As polls increasingly predict former President Trump as the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is beginning to accept his failing campaign.
Once the clear winner of the Republican presidential playing field, DeSantis admitted to a strategic error with his campaign, adding that he would support Trump should he be the party’s nominee.
If forced to suspend his campaign, DeSantis told Fox News’s host Neil Cavuto that he would endorse Trump for president.
“As we speak, what is your relationship with Donald Trump now? I mean, would you support him if it looks like he is the party nominee?” Cavuto asked.
“Well, I signed the pledge. I’m never somebody that takes his ball and goes home. And so, that’s just how I am. I mean, I don’t take any of this stuff personally because it’s not about me. It’s about a larger effort, a larger movement,” DeSantis answered.
A recent Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe tracking poll found Trump leading his rivals by 17 percent. Trump has 53 percent of the support, while former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has 36 percent. However, DeSantis is still a distant third with just seven percent.
When asked for their second choice, 34 percent of those surveyed chose DeSantis, followed by Haley at seven percent.
During the first Republican primary debate last year, Haley confirmed her support for Trump should he secure the nominee.
On Friday, while speaking to supporters in New Hampshire, Trump said DeSantis’s presidential campaign is one of the “great self-destructions I think I’ve ever witnessed.”
Trump’s remarks come just days after he secured a landslide win in the Iowa GOP caucus, with DeSantis trailing the former president by nearly 30 points.
Once a rising superstar of the GOP and viable opponent to Trump, DeSantis admitted a major mistake he made in the early stages of his campaign.
The Florida governor said that he should have been “blanketing” and going on every corporate show that wanted him, noting how a heavy media presence is critical.
Cavuto asked DeSantis for his thoughts on the Iowa caucus after spending significant time and resources leading up to the race in the state. Iowa was viewed as a must-win for DeSantis, securing an endorsement from Governor Kim Reynolds.
‘If you look at Iowa, we did it right. We got the endorsement of the governor, we won the debates, the Miami debate, the Newsom debate, the News Nation debate, the CNN debate, we did televised town halls, got a great response,’ DeSantis said. Cavuto followed up by noting that the strategy failed to win a single county after a record-breaking blowout win from former President Trump.
‘And how many people would have been able to handle $50 million in ads? How many people would have been able to handle all the headwinds we did? We had a very uphill battle. We dug in, and we executed, and we did run hard. We did do well,’ DeSantis replied. ‘And what we got was traditionally what is considered good in a caucus. Nobody’s gotten 50 percent before. You know, this is something where you have a de facto incumbent president. So we’re proud of the effort that we did there. I think we did it right.’