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DeSantis’ candidacy would challenge Trump.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (DeSantis) has announced his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
He was interviewed live by Twitter CEO Elon Musk on May 24, but the Twitter Spaces event suffered a 20-minute delay due to a technical glitch.
In the live broadcast, he promoted his conservative stance, anti-lockdown measures during the epidemic and education reform.
“I am running for President of the United States to lead the comeback of our great America,” DeSantis said.
trump rival
Prior to this, former President Trump had announced his bid for the Republican Party’s next presidential nomination, and DeSantis was regarded as Trump’s main opponent.
DeSantis, who is relatively new to U.S. politics, was first elected to Congress in 2012. Just six years later, in 2018, he was elected governor of Florida after an unsuccessful bid for the Senate.
He oversaw high-profile laws to make gun ownership easier, limit sex and gender identity education in schools and reduce access to abortions.
He claimed that this “Florida Blueprint” could serve as a guide for federal policy that would steer the country in a more conservative direction.
He is one of the contenders seeking to unseat Trump, who currently leads the party in national polls by more than 30 points.
The BBC has compiled five facts about DeSantis to help viewers understand his politics.
By the time Twitter Live officially began on May 24, hundreds of thousands of Twitter users had left the platform.
Since Musk took the helm of Twitter last October, he has fired thousands of employees, including engineers who run the site and handle technical glitches.
After the technical blunder, DeSantis’ team swiftly engaged in a PR whitewash, tweeting that the livestream was “overwhelmingly exciting” and posting a link to the campaign’s website.
Its press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said the online event raised $1m (£808,000) within an hour.
At one point, the live Twitter feed attracted more than 600,000 listeners, according to a Reuters tally, but fewer than 300,000 by the end of the event. By contrast, the BBC’s interview with Musk last month attracted more than 3 million listeners on the Twitter space.
Conservative position
After the live broadcast began, DeSantis turned the topic to his conservative stance, touting his handling of the Florida epidemic crisis-at the time, his anti-lockdown approach was praised by many Republicans.
He defended his reforms to Florida’s education system, saying his state “choosed facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over riot and chaos.”
Later, in an interview with Fox News (Fox News), DeSantis talked about more specific promises, including declaring a state of emergency on the southern border of the United States on his first day in the White House, and promising to fire FBI Director Christopher Trump, who was appointed by Trump. Ray (Christopher Wray), and the withdrawal of President Biden’s “anti-American energy policy.”
Earlier on May 24, DeSantis confirmed he was seeking the Republican presidential nomination, posting a stylized announcement video after he registered with the Federal Election Commission.
“Our border is a disaster, crime is ravaging our cities … and the president is in trouble,” he says in the film. “But recession is a choice, success is achievable, and freedom is worth fighting for.”
Trump and his campaign have sent out a flood of emails and posts on the former president’s social platform, Truth Social, welcoming DeSantis to the 2024 race.
Shortly after DeSantis told Musk in a live broadcast that he would study the U.S. Constitution and “see what buttons I can press” to invoke executive power, Trump then took aim at DeSantis, saying: “My red button is more BIGGER, BETTER, STRONGER, AND WORKS (Truth!), YOUR NO! (Based on my conversation with Kim Jong-un in North Korea, who will soon be my friend!)”
Before DeSantis announced his candidacy, he trailed Trump by 38 percentage points and ranked second in the Republican Party, according to the latest Morning Consult survey.
In the long primary process that begins early next year, Republican voters will decide which candidate will face Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking re-election in the November 2024 general election.
well funded campaign
The Florida Legislature recently passed a bill allowing governors to run for president without resigning, removing a potential “resignation campaign” hurdle for DeSantis’ candidacy.
He will also have a substantial campaign budget. At the end of last month, he had $88m (£71m) left over from his re-election campaign in Florida, which could be transferred to the presidential campaign.
He also reportedly has about $30 million under the control of an independent committee whose allies could use it to support his campaign.
By comparison, Trump said his fundraising totals will be $18.8 million in the first three months of 2023.
DeSantis is expected to use Generra Peck as his campaign manager. Peck is DeSantis’ top political adviser and led the day-to-day operations of the governor’s re-election campaign in 2022, helping him win by nearly 20 percentage points.
According to reports from the Associated Press and the New York Times, DeSantis has recruited from campaign bases in at least 18 states.