Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who entered the Republican presidential primary as Donald Trump\u2019s greatest threat, announced Sunday that he is ending his White House bid and endorsing the former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His announcement, made in a video posted on X, comes after a disappointing second-place finish in last week\u2019s Iowa Republican caucuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf there was anything I could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it, but I can\u2019t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources if we don\u2019t have a clear path to victory. Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He then touted his support for Trump: \u201cWhile, I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement, because we can\u2019t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear or repackaged form of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a devastating blow to the promising career of a once-rising GOP star, and his failure to reach the lofty expectation of his candidacy has already sparked a wave of second-guessing from close allies and advisers. Some believe DeSantis took too long to attack former President Donald Trump. Others think his team underestimated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More yet remain convinced that there was nothing DeSantis could have done to wrestle the party from Trump\u2019s loyal and sizable followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDeSantis has run the playbook to a T,\u201d Steve Deace, a well-known conservative radio commentator and supporter of the Florida governor, told CNN in recent weeks. \u201cIt\u2019s just as simple as: when they started indicting Donald Trump, people weren\u2019t ready to move on from him. And for DeSantis, it wasn\u2019t quite his time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For his part, DeSantis has blamed his performance on a host of challenges, including Iowa\u2019s weather, conservative media\u2019s loyalty to Trump and the unprecedented barrage of negative ads against him. One thing he hasn\u2019t faulted was his main pitch to voters \u2013 his record of accomplishment in Florida \u2013 which he continued to feature in speech after speech until his final moments as a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His departure leaves former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as the lone Trump alternative in the race but without much time to consolidate support and catch up to the front-runner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who entered the Republican presidential primary as Donald Trump\u2019s greatest threat, announced Sunday that he is ending his White House bid and endorsing the former president. His announcement, made in a video posted on X, comes after a disappointing second-place finish in last week\u2019s Iowa Republican caucuses. \u201cIf there was anything I could do to produce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[7273,5304,5178,10387,10000,5313,10102,5321,8478,10453,12234,10340,2471,10252,11973,5485,6027,3805,11377,6200,9278,6944,8664,6687,10838,10041,184,10885,8033,9085,6571,2982,594,10353],"class_list":["post-41272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-anthony","tag-attack","tag-biden","tag-campaign","tag-conservative","tag-coronavirus","tag-desantis","tag-florida","tag-gop","tag-guard","tag-host","tag-iowa","tag-joe-biden","tag-nikki-haley","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-pledge","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-race","tag-repubicians","tag-republican","tag-ron-desantis","tag-runner","tag-south-carolina","tag-speech","tag-united-states-president-donald-john-trump-jr","tag-victory","tag-video","tag-weather","tag-white","tag-white-house","tag-who","tag-x"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41274,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41272\/revisions\/41274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}