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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump.
The shock video announcement comes forward of this week’s New Hampshire Republican main, the place Mr DeSantis was polling within the single digits.
The conservative lawmaker mentioned that he didn’t “have a transparent path to victory” when asserting the top of his marketing campaign.
His departure leaves Nikki Haley as Mr Trump’s solely important rival.
Regardless of the grim information for his supporters, Mr DeSantis mentioned his marketing campaign “left all of it out on the sphere” within the practically five-minute lengthy video on X, previously Twitter.
“If there was something I may do to provide a beneficial consequence – extra marketing campaign stops, extra interviews – I might do it,” he mentioned, as he ended his seven-month marketing campaign.
The Florida governor added that he was endorsing Mr Trump as a result of it had “develop into clear” that “a majority of Republican main voters wish to give Donald Trump one other likelihood”.
Whereas Mr DeSantis acknowledged “disagreements” with Mr Trump, he mentioned he’s “superior to the present incumbent, Joe Biden”.
“That’s clear,” he added. “I signed a pledge to help the Republican nominee, and I’ll honour that pledge.”
Mr Trump has not but responded to the information.
Ending his marketing campaign, Mr DeSantis additionally took a swipe at Ms Haley, calling her a member of “the previous Republican guard of yesteryear – a repackaged type of warmed-over corporatism”.
Ms Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, responded by insisting she is the conservative – the “just one” – who can beat present US President Joe Biden.
“There’s two individuals on this race,” she advised CNN in New Hampshire, referring to herself and Mr Trump. “That’s what we needed all alongside, and we’re going to maintain going.”
Mr DeSantis narrowly completed forward of Ms Haley in final week’s Iowa caucus with 21% of the vote, in comparison with her 19%. Mr Trump obtained 51% of the vote.
On the time, Mr DeSantis framed the second-place end as a victory, claiming that his marketing campaign “bought our ticket punched out of Iowa”. He contended that meant half of the voters in Iowa needed to help somebody aside from the previous president.
However the Florida governor had spent the majority of his time and assets in current months campaigning in all 99 of the state’s counties and courting its conservative evangelical voters, which made it troublesome to promote his loss to Mr Trump as a win.
His departure from the race permits Mr DeSantis to keep away from a doubtlessly additional embarrassing third-place end in New Hampshire to Ms Haley, who has targeted way more of her assets within the state.
However an individual aware of Mr DeSantis’ election night time plans in New Hampshire was fully caught off guard by the information of his exit.
The supply advised the BBC the marketing campaign had simply confirmed plans with them on Saturday for his or her election night time bash this coming Tuesday.
There have been some early indications that this information may be on the horizon – Mr DeSantis had dropped out of a number of deliberate media appearances on Sunday, and had a single occasion scheduled in New Hampshire.
Chris Ager, the state committee chair of New Hampshire’s Republican Celebration, advised the BBC that “the race has been shifting towards a one-vs-one between Trump and Haley for some time”.
“This makes it so,” he added.
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