we’re all going to have to work overtime debunking and slapping down the avalanche of lefty attacks. Not that this wasn’t going to happen, but the former president’s legal drama has opened several other fronts that will require a round-the-clock manning of the watchtowers.
***
With Ron gone, Team Trump can now focus all their fire on Nikki:
With only a few days left until President Donald J. Trump’s victory in New Hampshire, we are honored by the endorsement from Governor Ron DeSantis and so many other former presidential candidates. It is now time for all Republicans to rally behind President Trump to defeat Crooked Joe Biden and end his disastrous presidency.
Nikki Haley is the candidate of the globalists and Democrats who will do everything to stop the America First movement. From higher taxes, to decimating Social Security and Medicare, and to open borders, she represents the views of Democrats more than the views of Republicans.
It’s time to choose wisely.
And no one should be shocked that Ron endorsed Trump. George H.W. Bush called Reagan's economic plan 'voodoo economics.' He ended up with IP as his VP.