Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Sunday.
DeSantis published his announcement suspending his campaign in a video on X that bore a quote from Winston Churchill saying, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“We can choose to allow a border invasion, or we can choose to stop it,” DeSantis said. “We can choose to allow reckless spending, or we can choose to limit government and lower inflation.”
DeSantis noted that his decision is coming after Trump’s dominant win in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15, where he won 51 percent of the vote.
“Following our second-place finish in Iowa, we prayed and deliberated on the way forward,” he said.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill pic.twitter.com/ECoR8YeiMm
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 21, 2024
“If there is anything I could do to produce a favorable campaign outcome … I would do it. But 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 said.
“Accordingly, I am today suspending my campaign.”
Would DeSantis be a good VP choice for Trump?
There will be a million eulogies for the DeSantis campaign and almost all of them will be wrong and laced with bias.
Simple truth is you cannot fight the ocean. No candidate or campaign was going to defeat an indicted Trump. Period.
— Jesse Kelly (@JesseKellyDC) January 21, 2024
“It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance,” DeSantis said.
“They watched his presidency get stymied by relentless resistance, and they see Democrats using lawfare to this day to attack him,” he said.
With DeSantis gone New Hampshire just turned into a BLOODBATH for Nikki Haley….
The People want TRUMP!
She should drop out and endorse NOW!!
— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) January 21, 2024
DeSantis said he has his differences with Trump but added, “Trump is superior to the current incumbent, Joe Biden. That is clear.”
“I signed a pledge to support the Republican nominee, and I will honor that pledge. He has my endorsement because we can’t go back to the old Republican guard of yesteryear a repackage formed of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents,” DeSantis said.
“The days of putting Americans last, of kowtowing to large corporations, of caving to woke ideology are over,” he said.
“May the best woman win.” Nikki Haley reacts to Ron DeSantis suspending his 2024 presidential campaign. pic.twitter.com/P7oTAWFLzr
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 21, 2024
The most recent RealClearPolitics average of polls for Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican primary shows Trump at 50.3 percent support, Haley at 35.3 percent and DeSantis at 6.3 percent.
The website FiveThirtyEight has the race slightly closer in its average, putting Trump at 48.9 percent, Haley at 34.2 percent and DeSantis at 5.2 percent.
