Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are running in the 2024 Republican primary
Former President of US, donald trumpand the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, are the strongest names within the Republican Party running for the country’s presidency in the 2024 election. The polls first and runnerup were once allies, with Trump even becoming DeSantis’ godfather in the 2018 election, but declaring rivals. And the businessman attacks his party partner even more than the country’s current President, Democratic Party leader Joe Biden, who also announced his candidacy for a second term. On Wednesday the 24th, for example, by early afternoon he had not only mocked failures on Twitter in announcing the Florida governor’s presidential candidacy, but also made six releases against DeSantis versus none scheduled for Biden. He called the governor disloyal. But what is behind the gap between the two candidates? Hostilities between them began long before DeSantis entered the campaign trail. Trump has been multiplying criticism of his opponent on his social media and at rallies for weeks. DeSantis, on the other hand, has counterattacked in his own way, more subtly, while highlighting what hurts the former president most: his loss to Biden in the last presidential election.
“DeSantis is in dire need of a personality transplant,” Trump quipped in the morning. American television constantly shows commercials against the governor of Florida. He estimates that the sum invested so far is US$13 million (R$65 million). In one of those campaigns, he makes a reference to his name, calling it “Ron DeSalesTax,” a nod to the current congressman’s support for a tax reform bill. Forecasts suggest the Florida governor will have an uphill battle against the New York billionaire, a man immune to scandal and whose troubles in court seem to mobilize his many supporters even more. In his campaign, DeSantis can count on generous donations US$110 million (approx. R$545 million) so far which he hopes to use to shorten the distance and flood the country with advertising. In a recent video released by the governor’s Political Action Committee, a man sticks a “DeSantis President” sticker on the hood of a car, over another with the slogan “Trump 2016.” The ad summarizes the message the governor wants to convey to voters: Ahead of the 76yearold tycoon, the Florida governor wants to bring in the Republican Party’s new guard. Trump and DeSantis have been invited by the We the People Convention organization to join forces for 2024 rather than “destroy each other over the next 12 months,” but right now there’s no sign that that’s going to happen , in light of the former president’s almost daily attacks on the governor on his social network Truth.
Trump’s campaign office urged DeSantis Tuesday not to run in the primary “for the good of the Republican Party and the nation.” But the governor is heading into the 2024 election with legislation passed in his second term as governor, after winning reelection by historic numbers last year and securing a “supermajority” in both houses of the state legislature. DeSantis has pushed an ultraconservative agenda in Florida, with legislation that further restricts abortions, bans speaking about gender identity and sexual orientation in schools and scraps racial diversity programs at public universities, and creates a migration rule that is among the strictest in the country. The other declared candidates in the Republican race Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson barely make it above 5% in the polls. Everything points to a duel between the Florida governor and an upandcoming Republican Party candidate cited as a bet against Trumo and the man who promoted him, the New York billionaire who was once in the White House and still has Trumpism in the air White House spreads land. Recent polls show that in this fight, the former president is winning as he is nearly 30 points ahead of his main rival, who was already in first place but lost ground after Trump regained visibility as he became the first US president to condemn became. According to a recent poll by CNN, the former president has 53.9% of voting intentions within the Republican Party, while DeSantis has 26%.
*With information from international agencies