Ron DeSantis 2024

Quote :

Ron DeSantis slammed for 'next-level' hypocrisy.

Next level hypocricy is these democrats that have relentlessly tried to take away the 2nd amendment rights of citizens to own and bear arms while they have armed body guards to protect them

Ron DeSantis 2024 campaign launch hit by Twitter tech glitch
Published 7 hours ago
By Holly Honderich
BBC News, Washington DC

Ron DeSantis's long-awaited entry into the 2024 race for the White House was hit by technical glitches after a Twitter livestream malfunctioned.

It meant the Florida governor's bid for the Republican presidential nomination got under way 20 minutes late.

He went on to use the event to champion his conservative credentials, his anti-lockdown stance and education reforms.

"I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback," he said.

The Florida governor is viewed as former President Donald Trump's chief rival to be their party's candidate in the 2024 general election.

Mr DeSantis is a relative newcomer in US politics, having first been elected to the House of Representatives in 2012. Just six years later in 2018 - after a failed bid to become a senator - he was elected governor of Florida.

He has overseen the enactment of high-profile laws that make it easier to own a gun, restrict sex and gender identity education in schools, and curtail abortion access.

He has claimed that this "Florida Blueprint" can act as a guide for federal policies, one that would move the US in a sharply conservative direction.

He joins a growing list of contenders seeking to unseat Mr Trump, who leads the Republican field by more than 30 points in national opinion polls.

By the time Wednesday evening's Twitter talk had begun in earnest, hundreds of thousands of Twitter users had left the platform.

Since Mr Musk took the reins at Twitter in October, he has laid off thousands of employees, including engineers responsible for the site's operations and technical troubleshooting.

Mr DeSantis's team worked quickly to spin the technical stumbles, writing on Twitter that the announcement had broken "the internet with so much excitement", and posting a link to the campaign website.

His press secretary Bryan Griffin claimed the online event had raised $1m (£808,000) in an hour.

At one point, the Twitter event drew more than 600,000 listeners, according to Reuters news agency figures, but by its conclusion, there were fewer than 300,000. The BBC's interview with Elon Musk last month drew more than three million listeners on Twitter Spaces.

Once under way, Mr DeSantis turned the conversation to his conservative credentials, touting his handling of the Covid-19 crisis in his state - an anti-lockdown approach applauded by many Republicans.

He defended his reforms of Florida's education system, saying his state "chose facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over rioting and disorder".

Later, speaking on Fox News, Mr DeSantis outlined more specific pledges including declaring an emergency at the country's southern border on day one in the White House. He also pledged to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump appointee, and slash President Joe Biden's "anti-American energy policies".

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr DeSantis confirmed he would seek the Republican presidential nomination, registering with the Federal Election Commission before releasing a stylised announcement video.

"Our border is a disaster, crime infests our cities... and the president flounders," he says in the video. "But decline is a choice, success is attainable, and freedom is worth fighting for."

Mr Trump and his campaign greeted Mr DeSantis's much anticipated arrival into the 2024 field with a barrage of emails and posts to Truth Social, the former president's social media platform.

Soon after the governor told Mr Musk he would study the US Constitution to "see what buttons can I push" to invoke executive authority, Mr Trump released a statement addressing Mr DeSantis directly.

"'Rob,' My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!), yours does not! (per my conversation with Kim Jung Un, of North Korea, soon to become my friend!)," Mr Trump wrote.

The latest survey from Morning Consult - published last week, before Mr DeSantis's announcement - has him a distant second behind Mr Trump, with a 38-point margin.

Through a lengthy primary process beginning early next year, Republican voters will decide which candidate will face President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the November 2024 general election.

And Florida's last legislative session cleared a potential "resign-to-run" hurdle for Mr DeSantis's candidacy after it passed a bill that ensures he does not have to leave the governor's mansion to run for the presidency.

Mr DeSantis will also have the benefit of a formidable war chest. At the end of last month, he had $88m (£71m) in a fund left over from his Florida re-election campaign that can be transferred to his White House bid.

He also reportedly has about $30m controlled by an independent committee that his allies can use to support his campaign.

Mr Trump, by contrast, reported a combined $18.8m in fundraising over the first three months of 2023.

Mr DeSantis is expected to tap Generra Peck to serve as his campaign manager. Ms Peck, Mr DeSantis's top political adviser, led the daily operations of the governor's 2022 re-election campaign, guiding him to a nearly 20-point victory.

And hiring is already under way for DeSantis campaign bases in at least 18 states, according to reporting from the Associated Press and the New York Times.

Videos at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65703031

The latest news on DeSantis:

https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cxmp6g4867pt

DeSantis campaign launch escalates extremely online war with Trump
The Florida governor and former President Donald Trump trade digital blows.
Christopher Wilson·Senior Writer | Yahoo News
Thu, May 25, 2023 at 11:58 AM MDT

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s official campaign launch on Wednesday underscored how the battle for the Republican presidential nomination will, to a large extent, be fought online.

DeSantis chose to launch his campaign via Twitter Spaces — a section on the app where you can have real-time audio-only conversations with other users — with Twitter chief Elon Musk and libertarian entrepreneur David Sacks.

The event was marred by technical difficulties. Once it was over, the DeSantis campaign released a video using audio from his conversation that was as heavy on imagery of Musk as it was of the governor — making it almost seem as if the billionaire was his running mate.

Despite hosting his launch, Musk has not officially endorsed DeSantis and is ineligible to run for the presidency due to being born in South Africa. CNN reported Wednesday that the DeSantis campaign had scrapped plans for a traditional launch event in his hometown of Dunedin, a Tampa suburb.

Trump hits back

Former President Donald Trump — who has expanded his lead for a third Republican nomination in national polling despite a litany of legal issues — and his campaign had numerous response videos at the ready. Some were traditional attack ads, but others were more bizarre.

For example, Trump’s social media accounts posted a two-minute parody of DeSantis’s launch that showed the governor trying to announce his candidacy alongside Satan, Adolf Hitler and Democratic megadonor George Soros, among others.

Additionally, Trump posted a video of a rocket launch failing with a “Ron! 2024” graphic over the top of it, a likely allusion to one of Musk’s companies, SpaceX. Another video showed the technical glitches of DeSantis’s event contrasted with Trump walking out to give a speech on a flag-adorned stage.

“I know Ron,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account. “The way he handled his announcement, he will handle the Country!”

President Biden’s team also took a shot at DeSantis’s glitchy launch, tweeting out a campaign donation page along with the message “This link works.” Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is also running for the GOP nomination, had a similar approach, tweeting out, “Just like my policies, this link works,” with a link to his fundraising page.

DeSantis, for his part, did not attack Trump by name.

A focus on base issues

Beyond the decision to launch his campaign through an audio-only event on a wobbly social network that is nonetheless popular with conservatives, DeSantis spent his time on Twitter Spaces and a subsequent appearance on Fox News focused squarely on the Republican base.

DeSantis criticized workplace diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, but a Pew Research Center poll released last week showed that 56% of Americans think they are a good idea, with only 16% saying they are bad. He also went after ESG, an acronym that stands for environment, social and governance investing, a popular target among some conservatives.

According to a Gallup poll released Tuesday, a majority of Americans have either little or no familiarity with the concept of ESG investing. That poll found that 22% had a positive view of ESG, versus 19% who had a negative view. The majority of respondents (59%) were unsure.

“It’s still a critical question for DeSantis whether this kind of talk will resonate with average voters, or whether the frequent references on Wednesday to acronyms like ‘DEI’ and ‘ESG’ will seem confusing to anyone but hardcore conservatives,” wrote Semafor in its analysis of the speech.

Generally, the policies that earned DeSantis the praise of some conservative pundits are not supported by the broader American public, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll from March. The most recent example is a six-week abortion ban he signed last month, a policy opposed even by 75% of Floridians, according to a University of North Florida poll.

DeSantis raises $8.2M in first 24 hours after campaign launch
CBS News
AARON NAVARRO
Updated May 26, 2023 at 10:12 AM

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has raised a record $8.2 million in the first 24 hours after announcing his 2024 presidential campaign, as he barrels toward an expensive and combative primary led by former President Donald Trump.

The sum includes online donations and money raised by fundraisers at a gathering in Miami to dial for contributions, DeSantis' campaign confirmed. The breakdown of how much each method raised is unclear.

DeSantis' $8.2 million haul surpasses President Biden's first day fundraising of $6.3 million on day one of his 2020 campaign launch, and outpaces the $9.5 million Trump raised in the first six months of his 2024 campaign.

Only South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who had over $22 million in his Senate reelection account when he transferred it to his presidential campaign, began his White House bid with more "hard" dollars — or money raised under federal fundraising limits.

Over $36 million has already been spent on advertisements for the 2024 race by Republican groups, according to data from AdImpact, an advertisement tracking firm.

In Miami on Thursday, DeSantis "bundlers," or fundraisers who could collect money from a network of contacts, asked donors for a federal maximum donation of $3,300 for use during the primary election, and a maximum donation of the same amount for the general election, for a total of $6,600. Donors could also make the maximum pledge amounts through the DeSantis campaign website, though it is mostly expected to help raise smaller funds.

In one email, Joe Lonsdale, founder of venture capital firm 8VC, wrote that while "there are other good people we know who are running in this race," his view is that DeSantis has the "best chance to win both the primary and the general election — and the best record and skillset to serve our country as President."

"These direct campaign dollars are critically important at this phase to establish momentum, report good numbers early, and accelerate the ground game in key states like Iowa and South Carolina," he continued, according to the email obtained by CBS News.

A super PAC supporting DeSantis' run, Never Back Down, is expected to have a budget of $200 million, with $100 million of that dedicated for voter turnout and the ground game. The PAC says it has already begun knocking on doors in Iowa and New Hampshire this week.

"Governor DeSantis has built the strongest, most sophisticated organization in the history of American politics, and the tremendous support we've experienced in the last 24 hours will be critical as we hit the ground running in the early nominating states to share Governor DeSantis' plan to revitalize the American Spirit," DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck wrote in a statement.

A super PAC supporting Trump, "Make America Great Again Inc.," said DeSantis "was still not able to raise enough money to make up for his botched campaign launch."

"His record of targeting senior benefits, wanting to raise taxes, and withholding funding for the border wall makes this campaign dead on arrival. No amount of money will change that," wrote Alex Pfieiffer, a spokesperson for the PAC.

The gathering of DeSantis fundraisers and donors this week at the Four Seasons resort in Miami, dubbed "Ron-O-Rama," began with a reception on Wednesday as the governor had a launch beset by technical difficulties on Twitter's audio platform with its owner Elon Musk.

Attendees said there was a sense of confusion throughout the 20-minute delay, but that the atmosphere shifted once the second "Twitter Spaces" conversation began.

"Once they got going, once we got through the several 100,000 people in the waiting room there that crashed Twitter, which is kind of an exciting moment, people were pretty excited," said Brandon Rosner, a bundler from Milwaukee that supported Trump's 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

Raised $1 million within 1st hour

The DeSantis campaign announced Wednesday that it had raised $1 million in donations within the first hour of launching.

Two sources said, as the donor gathering began, that the campaign had hoped to raise between $8 to $10 million in commitments within the first 24 hours after his announcement bid.

Thursday began with a political briefing from senior DeSantis campaign officials, where they laid out a path of victory for him in the first four presidential primary states, with a focus on Iowa and New Hampshire in particular, according to three attendees in the room for the presentation.

The presentation emphasized how active the DeSantis campaign would be in the early states, from events, to fundraising to door-knocking, and included internal polling on the favorability ratings for DeSantis and Trump in the four early states, with a big lead in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The senior officials argue that the GOP nomination race is primarily a "two-man" race between DeSantis and Trump, and downplayed national polls of the race showing Trump up, calling them "superficial."

"When's the national primary?" one bundler recalls a member of the senior staff saying dismissively.

"The pitch is what he's done in Florida he wants to transport to the rest of the country," said Chuck Volpe, a DeSantis supporter from Pennsylvania. "The view of the resounding results of his re-election, even flipping Miami-Dade county, which has forever voted for [a Democrat], clearly that is part of their pitch. That he's electable and that former President Trump is not."

CBS News has reached out to DeSantis' campaign for confirmation of details on the senior official briefing.

The gathering ended with a Thursday evening appearance by DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis, where they thanked bundlers and, according to one attendee, awarded bundlers from California for being the state to raise the most money thus far.

"It's exciting," said Sandy Stillwell-Youngquist, a Florida business owner and first-time presidential bundler, about the $8.2 million raised on day one.

"I did vote for Trump, but he just wasn't able to close his mouth when he needed to close his mouth, and that was so unfortunate," she added. "I just think when you elect this president, you need to be able to see them do an eight-year term … what you have to really look at is down the road, what's best for our nation."

Ron DeSantis fires roughly a dozen staffers in a campaign shake-up
NBC Universal
MATT DIXON AND ALLAN SMITH AND JONATHAN ALLEN
Updated July 16, 2023 at 10:40 AM

Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign has fired roughly a dozen staffers — and more are expected in the coming weeks as he shakes up his big-money political operations after less than two months on the campaign trail.

Those who were let go were described to NBC News by a source familiar as mid-level staffers across several departments whose departures were related to cutting costs. The exits come after the departures of David Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, veterans of DeSantis’ political orbit, which were first reported by Politico.

Sources involved with the DeSantis campaign say there is an internal assessment among some that they hired too many staffers too early, and despite bringing in $20 million during its first six weeks, it was becoming clear their costs needed to be brought down.

Some in DeSantis’ political orbit are laying the early blame at the feet of campaign manager Generra Peck, who also led DeSantis’ 2022 midterm reelection bid and is in the hot seat right now.

“She should be,” one DeSantis donor said.

“They never should have brought so many people on, the burn rate was way too high,” said one Republican source familiar with the campaign’s thought process. “People warned the campaign manager but she wanted to hear none of it.”

“DeSantis stock isn’t rising,” the donor added. “Twenty percent is not what people signed up for.”

The person noted that DeSantis has a penchant for switching out staff, which means that he has no core team that has worked together before. DeSantis had three different campaign teams for each of his three runs for Congress, and notably had a huge campaign shakeup during his first run for governor in 2018.

"Americans are rallying behind Ron DeSantis and his plan to reverse Joe Biden’s failures and restore sanity to our nation, and his momentum will only continue as voters see more of him in-person, especially in Iowa. Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance," DeSantis campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo told NBC News.

DeSantis’ campaign had 92 people listed as being on the payroll for at least some period of time during its first fundraising period, according to campaign finance reports filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission. It is by far the most of any Republican presidential candidate, and it has left his campaign with huge payroll expenses and, the new filings show, fewer resources than originally thought.

DeSantis has $12 million in the bank, but of that $3 million can be used only during the general election. And about $14 million of his second quarter haul came from donors who gave the maximum legal amount. In other words, roughly two-thirds of his early donors will not be able to give directly to his campaign for the duration of the race.

Never Back Down, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, has said it will spend up to $200 million to boost the governor's White House bid and has a significantly larger staff than the official campaign.

The moment of potential reset comes ahead of a national finance committee meeting for DeSantis' campaign Sunday in Tallahassee, which will bring the campaign’s brain trust together as they try to figure out how to chip into Trump’s massive GOP primary lead.

The event will include a briefing at the campaign’s Tallahassee headquarters followed by a barbecue at the governor’s mansion, according to an invite reviewed by NBC News.

DeSantis has been unable to make up ground against Trump after nearly two months as an official candidate. That stagnation is starting to frustrate some supporters, who want a shakeup of the campaign, which is led day-to-day by Peck and Ryan Tyson, a longtime Republican Florida pollster.

“Yeah, there are people grumbling about it, no doubt,” one DeSantis donor said. “There is an overall sense, including with me, that he just has not ignited the way we thought he would.”

The person said that they think DeSantis’ inner circle underestimated just how hard — and expensive — it would be to break the grip on the Republican base held by Trump, who has a commanding lead and is seen as the overwhelming frontrunner. Even in Florida, a state that re-elected DeSantis by nearly 20 percentage-points just seven months ago, Trump now has his own 20-point lead on DeSantis, according to a Florida Atlantic University poll released last week.

The shake-up could include the reemergence of Phil Cox, the veteran Republican operative who helped run DeSantis' 2022 re-election campaign and served as an adviser to Never Back Down before stepping away from that role in late May.

Cox is in Tallahassee for the national finance meeting, but he does not have a formal role with the campaign, a source familiar told NBC News.

DeSantis has signaled that he is aware his campaign did not start the way he wanted, but her has largely blamed media coverage and other outside factors.

To try and re-center, his campaign is doubling down on the early states, especially Iowa, whose first-in-the-nation nominating contest is now seen as a crucial marker. If DeSantis wins, the field will get smaller and he will get closer to the one-on-one matchup with Trump that he wants. But losing the key state would likely cement Trump's status as the unbeatable frontrunner even further.

That assessment was outlined in a confidential internal memo NBC News obtained Friday outlining the campaign’s strategy to regain its footing. The memo indicated that there would be a heavy focus on early states where, DeSantis advisers think, Trump’s supporters can be won over.

“Early state voters are only softly committed to the candidates they select on a ballot question this far out -- including many Trump supporters,” read the memo. “Our focus group participants in the early states even say they do not plan on making up their mind until they meet the candidates or watch them debate.”

Never Back Down is bolstering those efforts, focusing both on early states and a handful of Super Tuesday states — most notably California — where the group is expected to hire roughly 80 organizers in the near future.

For some supporters, though, there are now three keys to DeSantis remaining viable: Iowa, Iowa, Iowa.

“They need to treat it like it’s all that matters right now,” the DeSantis donor said. “If Trump wins it it is over. It means he needs to be there a lot. He needs to do all the retail politics he can.”

The person said DeSantis’ wife, Casey, is a great asset when doing the sort of retail politicking needed to win Iowa, but DeSantis himself needs to improve.

“He needs to find that gear,” the person said. “He needs to find it fast.”

Video at https://www.aol.com/news/ron-desantis-fires-roughly-dozen-002310105.html