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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is warning his fellow 2024 Republican presidential candidates that they need to target President Joe Biden's "failures" on the campaign trail if they want to take back the White House.
DeSantis, who has served as the governor of Florida since 2019, is among the ever-widening field of candidates running for the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination. While former President Donald Trump regularly retains a commanding lead in the polls, DeSantis has proven to be his most significant opponent, polling behind in second place but still ahead of all others in the field, like Mike Pence and Nikki Haley.
During a Tuesday campaign stop in New Hampshire, DeSantis was asked by a high school student if he believed that Trump violated the U.S. Constitution when he attempted to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, efforts which ultimately led to the January 6 Capital riot. In response, the Florida governor warned other candidates about focusing on the past, as opposed to making the case against President Biden.
"Here's what I know, if this election is about Biden's failures and our vision for the future, we are going to win," DeSantis said. "If it's about relitigating things that happened two, three years ago, we're going to lose."
This response from DeSantis elicited considerable applause from the gathered crowd. He followed it up by highlighting how, on January 5, 2021, there was a peaceful transition of power from his first to his second term as governor in Florida because he successfully won reelection, taking a veiled jab at Trump's history of presiding over electoral failures.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's press team via email for comment.
Trump has seen growing support in polls surveying likely Republican voters about the GOP primary field, while DeSantis has seen his support wither after officially entering the race. A recent NBC News national poll found 51 percent support for the former president, up from 46 percent in April, while the Florida governor received only 22 percent, down from 31 percent in April. DeSantis still notched a commanding lead over the rest of the field, however, with former Vice President Pence garnering only 6 percent support.
Trump himself recently cited a CBS News/Harvard-Harris poll that found an even steeper difference, with the former president boasting 56 percent support over DeSantis at 15 percent.
"He's falling like a rock," Trump said at a Sunday campaign stop in Michigan. "People are getting to know him. They know he's got no personality. He's got to have a little personality. Not much, but a little."
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more