Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has ended his aspirations to become the next Republican candidate for the White House. Two days before the New Hampshire primary, where polls gave him a poor 5.2% of voting intentions, DeSantis has announced that he is retiring and is giving his support to former President Donald Trump.
“Today I am suspending my campaign,” he said in a video published this Sunday: “Trump is superior to the current president, Joe Biden. That is clear. I signed a commitment to support the Republican candidate, and I will fulfill that commitment. He has my support because he does not “We can return to the old Republican guard,” he said, referring to Nikki Haley, the only alternative candidate to Trump, who maintains a more moderate profile than DeSantis.
His defeat in Iowa, where he came second and more than 30 points behind the New York magnate, left the governor of Florida shaken and with hardly any options to run for president. DeSantis began last year as the clear alternative to Trump, after achieving re-election as governor and following the poor results of the candidates supported by the former president in the midterm elections.
But he has been unable to differentiate himself from his political father, whom he has wanted to advance to the right, despite the fact that he maintains a close discourse on issues such as immigration, abortion or climate change. DeSantis’ campaign began to deflate after defending Trump against the four criminal charges against him. Before his first prosecution, in March, the governor was 10 points behind the former president in the polls; This Sunday, 55 points separated them.
The governor of Florida had already given up on the primaries in New Hampshire, which will vote next Tuesday, and had focused his campaign on South Carolina, where other primaries that could be decisive will be held at the end of February. After giving a series of speeches in the southern state, DeSantis has already flown back to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, and will continue to focus on his position as governor.
After DeSantis’s withdrawal, which joins those announced last week by Asa Hutchinson and Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican race for the White House will become a duel between Trump and Haley. The former governor of South Carolina, who was ambassador to the UN during the Trump administration, will try to rally the support of all the most traditional Republican voters, tired of the “chaos” and “constant distractions” of the magnate, and will sell herself as the bearer of “generational change.” However, if Trump wins solidly on Tuesday in New Hampshire, he will see his chances of beating the former president greatly reduced.
