DeSantis Running For President Would 'Hurt' Republican Party

Topline

Former President Donald Trump urged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to stay out of the 2024 race for the GOP presidential nomination—seeking to capitalize on his indictment and the predicament it’s creating for his potential competitors as several, including DeSantis, were forced to defend the ex-president in the wake of his historic arraignment last week.

Then-Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis speaks with then-U.S. President Donald … [+] Trump at a campaign rally at the Pensacola International Airport on November 3, 2018 in Pensacola, Florida. (Photo by Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

In posts to Truth Social Monday, Trump highlighted recent polls that show DeSantis trailing him in a hypothetical matchup, while forecasting that DeSantis’ likely candidacy would hurt the Florida governor’s chances of successfully running for office again.

“If he remains Governor,” as opposed to running for president, “as Florida voters assumed,” Trump wrote, “it would be a whole different story.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) became the fourth Florida Congress member—and second since Trump’s indictment on Tuesday—to say he would back the ex-president over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the 2024 GOP nomination on Monday.

Mills, calling Trump’s indictment “a very unifying event” in a statement released Monday, urged Republicans to join him in coalescing behind Trump’s candidacy.

In endorsing Trump, Mills joins GOP Florida Reps. Paulina Luna, Matt Gaetz and most recently, Byron Donalds, who on Friday called Trump the “one leader” who can get the country “back on track” and “Make America Great Again.”

The Florida Congress members backing Trump are among a coalition of Republicans who jumped to Trump’s defense following his historic indictment last week—which Trump sees as a boon to his campaign as it’s forced his would-be challengers to publicly express their support for Trump and has also served as a successful fundraising platform, the Guardian reported Monday, citing people close to the former president.

Key Background

Republican lawmakers rallied around Trump after he was arraigned Tuesday on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection to a broad hush-money scheme prosecutors said he orchestrated to cover up several affair allegations. Trump, who has denied the alleged affairs, pleaded not guilty and has attacked the investigation as a political “witch hunt.” Potential GOP presidential contenders, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), are among Republicans who echoed Trump in casting the Manhattan District Attorney’s case as a politically motivated investigation. Other possible candidates, including New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have toed the line between defending and criticizing Trump while discussing the case. Sununu said on March 19, a day after Trump wrongly predicted he would be arrested in the case the following Tuesday, that he believed the Manhattan DA’s probe was “building a lot of sympathy for the former president.” Christie, who has been at odds with Trump since his failed 2020 re-election bid, said the Manhattan case, along with other investigations into Trump’s conduct, would prevent him from winning the 2024 election, but suggested it could also be true that Trump is being unfairly prosecuted. In a subsequent interview following a Manhattan grand jury’s vote to formally indict Trump, Christie called Trump’s “bravado” regarding the indictment “baloney.”

Tangent

Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have also said they will back Trump in 2024. Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) have said they would endorse DeSantis, who is widely expected to declare his candidacy after the conclusion of the Florida legislative session at the end of May.

Contra

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) broke from GOP lawmakers and suggested Trump should drop out of the race, while announcing his own plans to run for the 2024 GOP nomination on the heels of Trump’s indictment. Hutchinson predicted Trump’s candidacy would be too much of a “sideshow and distraction” and said Trump should instead “concentrate on his due process.” Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are the only other GOP candidates who have formally announced their bids.

Surprising Fact

Trump’s campaign capitalized on his indictment by blasting out a barrage of fundraising emails and selling T-shirts printed with a faux mug shot of the former president in the days after the charges against him were made public. Since the jury voted to indict Trump on March 30, he has reportedly raised more than $12 million, including $4 million in the first two hours after news of his indictment broke, Fox News reported Wednesday.

Big Number

48%. That’s the percentage of GOP voters who want Trump to be elected president next year, compared to 19% who back DeSantis, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after news broke that Trump would be indicted. More than half of all respondents also believe the case against Trump is politically motivated.

DeSantis Running For President Would ‘Hurt’ Republican Party