OPINION: This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion
Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, has been gaining in popularity by leaps and bounds as Biden systematically destroys America.
DeSantis has raised more than $100 million for his re-election campaign, which makes him the first gubernatorial candidate in the state and possibly in the entire country to surpass that milestone.
Besides giving DeSantis a significant advantage over Democrats this November, this staggering sum also sends an unambiguous message to the field of possible Republicans running for president in 2024 that he is already a promising contender with deep support from both major donors and grassroots voters alike.
He has the kind of fundraising skills that “catapults him into the top tier of potential GOP candidates,” said Scott Reed, former president of the US Chamber of Commerce and a veteran GOP strategist.
According to polls, DeSantis will easily beat his Democratic opponents in the gubernatorial race in 2022; according to the Saint Leo University Polling Institute, he leads former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist by 16 points at 49%-33%, Crist’s former running mate, state senator Annette Taddeo, by 19 points at 49%-30%, and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried by a stunning 24 points at 51%-27%.
All of this hasn’t escaped President Trump’s view.
Late last year there were rumors of a feud between the two.
Senator Mitch McConnell was said to be behind escalating stories of a feud between Trump and DeSantis according to Donald Trump’s advisers, though.
The pair were rumored to have been feuding for several weeks, with Trump reportedly being impatient that DeSantis hasn’t stated whether he’ll seek the GOP nomination in 2024.
Now it’s being reported that Trump is considering Desantis for his Vice President pick if he runs in 2024.
According to The Daily Mail, “Trump took credit for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ rising popularity before flaunting him as a potential 2024 running mate – even though the former president hasn’t yet formally announced that he is running.”
In a Thursday interview with Newmax’s Wake Up America, Trump said he ‘gets along with’ DeSantis when asked if he has thought about adding him to a potential 2024 presidential ticket.
‘I was very responsible for his success, because I endorsed him and he went up like a rocket ship,’ the former president added.
Polls have shown that Florida GOP Governor DeSantis is widely popular in his state and among Republican circles. Some polls even show that he is competitive for a Republican primary run against Trump for the presidential ticket.
A University of New Hampshire poll released last week showed DeSantis ahead of Trump in GOP voters’ first choice for a candidate – 39 percent to 37 percent.
In a distant third place is former Vice President Mike Pence with 9 percent support.
This is the first time that DeSantis came out ahead of the former president in the poll. In October of last year, DeSantis only had 18 percent compared to 43 percent who said that Trump was their first choice.
The poll released June 22 also shows that DeSantis is competitive against Trump, with 47 percent of respondents saying they would go for the Florida governor in the matchup compared to 46 percent who said they would vote for the incumbent Democratic president.
Trump considering DeSantis for VP goes counter to the rumors that he branded the Florida governor as dull and shared his frustrations with people within his inner circle.
McConnell, who is battling Trump over the future of the Republican Party, has been blamed by Trump’s advisers for escalating the untruths.
Back in January, DeSantis appeared on the Ruthless podcast, which is hosted by Josh Holmes, McConnell’s longtime adviser, after criticizing the Covid lockdowns that Trump had promoted early on in the pandemic.
A top Trump adviser, citing four other anonymous staffers, told Fox News: ‘I like Josh. Josh is great. But he’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of McConnell World.
‘And there’s no way you can tell me that this was all a coincidence.’
A poll taken in May gives us a glimpse from one state in which Republican voters are leaning towards a Biden challenger in 2024.
In a straw poll of attendees at the Wisconsin GOP convention, DeSantis emerged ahead of Trump as the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination.
Trump’s presidential victory in Wisconsin in 2016 marked the first time since 1984 that a Republican candidate had won the state’s electoral votes. The turnout percentage in the state, 66%, was the lowest since 1966; he received nearly 22,000 more votes than Hillary out of approximately 3 million cast.
Regarding Desantis’ fundraising Scott Reed says “He’s been asking for big licks — $5 million and $10 million per fundraiser — and he’s getting them and that’s a warning sign. DeSantis is the talk of every Republican cocktail party and every organizational meeting. His support spans the money class and the movement conservatives. And that’s a strong combination early in the game.”
A Trump/Desantis ticket would be extremely powerful given the ability of both to raise huge amounts of money to take on the Democrat-socialist machine in ’24.
Source: The Republic Brief