Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspends presidential marketing campaign

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – as soon as tipped as Donald Trump’s greatest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination – has suspended his marketing campaign.

It comes after Mr Trump secured a record-breaking victory within the Republican Party’s Iowa caucuses, a great distance away from Mr DeSantis, who solely narrowly beat his nearest rival, Nikki Haley.

Mr DeSantis introduced his determination in a video posted on the social media platform X, previously Twitter, by which he endorsed Mr Trump for president in his announcement.

He stated, following the outcome and “deliberation” together with his marketing campaign crew, that he may not see a “clear path to victory” within the Republican race.

“If there was anything I could do to produce a favourable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, I would do it,” he stated.

“But I can’t ask our supporters to volunteer their time and donate their resources. We don’t have a clear path to victory.

“Accordingly, I’m as we speak suspending my marketing campaign.”

Giving his endorsement to Mr Trump, he added: “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.

“He has my endorsement as a result of we won’t return to the outdated Republican guard of yesteryear, a repackaged type of warmed-over corporatism that Nikki Haley represents.”

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The transfer comes two days earlier than the New Hampshire major – the place Ms Haley is tipped to carry out nicely.

Mr DeSantis, who campaigned closely in Iowa, had reportedly shifted his marketing campaign crew’s focus to the following major, in Ms Haley’s residence state of South Carolina, previous to Sunday’s announcement.

Ms Haley declared “may the best woman win” in response to his exit from the race, promising to “fight all the way until the last second”.

‘Trump-lite’

A proponent of hard-right and “anti-woke” insurance policies, Mr DeSantis had sought to place himself as a substitute for Mr Trump.

He had tried to solid himself as a politically profitable inheritor to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) motion with out Mr Trump’s baggage – a transfer which noticed him labelled “Trump-lite” by his opponents.

Mr DeSantis additionally carried into the race a robust election document, having achieved a blowout 2022 re-election win in Florida, which had for many years been one of the tightly divided states within the nation.

But he struggled to peel away sufficient of Mr Trump’s assist, whereas Ms Haley, a former UN ambassador, mopped up average Republican voters.

His marketing campaign crew reportedly spent tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} going door-to-door to advertise Mr DeSantis in Iowa.

However, whereas he got here in second, he was nonetheless 30 proportion factors behind Mr Trump, who captured greater than 50% of the roughly 110,000 votes.