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Ron DeSantis was challenged by Fox News' Laura Ingraham on Tuesday over how he plans to "go from number two to number one" in the Republican leadership battle despite lagging significantly behind former President Donald Trump in the polls.
The Florida governor responded by insisting he is the candidate who can beat President Joe Biden, and warned Republicans will lose in 2024 if they follow the same "playbook" used at the last three election cycles.
Recent surveys indicate DeSantis has lost ground against Trump in the battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, with polling aggregate site FiveThirtyEight putting him on an average of 13.9 percent, versus 54.7 percent for the ex-president.
A recent CBS poll, which Ingraham references in the interview, put Trump on 50 percent with likely GOP primary voters in the key early voting state of New Hampshire, versus 13 percent for DeSantis. For Iowa the poll put Trump on 51 percent followed by DeSantis on 21 percent.
During his Fox News interview, Ingraham asked DeSantis how he could "go from number two to number one given Trump's huge lead in the polls."
The governor responded: "Well Laura this is our time for choosing. We're not going to get a mulligan [free shot] on the 2024 election. We've had three straight election cycles in a row where Democrats have a playbook to beat Republicans and if we repeat that same playbook in 24 we're going to lose.
"We were supposed to have a big red wave in 2022, I thought your monologue was excellent outlining the problems but all those problems were there in November of 2022. Republicans should have capitalized on that by winning a huge red wave and that did not happen. Voters chose Democrats over some of our candidates, except in Florida.
"I look at the border situation, I look at the budget situation, these are issues that Republicans have been talking about for decades and yet they still persist. I'm the only guy running that can say everything I promised my voters I would do I delivered, on 100 percent of the promises, so yes I will beat Biden, but even more importantly than that I'm the guy that will actually deliver 100 percent of the results that we need to turn this country around."
The second Republican presidential debate will take place on Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Seven GOP candidates have confirmed they qualified for the event and plan to attend but Trump is expected to skip it, and deliver an address to autoworkers in Michigan instead.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll gave Trump a 10 point lead over Biden in the 2024 presidential race, though the newspaper noted it was an outlier and most surveys have put the two prospective candidates far closer.
On September 19 Democrats had a string of election victories in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Florida, including wrestling the mayoralty of Jacksonville from the Republicans.
About the writer
James Bickerton is a Newsweek U.S. News reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is on covering news and politics ... Read more